Let the magic begin! (The mantels.)

Well hello there!! I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving week! We had such a fantastic time, but there wasn�t much resting, shopping or decorating going on.

Just a lot of this:

And this:

And this!

And watching our sweet Bub experience many firsts � first subway ride, first musical, first trip on an airplane:

That�s him watching our plane pull up to the gate. Giddy. Adorable. :)

Since we�ve returned, I�ve finally done a bit of resting (cause NYC kicks my booty!), way too much shopping and some Christmas decorating. I started with the mantels to kick off our Holiday Home linky parties!:

The first one goes up Tuesday at noon over at Layla�s place. :)

I�ve discovered the perfect recipe for Christmas decor that I luuuurve. It�s so simple � greenery, red stuff and a few touches of nature. That�s it. I mix up those three and I�m one happy chick.

I�ve also discovered I love fluffy greenery so much it�s just sick. I need someone to stop me from adding and adding and fluffing and fluffing�big fat greenery makes me HAPPY. :)

My mantels haven�t changed much since last year, I just added a little more greenery (shocking) and some HomeGoods finds. The base started with some basic greenery I�ve had used for years. But it needed some poofing, so last year I found some fantastic greenery at Big Lots of all places, and I�m kind of obsessed with it. I got a few more this week:

I just snip it apart and stick it in here and there in the basic, cheap greenery. It works GREAT and makes it look so much more expensive! In my opinion full and fluffy equals expensive looking.

After that, it�s just more fluffing and adding � sticks:

Beady stuff, dollar store ornaments and pinecones:

And there. you. go. I would stuff a cat in there if it would stay, seriously. I just can�t stop. :)

A few weeks ago while shopping for my Mom Cave, I found an adorable (big! lighted!) reindeer for $20, so I paired him with my little red adorable reindeer I found at HomeGoods last year:

   

By the way, I saw that exact same large reindeer at Pier 1 for I think $60? It�s identical! Whoohoo!

My dollar store stars (from last year) hang from the ironwork, and it�s done:

Ugh, that fluffy garland just rocks my world. I love it!

Upstairs, I did almost exactly what I have in years past, but couldn�t resist a bit more fluff, of course.

Because I try to use what I have as much as possible in Christmas decor, I wanted to keep the current stuff up there, but the garland kept falling off around it. I picked up some Command Strips at True Value and laid a couple right on the top of the mantel:

I just hooked the greenery to it and it worked perfectly!

Here�s a shot of the difference some fluffing can do � on the left, I�ve started stuffing my Big Lots good stuff in. On the right, it�s just the basic garland:

Here it is again, with a bunch o� stuff thrown in:

Again, I just add till it looks right � ornaments, pinecones, the cat, whatever!

A few years ago, I got some cheap wood letters from the craft store, painted them red and then hung them from ribbon. I hang them from my wallpaper art every year and it�s such a big impact for so cheap!

Instead of hot gluing them like usual, I picked up some tacks from True Value and used those to secure the ribbon to the backs of the canvases:

And that�s it!

I just love the bright red against the black!:

RED makes me SMILE. :)

Our bedroom mantel, transformed with some greenery and a few changes to what we already have:

YES, I know�the cord. It�s giving me hives. But I have two more trees to get up and ten more bins to empty, umkay? Priorities people. But OH YES, it will be covered�

The candles are fake, no worries. :)

And of course, I love them best at night:

Ahhhh�that�s the magic!! :) LOVE. Be sure to link up tomorrow at Layla�s. I can�t wait to see what you�ve created!

P.S. I think I said �fluff� 89 times. Or so.

 

*I was one of the bloggers selected by True Value to work on the DIY Squad. I have been compensated for my time commitment to the program as well as my writing about my experience. I have also been compensated for the materials needed for my DIY project. However, my opinions are entirely my own and I have not been paid to publish positive comments.*

Thank you to my sponsor!:

Bloggers in New York!

Well, enough of my bloggy friends have posted their pictures now, so I can finally steal their pics and share my post about our whirlwind NYC trip as well! ;)

I was there for less than 48 hours, but crammed a crazy amount into that time. The evening I arrived, I joined the group of bloggers at the Rue Magazine launch party � it was held at Atelier in the New York Design Center, and I must admit, us DIYers were looking around at the fabulous decor and pointing to things we could totally do on our own:

Doesn�t that look familiar? ;)

I was thrilled to finally meet the infamous Eddie Ross and Jaithan:

(Left to right, Jaithan, me, Rhoda, Eddie, Camila, Marianne and Cristin.)

I was SO excited to finally meet Camila � she is a doll and she worked so hard on pulling so much of the week�s activities together for us!

Many of the Design Star contestants were at the party, and I grabbed a quick shot with Michael:

I have to say � I felt so incredibly out of place at this party! OH my goodness. I�m a t-shirt and jeans kind of girl, and you pair that with having just traveled for five hours, and I just felt SO�thrifty.  ;)

The next day was pretty much dedicated to The Nate Show � but we started out by meeting up with Beth and her friend Kathleen, and were able to take a quick walk over to the beautiful Central Park:

 

Rhoda, Beth and I were perfectly color coordinated!:

Beth was absolutely as sweet as can be � and just like every blogger I meet that I �know� through blogland, I felt like I had known her forever! There are no awkward moments, just immediate friendship!

I LOVE BLOGGERS. :)

Speaking of bloggers I love, we met Megan from Modern Bird before the show:

Um, she is hilarious and FUN! I knew she would be.

I was looking forward to meeting Janell all week!:

I finally met up with her in line before the show and yet again, we felt like instant friends! And did you hear? She taped a segment on the show! With NATE! I�m so thrilled for her � she is such a lovely person and an incredible designer.

The photo shoots continued outside with Lakeitha and Erika:

How cute are they? How is it possible that every. single. blogger there was that gorgeous?

We didn�t have to wait in line for long outside before we were ushered in�but then the real wait started. ;) We waited for about two hours in separate rooms, so everybody was scattered. The staff was SO friendly and kept checking in with us over that time. I was impressed with their patience with us and their professionalism.

Our room was finally ushered into the studio, and Rhoda and I were bummed that we were quite literally some of the last few into the room -- which translated to what were probably the worst seats possible. :)

It ended up being OK, because, of course, the cameras are everywhere, and at one point or another I think everyone ended up watching the big screens above so they could see what was going on.

You may have seen that some bloggers were less than happy with The Nate Show producers and the fact that us, the bloggers, were never mentioned on air. I have to tell you that I never even thought about that � in between segments, Nate thanked us in general and those who had helped to promote his new show numerous times. He was obviously very grateful.

I guess it never crossed my mind that he would say anything about us on air. I mean, the producers did ask us to send in some of our projects, so I wondered if they would highlight some of those, but overall I never expected us to get a shout out.

I found him to be sweet and engaging, and after the show he took time to answer questions from many of the bloggers in the audience. He mentioned that he never does that, so it was a lovely gesture on his part:

Before the trip, I was obviously excited to go to the taping, but the real reason I was so looking forward to going to NYC was to meet and spend time with my blog friends � who are now women I consider friends in real life. The Nate Show was just an exciting extra of the trip!

And seriously � is he not the CUTEST?? Really.

After the show we stopped for some New York pizza:

(My friend Kate and I, deciding between cheese pizza and extra cheese pizza. ;) )

Then walked through Times Square to a subway station:

Darn it, we didn�t see ONE rat!! I was hoping Rhoda would get to see one. ;)

After a very quick stop in at a party sponsored by The Nest, we headed to Little Italy for some dinner, and then a bunch of us went to check out the view at the Top of the Rock at Rockefeller Center:

My new and old blog friends: Cristin, me, Kate, Rhoda and Janell.
We had a blast!

I have to give an extra special shout out to Rhoda, for inviting me along with her � she is amazing and a blast to hang out with. And my roomies Emily Clark and her friend Katie (I can�t believe we didn�t get a picture together!) were the cutest and sweetest. Between the three of them I was surrounded by southern accents for days and I was all �y�all this� and �y�all that� when I got home.  ;)

I cannot stress what a blessing blogging has been in my life. I have met so many fantastic, strong, smart women. I have had some amazing opportunities because of this blog. And I am ever thankful and overwhelmed by all of it.

P.S. We have no idea when our episode airs -- we were told to watch online, so I�ll keep my eye out and let you know! :)

Remember

Almost exactly nine years ago, my husband took me to New York City for my first visit. I had a feeling about the city � even though I had never been there. I just knew I would fall in love with it.

And I fell�hard.

I always say I must have been a New Yorker in a past life. :) It felt like home to me, from the very first trip.

That last week in August nine years ago, we took the ferry out to the Statue of Liberty, climbed to the top and my husband snapped this shot:

It is still so eerie to me that you can barely make out the twin towers in the background. Two weeks later they were gone.

If you�ve read this blog for long,  you know we visit the city whenever we possibly can. I�ve been so fortunate to visit twice this summer � the last trip with a couple of my girlfriends. I took them to see Ground Zero, and we decided to visit the Ground Zero Museum.

It was so incredibly powerful, terrifying, humbling, inspiring and well done, I wanted to share some of the photos I took with you. I�ll let them speak for themselves:

  

            

      

Heartbreaking.

And yet at the same time, I was so filled up with LOVE. I couldn�t help but cry and cry and cry.

I know it gets harder every year to remember, but we can�t forget. We can�t forget the pain we felt, the devastation, the sorrow, the love.

When you didn�t know a stranger, because we were all hurting the same way. We can�t forget that desire to want to do anything�anything�to help.

The feeling of being so proud to be an American, you could just burst.

Out of my hundreds of beautiful pictures of New York City, my favorite isn�t a picture of Times Square, the park or the views from the Empire State Building. My favorite picture was taken on a trip about two years after September 11th, when the area around Ground Zero was filled with handwritten notes on the temporary walls from people from all over the country and the world:

Amen.

This weekend, fly your flag high!

God Bless America!