GIVEAWAY CLOSED This week's giveaway-Celebrating Home Candles!!

Ahhh nothing like the fresh scent of stale meat, or wet dog right?? Wrong! If your house is anything like mine it always needs a little freshening up!! Enter my candle giveaway!! These candles are of the highest  quality and made right here in Texas by  Celebrating Home !! They have a variety of scents or "flavors" as I like to call them and leave a heavenly aroma in your home!! What can be more inviting to yourself, your family and best of all your guests!! than coming in to your home that is scented by Gardenia, Mangoes or Raspberry Lemonade. So how can you get your little dainty hands on a couple of these babies??? Why you can enter my giveaway of course!! Here's the way to enter: 1.)Get one chance to enter by visiting Celebrating Home  look around and find one thing that you would LOVE TO HAVE then putting it into my comments section. 2.) Get another chance by becoming a follower of my blog (I will automatically know you became my follower by looking at the lin...

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I love Gold!!

Lately while stalking perusing other people's blogs, I have noticed a trend of hatred a strong dislike towards anything gold~Gold fixtures, gold door handles, gold chandeliers, gold anything. I am going to go out on a limb here and proclaim my love of gold! Here's why: Gold goes with everything Gold adds warmth to a room Gold exudes elegance (without going overboard and into gaudiness territory) Gold invokes charm Gold makes a room "pop". And while I love oil rubbed bronze, stainless, nickel and wrought iron just as much as the next girl, gold will always have a place in my heart if used appropriately. Here's a few of my favorite uses of gold: All images from  Architectural Digest How about you? Do you love gold too?

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Wicker Bench Restoration

I have had this wicker bench for about 10 years and it was looking pretty weathered. I used to have it inside in my bedroom but since moving to this house I really needed to have something on the front porch. However, it was in serious need of sprucing up. Enter my new found friend the spray paint. I used the Krylon brand Fusion paint in black. It is specifically for plastics, resins and wicker. Here's a pic of it before: And this is it after: I need to add some nice colorful pillows and I plan on putting those ferns into some new red pots. I think that will tie in nicely with the black. I refuse to throw away perfectly good furniture and I think I can get several more years of good use out of these pieces. What do you think? What projects have you done recently by repurposing what you already have? I am linking this project to Thrifty Decor Chick Before and After Party I have linked this to between naps on the porch 90th-metamorphosis-monday  10-4-10 and Fine Craft Guil...

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Pretty Spring Flowers

I love Spring!! I love to see everything blooming and even though my allergies prevent me from being outside too much I still get to steal a few moments out in our yard to look at the blooms. Here are some pretty ones: This beautiful bloom is a rose that will later on in the season have a beautiful orangey edge around the petals. Beautiful roses cascading against the stone retaining wall in the backyard. Don't you just love Spring!

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Going Vegan....for a month :)

If you know me you know by now that I am always willing to try something new and experiment on myself ;) This week I decided I am going to try the vegan lifestyle for one month. Gasp!! Yes a Mexican who is going to deprive herself from fajitas, chiles rellenos, chorizo and egg breakfast tacos....and I better stop before I quit before I start. If you don't know what a vegan is then let me explain. It's basically like a vegetarian but stricter. No meats of any kind and no eggs or dairy either. I read somewhere that milk causes many allergic reactions in people that we don't even know about. Like for instance did you know that the hormones they give the cows to produce more milk may cause skin allergies in some people including acne? If you have acne around your jaw line and mouth it is most likely caused by milk allergies. So after reading about this, I decided why not? I'll give all that up for a month and if my skin clears then I may stick with the no dairy thing (not...

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This week's project

Lately I've been on a quest to redecorate my home by repurposing items that I already have around the house or with things I pick up for free or next to nothing. This week I worked on this cute telephone table from the 80's. Here's what it looked like before: Pretty sad looking huh? But not bad. It is a solid piece made of real wood, imagine that? Anywho it was totally free from feecycle.org. I love FREECYCLE!! So I had never spray painted furniture before and I tell ya it's an art. After putting on a dust mask and putting down a drop cloth I went to work in my garage (with the door open mind you). I needed plenty of ventilation. So I used Rustoleum's Heirloom White in Satin finish. And. I. Love.It. The color is so pretty and soft. It will go nicely with my new bedding that I've had my eye on for the last month. I am planning on painting my bedroom and removing the awful wallpaper that's there UGGGH Who invented wallpaper??? So, here's the after: Isn...

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Sterling Silver Earrings Giveaway

Since closing my Garnet Place Gifts business last year, I have decided to give away some of my jewelry inventory. Here's what I am giving away this week: A pair of Sterling Silver earrings. The best part is YOU get to choose which pair you want if you win! You can choose the oooohhhh so very cute and unique silver turtle earrings with moving legs and head :) OR The pair of Sterling cross earrings. Each set is valued at $30. Here's what you need to do to enter: Post a comment on this blog choosing the pair you like most (this will get you 1 entry) Follow my blog by clicking on the right to FOLLOW ME ( 1 entry) Winner will be chosen at random (with randompicker.com) on Monday the 19th of April. So the deadline is Sunday April 18th at midnight. Good luck! P.S. There is only ONE winner this week-so 1 pair of earrings given away. Stay tuned for next week's giveaway. These measure about an inch in length not including the ear hook. Only one entry per person please.

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Tips for Ants

Every spring it seems we have problems with fire ants. There are huge mounds surfacing all over our backyard already. Several years ago I read somewhere that to keep ants out of your house you need to spread some common flour. That's right ~ FLOUR. Last year there was a huge fire ant mount right near our patio. I was scared that if we treated it with the commercial ant poison my dog Molly -who eats EVERYTHING-would be poisoned by it. Never mind my kids who play outside. So I remembered the flour. I spread some nice heaping tablespoons to cover the mound and the next day the ants were dead! I don't know what it is about the flour that kills them but it works. So there's my nifty tip from me to you!

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Shoutout to Art by Ellison

Today I am going to feature my darling daughter's artwork here; http://www.ellieraptordesigns.com/Showcase.html She is a very talented artist specializing in wildlife. She has won numerous regional awards through her high school and has designed t-shirts and swimcaps for two local highschool athletic deparments. She has also painted a mural at a local hospital. Ellison also customizes canvas shoes with whatever your little heart desires! Here are some of her art pieces with more to come: This one is my favorite! Absolutely gorgeous in person! Another one of my favorites! This one is just SO cute! Perfect in a kid's bedroom! If you are interested in buying any of her art please contact me or her thru her website above. She is also a very talented wildlife photographer and her photos can also be purchased. This one is from my computer the real shot is very clear! So there you go! Talent runs in the family huh?? Ellison will be entering college this fall where she wi...

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3rd day's a charm and you are not alone!

After leaving California and getting lost on the way out, we finally arrived in Phoenix and took the time to get some dinner. The kids were tired of the traveling and were ready to get to Roswell. I didn't have the heart to tell them we were still a good 6-8 hours away ((YIKES)). We got on the road again and while driving thru New Mexico through the winding roads of the mountains, the kids were looking out the window at the sky. We had never seen so many stars! It was beautiful. It seemed like forever before we arrived at Roswell. We got there at 5 a.m.!! We left Cali at around noon the previous day, it was not a good trip. First all the winding roads thru the dark mountains and then it started to SNOW! We finally got to the hotel and we just fell into bed with our clothes on and everything! We hardly noticed the stench in the room but when we woke up 5  hours later we could REALLY smell it! It smelled like someone had cooked some bad curry dish while wearing cheap cologne the day ...

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