Over the long weekend we had several barbecues to attend, and I got the idea to make a little homemade hostess gift to bring along to each party. I felt like a real rockstar for coming up with the idea, some homemade limoncello infused with a lemon thyme simple syrup, and getting them packaged up in pretty glass bottles tied with baker’s twine and fresh thyme sprigs. Let me tell you what was not a rockstar move: forgetting them all in the fridge before we embarked on our day of BBQ-hopping! I didn’t realize until I got home that night, that all of my cute hostess gifts were still chilling in the fridge. The good news is, the recipe won’t go to waste — you can find it below to DIY yourself — and the drinks won’t go to waste either. I’ll be pouring myself a limoncello and soda spritzer tonight! 
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Can you believe Easter is next weekend? It snuck up on me, which means this week I’m making sure Jane has a cute dress to wear, finishing up her Easter basket, and figuring out what I’m going to bring to my in-law’s dinner! One item already marked off my Easter prep list is coming up with a cute (and oh so simple!) hostess gift idea made with egg cartons and some chocolates. 
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My mom asked me recently what I wanted for Christmas, and I jokingly said that as the mom of an infant, all I really want is an afternoon where I could sit on the couch in silence for a few hours. She laughed and asked if there was anything else that I wanted that might fit under the tree better. I got to thinking about it though, and it actually is the perfect gift idea – not just for me, but for any friend that would love a cozy winter day of hibernation and relaxation. I’m not cool enough to use the term Netflix and Chill, but this my friends, is definitely a Netflix and Chill kit. Here’s what I put in it in my hibernation-themed gift:
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My friends at Garnet Hill are hosting a wonderful campaign this holiday season to benefit St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital®. To participate, Garnet Hill is asking people to post a photo of a beautifully wrapped gift with #StJudeShareAGift on Instagram (or upload directly to the landing page here) which will trigger a $10 donation to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, up to $15,000 total donation. In the spirit of the holidays, and participating in this great charitable campaign, I’m sharing a fresh idea here today to make your holiday gifts look beautiful with DIY faux-malachite gift tags.
‘Tis the season for holiday parties, and I don’t know about you, but I feel like I’m grabbing a bottle of wine every weekend this time of year to bring to a friend’s house, a family party, or another seasonal celebration. A bottle of wine or prosecco is everyone’s go-to hostess gift, and for good reason, it’s useful and delicious! I often struggle though with which wine to select, and how to make it stand out among the sea of other bottled hostess offerings.
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You’ve cleaned the house, you’ve ordered your groceries, the apron is on and all that is left to do is prep the holiday meal. Of course there’s one other item on the list that you forgot to tackle: putting together a Pinterest-worthy tablescape for your beautiful meal and gracious guests. I can sense the eye-rolls as you read this, because with everything else going on with holiday preparations, who has time for that?! That’s why I have four easy DIY ideas to dress up your place settings for the holidays that should take under 5 minutes to make and use simple household supplies:
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I’ve been blogging for almost 9 years now and in that near-decade span of time, I’ve never once written a post about Halloween entertaining ideas! Halloween, as a holiday, seems to lose a little bit of luster in those years between college-style costumed celebrations and when you pick it up again as a mom on the trick or treating route. After my post-college hiatus, my interest in this spooky holiday has been reignited as we get ready to celebrate it as parents with Jane.
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At the beginning of the year I wrote a blog post about some of my quarterly “mini-resolutions” I was going to tackle, and one of them was to print out more of the pictures I take on my phone. I’ve been keeping my word and have printed out a bunch of my favorite photos from instagram (I use Social Print Studio for great square prints!) and have been trying to do a once a month printing of new photos of Jane to send to our parents and grandparents. With all of these new prints on hand, I need a fun way to display and rotate them. I decided to DIY a few photo-stands for these square photos so that I can prop them up on my desk and change them easily as new prints arrive. It’s a super easy DIY, and took me about 30 minutes to complete from start to finish!
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I love a good DIY project, and most of the time when I get an idea for them I’m starting with inspiration for what the end product is going to look like. Every once in a while though, my inspiration comes from the actual materials I’m working with. An interesting material can spark the thought, “hmm, what can I make with this?” – and that’s exactly how this DIY project started.
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I have been endlessly eyeing these chic straw market tote bags with gigantic bright pom-poms on them. I scroll through instagram and see them popping up in style bloggers’ posts and on celebrities, but I couldn’t justify spending an arm and a leg on what is essentially a beach bag. I decided to try and make one myself after sourcing some inexpensive straw market totes on Amazon. Making the pom-poms is super easy, but since these were so big and there several of them to make, I decided to finally invest in a pom-pom maker — and it was totally worth the $7. The pom-pom maker made the DIY process go super fast, and I think it created a much more dense, uniform result. After making each pom-pom, I simply used two pieces of the string to tie a pin to the back of each one and attached them to the tote bag (hot glue would work too, but I liked the flexibility of being able to switch around the colors, or take them off all together!). With all of them materials, the whole project came in under $40 — and I think it looks like a million bucks! (If you don’t have a pom-pom maker, follow these instructions to make them by hand).
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