Christmas Tree Trip 2012

Growing up, my family and a group of our friends and neighbors would head to Boone every year to find and cut the perfect Christmas tree. This is one of my favorite memories and although it has been years since we'd gone, the year Allen and I got married we decided to make this one of our family traditions. So, every year we head to The RRR farm to find and cut our Christmas tree. 

This year our good friends, Dan, Maggie, Gentry, and Hadley joined us! So, Friday morning, we all piled in one car and headed north. We'd brought a rack for are luggage so we could all squeeze in one car. One thing we didn't think about though, was the possibility of rain! So when it started raining halfway there.. We really packed in! 

Our first stop was a lunch break at On the Border. 

After lunch, we headed to a favorite winery H & G had introduced us to on last year's trip... Baker Buffalo Creek. We enjoyed some yummy wine (except for Hadley) and then went for a short tractor ride around the vineyard. If you like wine I would definitely recommend you visit this place.. The owners are wonderful and the wine is delicious! 

After a fun pit stop we drove the rest of the way to Boone and had dinner downtown at Macados before heading to our hotel for the night. 

Saturday morning we woke up early, ate breakfast and headed to the tree farm. We took a short hayride up the mountain and then split up to begin the search for each family's perfect tree.  

Dan and Maggie were the first to find their tree. Dan being a manly man grabbed a saw and cut down their tree!

We were the next to find our tree. Since Dan had cut their tree, I told Allen he needed to cut ours too :) ( usually we have someone cut if for us using a chainsaw.. But I loved the idea of having A do it for us). Allen did not think this was a good idea, but being the wonderful husband he is, he obliged. What seemed like 20 minutes.later, our tree was finally cut and Allen was sweaty, dirty, and not happy! I love that he cut it down.. Not sure I'll be able to talk him into it again next year though :)

Once our tree was down it was Gentry and Hadley's turn. And since everyone has cut their trees down of course Gentry had to too!

Finally all the trees were cut, wrapped, and loaded on the car. We went back to downtown Boone to  do some shopping and to find an ornament to commentate our trip! We ended the trip with a lunch stop at cookout and then headed home to decorate our 2012 Christmas trees! 

 Sarah and Ellis stayed with us that night, so awesome Sarah helped me decorate our tree! 

Girls Weekend!

A few weeks ago, my mom asked if she could come visit me for a weekend. I of course said yes and couldn't wait for her visit! That Friday, I was cooking dinner, when she pulled into the driveway. Allen told me to go out and welcome her and he would keep an eye on dinner. So, I walked outside and gave her a hug then went to help her get her things out of the trunk. When she popped the trunk, this is what I saw:

I screamed and jumped back and then realized it was my wonderful sister!! I was completely, surprised (and excited!)

The next morning, we woke up and Allen fixed us eggs, biscuits, bacon and grits! (He did a great job spoiling us all weekend, and he has been invited back to the next girls weekend!) Then we went to get manicures and pedicures.

After our nails were done we did some shopping and eventually headed to Michael's and Hobby Lobby, where we decided we were going to craft!We got on pinterest (of course!) to get some ideas and finally decided to make shadow boxes and wreaths.

Mary made a Halloween shadow box, Mom made a fall one, and I made an NC State one.

We got Allen in on the crafting too.. he cut some wood for Mom and Mary in the shape of an S and an R. Then they decorated it with leaves... to use for a fall wreath. I made an NC state wreath.

After pizza and crafting, we decided to end the night with some chocolate fondue and fruit! (We let Allen join in too!)

Sunday morning, we woke up, went to church, and then Mom and Mary headed back home. We all had such a great time and I can't wait to have another weekend with my favorite girls!

Wall Words

I'm sure many of you have seen the vinyl sayings you can buy to put on your walls. Every time I go in a store and see them, I look through the many sayings to find something I like enough to put on the wall. However, I usually can't find a saying I like, or if I do, it costs more than I'm willing to spend. So, I decided I would attempt to make my own :)  Here's how I did it:

My Cricut Machine.. I love this thing! 

I bought brown vinyl at Michael's for $10. I cut a strip to fit in the machine, typed in the letters and watched as it cut.

Next, I peeled off the scraps and was left with my letters

Then I arranged my letters the way I wanted them to look on the wall

Then I covered them with transfer tape

Here, my awesome husband helped me by "burnishing" (big word they use or rub/press) the tape to the words

Next I flipped the transfer tape over and took the back off my vinyl letters



Ready to go on the wall



Then we just took the transfer tape and put it on the wall. "Burnished" the letters and slowly peeled back the tape.

Ta Da!

I love the way it turned out! If I do it again, though, I don't think I'll use the transfer tape. I think it made things more difficult and more time consuming than necessary. Next time I'll just use a pencil to draw lines on the wall to line everything up and then erase the pencil marks - but overall this was a fun, inexpensive, and easy project! :)

Picture wall

I've been contemplating hanging picture frames in my stairwell for a while. I had a lot frames hanging in my living room, but Allen took them down when he was cutting huge holes in the wall (another story!) and we decided to replace them with another frame we got for Christmas. So I've had frames sitting around the house for a while (almost a month!) and wanted to do something with them. Well, Allen had to go out of town earlier this week and I got bored.  I was on pinterest (I know, I know!) and I saw a great idea for hanging pictures. It said to cut out pieces of paper the size of the picture frames and use blue paint tape to hang them. This way, you can rearrange the "frames" without having to put a million holes in the wall - genius, I know! (Told you pinterest was awesome). So anyways here's the result:  

Step 1: Hang paper "frames"



Step 2: Hang corresponding real frames



Not a step: Break the glass in one of the frames



And there you have it.. the final result!