Best Nine

Wrapping up 2017 with the my Best Nine from Instagram. 

It's interesting to see what has gotten the most "likes" and attention in social media.

It's also interesting that they are probably not the nine
 I would say were my "best" of the year.

They don't include family or friends or time we spent together (except for a sweet photo of Chloe and Mollie near the end of our time with Chloe) or any of my travels to work in emerging countries or high risk areas here in the US. 
I think these are some of my "best" times.

I guess these are my "prettiest" nine  :)

A new endeavor for Mollie and me this year was a booth at Westside Market in Atlanta. 

You can follow along on Instagram to see what the latest and greatest is in our booth!

This is our Best Nine from Elizabeth and Payne and it is obviously all about the bamboo, blue and white and chinoiserie!

Thank you for following along in 2017.

Wishing everyone a fabulous 2018!!

Merry Christmas Eve!

... and the stockings were hung by the chimney with care.

Christmas Tour-ish Part Two

If you are just getting here and are wondering what a "tour-ish" is then catch up here!

Today's tour-ish is of the Family Room and Kitchen. 

We got our decorating completed early for a little gathering that Mollie and I co-host each year. We have a "Get Merry with Mimosas" brunch on the first Saturday of December. It kicks off the season in a good way - with family and friends, motivates us to clean and decorate early, lets us spend time with people who get busier and busier as the month goes on and results in us being less hurried later on. Our decorating is completed - and let's face it, if the party was later in the month I'd be decorating up to the last minute!


A little bonus to this "tour-ish" is that we had
 a very unusual, unexpected 8 inches of snow in the South. 
So, probably for the first time ever, I have snow pictures at Christmas!!

This is a LOT of snow for Georgia. And rare in December!

(The huge Sycamore in the backyard after dark on Friday night!)

So it was very pretty outside. And quiet. Not a creature was stirring.

Now back inside:

Here is the Family Room full of friends at our Get Merry with Mimosas Party!
(and that weekend it was 68 degrees!! Then snow the next!)

(Cute girls but please notice I painted my ugly fireplace brick white and it looks so good!)

This room is not easy to photograph. 

The morning light is very bright as you can see and then it's dark by noon :(

We brought our trees back from our Thanksgiving trip to VA.

They look smaller in the "wild." :)

This one is pretty big - we had to trim. A lot.

Last year we only got lights on the tree before our Mimosa Brunch

 and never went back and added anything else!

This year we got glass ball ornaments on it!

Notice how fabulous they look with animal print.

#animalprintisaneutral

Maybe next year we will get to the "family" ornaments we have collected through the years. #goals

The tree is really the main decoration in our family room each year. 

We do have fresh greenery and palmetto fans on the mantle
 and a few things tucked here and there.
 But not much.
 So much daily living goes on in there that there isn't room for much more!

(FYI  I talk about drapes for the family room all. the. time.  So far - nothing)

(Early Christmas present - blue and white garden stool from my hubby.

Opened early so I could have it at our Mimosa Party!)

The kitchen is fairly minimal as well.
 I use wreaths to give the kitchen it's Christmas cheer.

And we have a second tree on the back porch 
with lots and lots of colored lights in all shapes and sizes. 

Anything goes back here :)

A jingle bell wreath on the back door get a lot of movement so lots of angels get their wings...

"Every time a bell rings an angel gets her wings."  ZuZu Bailey  It's A Wonderful Life

Please excuse the tarped-for-Winter furniture outside on the porch.

 I should have uncovered it for photos but you know, life.)

(I recovered my chairs before the Mimosa party! I love this fabric, Ming Dragon I believe. It was supposed to be used in the last One Room Challenge but got scratched at the last minute. Perfect on these chairs!!)

 I love wreaths and bows and they do not usurp counter space
 so that works in our busy kitchen.

Bowls and bowls of Christmas candy are a must. 

Speaking of busy- my stove top is never, ever as clean as I would like during the holidays 
so I have a quick fix! 
I have a cookie sheet with really cute "faux" gingerbread men on it! 
I actually made this for a Junior League Christmas Showhouse 
that I was part of a few years ago. 
It comes in handy though!

That's about it for our Christmas "Tour-ish." So, we wish you a merry Christmas from our house to yours :)

#hohohomerrychristmas

Favorite Holiday Images...

... from around the web and social media. 

sort of a Holiday version of my sporadic iphone dumps on here!

I love this cheerful, eclectic room all ready for Christmas. 

You can just tell that it's going to be fun!

I, and about a zillion other people, love this view of  

Maura Endres home decorated for the holidays. 

Below is part of the pile of Gift Cards that the kiddos in my youth group collected for

 the Toy Shoppe at our local homeless shelter. 

They chose places that kids their age would want!

Blue and white, candy cane striped candles, decadent white fur and colorful ornaments.

 I love this from Andrea at Opulent Cottage. 

These are some of my youth kiddos racing to find out exactly how many gifts were given during the 12 Days of Christmas. There was some serious math going on.

 I promise there was a Sunday School lesson buried in there!

This image was taken by my friend Handel. Click over to his instagram to see the photos he takes (last weeks snow in GA) and to read his story. He graduates from college this week. 

I met him as a young boy when I was on a mission trip to Haiti. He survived the earthquake, was sent to the states barely speaking any English holding a phone number to call an aunt who didn't know he was coming, ended up moving to GA to live with my friends who knew his parents from mission work, enters an American High School where my daughter is called to the office to give him his welcome tour (they did not know each other before this), picks up photography, plays the piano beautifully, graduates HS and goes to college at Dalton State.

 This week he is front page news in Dalton!!

Life is a crazy ride!

The next two images are from Amanda Louise. 

She had a POP UP Shop in Greenville SC and I wish I had been there. 

Everything looked amazing.

And I do not "do Winter" very well so this sweatshirt caught my eye. 

I am living in fuzzy socks and drinking hot tea like crazy. 

And I'm in the Deep South.

I'm a chicken/whiner/crybaby when it comes to the cold. 

#sorrynotsorry

I'm like a pinball machine when it comes to what catches my eye!

Please share your favorite holiday images!! 

Bamboo Friday Down Under Edition

One of the things I love best about the internet and social media is being able to "follow" people from everywhere and anywhere. 

I found @AnnaSpiro years before her book hit the US and I've stalked her ever since!!

Well, Anna Spiro has a new website

 and it's full of new images!!

So we are going "down under" for this Bamboo Friday.

Look at those great blue and white and bamboo chairs and that chunky table they are paired with. 

And that is the grandaddy of all gallery walls.

The chairs. The coffee table!

A girl after my own heart - stick a little bamboo table in anywhere you can :)

Not strictly bamboo but what a great table at this beach house. 

And this room is too fabulous. I'm not sure I can see any bamboo in this picture but who cares? It's an amazing room and there probably is a bamboo piece in there somewhere. 

Anna Spiro uses vintage bamboo in many of her spaces.

I hope she keeps the images coming - I love her new website and updates to her portfolio.

Christmas Tour-ish!

I hesitate to use the terminology "Christmas Tour" of my home considering some of the blogger tours out there!

So I guess it's a tour-ish! Sort of a tour...

Really just some peeks into our Christmas decorating...

We have a new (to us) greeter guy by the front steps.

I decided to cozy him up with a plaid scarf and Mollie gave him some sparkle with a "bouquet" of shiny ornaments in the shell he holds.

We are pretty smitten with him.

Just inside the front door is our most recent One Room Challenge project - our entryway.

It was fun adding some holiday touches to our "new" room.

The ceramic Nativity lights up but doesn't photograph well that way. 

I have been putting it on that chest for longer than I can remember.

I put a $4.00 pink poinsettia in a cachepot and added magnolia branches and evergreens to make it full and look good reflected in the mirror.

I'm a pink or white poinsettia gal all the way.

On the opposite wall in the entryway is my fabulous Brighton chair and table thrifting find from a few months ago.

To the left of the entryway is our Library.

 Formerly the Dining Room, about 10 years ago we started adding bookcases

 and morphing it into the full blown library it is today.

It is the only room that doesn't have white walls - they are high gloss black 

(Sherwin Williams Tricorn).

The Library is all about the blue and white chinoiserie ornaments on a mini tree. 

Oh, and wearing our furs. Faux, of course.

I hinted on Instagram last week that I was making a few changes in our downstairs powder room in preparation for a holiday brunch that Mollie and I jointly co-host.

It was supposed to be a quick paint job to  switch the green mirror for a different bamboo mirror I found the week before and paint it and the tan cabinet a bright cheery coral-y pink to coordinate with my flamingo print and add some pizzazz to the powder room.

We love the bright color (and by "we" I do not mean my husband) 

and it really adds a lot to the room even if I ended up not being able to use the "new" mirror after painting it and then having to repaint the first bamboo mirror from green to the new SW Grenadine pinky-coral color. 

This is why one should not start a project a few days before one has 20 women for brunch and why one should try mirrors to see if they fit before one paints them. 

Just sayin'

(And the towel is crooked. But isn't it cute?)

You can see the big tree on the screened in porch peeking in.

 A few pink bottle brush trees and some shiny ornaments for the bamboo shelf 

and we are set in this little room.

That concludes Part One of our Tour-ish. 

More to come soon.

I hope.