Hot Chocolate Bar and a New Chalkboard

Last winter we did a little hot cocoa station and it turned out to be such a hit with our family that we did it again this year. I love it because it's decorative but we also use it regularly too and the girls think it's so much fun!  This year we had to move our mirrored chest out of the living room to make room for our tree. I thought it would look pretty against the wallpaper in the dining room but wasn't sure it would fit or how it would look with our farmhouse table. Well, it ended up fitting much better than I thought it would and I loved how it looked with the wallpaper. I decided to make a chalkboard with a rustic frame to help balance out the look with the farmhouse table. I will have a tutorial for making the chalkboard ready soon.

Before I had time to write on the chalkboard I put up this simple noel sign.

 Here you can see how it looks with the wallpaper. I hadn't finished decorated the other sideboard yet when I took these pictures but I have since so I will photograph the whole room hopefully at some point this week.

 

And here are some close-up shots:

The straws are from The Tom Kat Studio! 

The little spoons are from The Tom Kat Studio as well. Lillie is fascinated with them. The mugs were a gift and are from Burdick Chocolates in Walpole, NH.

 I hope you all have a lovely Monday! We will be back tomorrow with a new product!

Chalkboard Frame

 

Since Christmas I have just had some random things over here on this little wall between our family room and kitchen. In early February I moved our little hot chocolate station over here for easier access and so I could decorate in the dining room. I will probably keep it out just another week or two and then once the warmer weather is here for good I will put it away. I think Lillie will be quite disappointed seeing when the chocolate bits are moved and she won't be able to "sneak" any more. I haven't let her in on the fact that if she asks to "sneak" two chocolate chips it kind of makes it not sneaking. =)

I was torn on what to put above here since I moved everything around in the fall. I had a canvas of the girls over here the past month or so but it wasn't the right size. I had a few ideas for something I could make but then when I was cleaning the garage I found an old framed poster and figured I could add some chalkboard paint to it while I was cleaning. And sure enough, by the time the garage was clean I had something new to hang on that little wall! Yay! It will probably be temporary until I can do the larger project I have it mind but for now I really like how it looks. Especially seeing how our other chalkboard wall (you can see the whole post here) is really more for Lillie:

(sorry, phone pics aren't the greatest)

 Anyway, here is the old framed poster that was in the garage. (I had painted the frame a few years ago).

First I taped around the edge and rubbed some sandpaper on the poster in hopes it would flatten out the bubbles and make the paint adhere easier although I doubt it was necessary:

Then my helper rolled on the paint and I trimmed the edges.

Nice and simple and best of all FREE!

I feel like our family room is starting to feel more complete!

We got e-mails asking what we used for our hot cocoa station when we showed it back in January. There are two types of cocoa, marshmallows, white chocolate chips, semi-sweet chocolate chips, and vanilla.

 The Bunny Silhouette Pillow Cover in our family room is now for sale in our shop! My sister, Jamie sketched out this adorable bunny for us! I love how it turned out. Perfect for Easter and spring! I also think it would be adorable in a nursery.

The Bunny Silhouette is also available as a paper cutout!

It's available in two different sizes and along with cream, is also available in a variety of pastel colors!

I hope you all have a blessed Thursday!

Better Homes and Garden's Shoot and Hot Chocolate Bar

 

A couple of months ago we got an e-mail from Better Homes and Gardens asking if we would be interested in having our home photographed for their Christmas Ideas Issue. It seemed too good to be true and to be honest I kept thinking it might fall through but the last two days we had a stylist from Better Homes and Gardens here and today we had a photographer and a second stylist here as well! It was so exciting getting to watch such talented people work their magic and they were incredibly sweet and easy going and so wonderful with the girls. I had feared that Lillie would not want to have her photo taken when it was time but instead she hopped right up in her window seat and smiled and posed and did everything the photographer asked - he was so good with her! At one point she even had him sliding down our stairs "on his bum-bum" like her and he pushed her around on his cart once he was done! I can't thank them enough for making it such an easy and enjoyable experience. Now for the hard part - we have to wait 8 or 9 months for the magazine to come out!

Now that it is over, I have to say I am exhausted. It has been so crazy trying to get everything finished up in time. Once they left yesterday I started taking down all of the Christmas decorations. I am just about done and then I can start figuring out what to do to fill all the bare holes. In some ways it is such a good feeling to have it all down and to get everything clean and organized but it also does make all of the rooms seem so empty and cold now.

I didn't take any photos while they were here yesterday but I did take some photos last week of the hot cocoa station I added in our dining room.

 

Have a wonderful Tuesday!