Pinterest Picks: Dinner Party Time!

Posted on November 7, 2013 by Frame by Frame Style

It’s almost the weekend! Is anyone attending or hosting a dinner party or fun gathering with friends and family this weekend?

Even though the stores are already advertising for Christmas, outside it is still fall, and fall is the season of the ultimate fall dinner party: Thanksgiving. To gather some ideas for a fun dinner party, I searched Pinterest and here are a few of my favorite pins and ideas. I also started a new board called Dinner Party Time! for those interested in following as I continue to find more dinner party ideas.

I love decorating with pumpkins, especially unique looking pumpkins. A pumpkin can also make the perfect chalkboard for your party. You can use your chalkboard pumpkin for your menu or drink list. All you need is some chalkboard paint and chalk.

Leftover small pumpkins from your Halloween displays can also make great centerpieces.

Speaking of chalkboard paint, I love the idea of using chalkboards to label each of your appetizers or desserts. Just be sure the chalkboard paint is food safe! You can also use slate dinner pieces. Slate is a natural chalkboard. In this photo, they painted the table runner with chalkboard paint.

The last few pictures are for a themed-dinner party. With the explosion of craft breweries, you can gather up your friends and invite them over for a craft brew party. Each guest brings a growler or bullet with their favorite local beer and then you can kick back and enjoy good food and good company for the evening.

mint love social club: {party inspiration: craft beer tasting party}

Have a great weekend everyone!

Feeling Blue…

Posted on October 29, 2013 by Frame by Frame Style

BJ and I recently added a new storage cabinet to our dining room. We found this cabinet on sale at Target a few weeks ago. I’ve mentioned before how much I love a good sale, especially when I’ve had my eye on something.

I really like this piece because it has a vintage look to it. And it’s blue! I’m not that great at yard sale shopping or antiquing so I often find myself waiting for furniture pieces like this to go on sale or clearance before I buy them. Maybe one day I will be able to understand the world of yard sales and antique malls. If you have any suggestions, feel free to send them my way. I’m always looking for new ideas and tips. My problem is that I don’t even know where to start when it comes to buying old pieces.

I’ve been keeping my eye out for furniture to help finish out our dining room. I was excited to come across this piece for storing extra glasses, dishes and cookbooks.

I really love the glass window-frame doors of this piece. It displays our extra wine glasses, vintage Coca-Cola glasses and cookbooks beautifully.

The pumpkins on top of the cabinet, we won at a family reunion last year and I made the flower arrangement. The ice bucket on the right is a wedding gift from my best friend’s grandmother. The ice bucket works as a lovely and unique candy dish. Thank you, Lois! (shout outs to awesome grandmas! I know a few more grandmas who are also pretty awesome)

Now our dining room feels more complete. Even Bentley approves.

Do you have a favorite furniture piece in your home? Or maybe something that you kept an eye on for awhile and couldn’t wait to finally bring it home?

Guest bedroom

Posted on July 20, 2013 by Frame by Frame Style

Prior to the arrival of our July 4th guests, we made a few updates to the guest bedroom.

We added curtains, which previously resided in my office and we also arranged a collection of West Virginia postcards on the wall.

fbfs_guest_bedroom_updates1

BJ and I both lived in West Virginia for many years, and although I wasn’t born there, it definitely feels like home. If you haven’t been to West Virginia, it’s worth a visit, especially for the beautiful scenery and great people.

While at a family reunion this summer, I picked up a few postcards honoring West Virginia’s 150th birthday. I carefully taped each card into place in a mix of white and black 4×6 frames from Ikea.

Our guest bedroom now contains a mix of furniture that we will eventually replace. In the meantime, the furniture is serving its purpose. For bedside tables, we are using two old end tables that came with our previous couch set. I think we may keep these end tables, but they desperately need sanded and finished. I’ve added them to my list of fall projects once the weather cools down.

I’m still debating if I want to try my hand at painting the dresser. It is a hand-me-down dresser from BJ’s college years family and he does not have any sentimental attachment to the piece. Because it is veneered, it will be difficult to paint, or even spray paint. I will have to score the surface before any paint will stick (if it even does). If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know. I’m interested to know if there is a more effective/easier way to paint veneered furniture or if I should just let it go and buy a different dresser for this room.

We have a few more projects slated for this room, but here is our progress to date:

1. ~~Hang curtains~~
2. Add a headboard to the bed
3. Add throw pillows
4. ~~Hang WV postcard collage~~
5. Update dresser
6. Refinish end tables turned bedside tables
7. Paint?

Two down and five more projects to go! We are well on our way to completing the look of this room.

Fantastic Foyer

Posted on July 9, 2013 by Frame by Frame Style

Hello everyone! We hope you had a great Fourth of July! We had a great time celebrating with family this holiday.

So, you might be asking, what have we been up to lately? Well… a lot, actually. Keep your eye out for new posts coming soon.

Up first is our recent foyer updates. A few months ago, we started designing a larger layout for our existing foyer photo collage. We finally finished the collage and also added some artwork and and a mirror to our foyer. Since we brought in our (very heavy) 22ft ladder for the collage, we decided to go ahead and hang our artwork and mirror before we put the ladder away again.

You might remember the paper templates I created to map out where we would hang out new additions to our photo collage. Not only did they help us to visually see how we planned to hang the photos, they also served as a way to tell where to place the nail on the wall. Once we hammered the nail hole using the paper template, we removed the paper, put the nail(s) back in the wall and then placed all the photos.

In order to hammer on the wall, we first removed all of the photos and left their nails in the wall. I took a picture (seen above) of all the photos so we would remember how they were arranged. While the frames were down, I swapped a few of the photos for new. After we finished hanging the frames we got out our trusty level.

And here is our finished collage!

Thanks to a friend who told me about the Kirkland’s Friends and Family sale a few months ago, we found a great inexpensive mirror to hang in our foyer and help distribute the light from the window. Here is the empty wall before the mirror:

And after:

From the upstairs guest bedroom there is a nice view of the stairs from our new mirror.

In addition to the mirror, we also found an inexpensive painting to hang above my office door. I love the scene in the picture. It’s raining but the bright red umbrella looks so cheery. My mom also said that the couple in the photo remind her of BJ and me. 🙂 I would definitely wear that coat.

Here are a few more photos of our updated foyer, including BJ’s Formula One vintage wooden photo. I posted a photo of it on our Instagram.

How do you dress up a large wall? With photos, artwork, or both?

Lilies!

Posted on June 11, 2013 by Frame by Frame Style

Our lilies are blooming! Our lilies are blooming!

Can you tell that I’m excited? 🙂

I love spring/summer garden posts. It’s hard work maintaining a garden (as most of you know) so it’s always nice to share the fruits of our labor with those who enjoy/appreciate gardening.

I planted the lilies pictured below right after we moved into our house three years ago. Each year, the lilies keep getting bigger and more beautiful. The first to bloom this year is our stargazer lily.

I think the lilies below are called “razzle dazzles.” They are a deep rich red color, which I really like.

One of our tropical lilies is also blooming. Our red lily was the first to bloom this year. We also have a bright orange tropical lily.

We are still waiting for our orange tiger lily, day lily and orange tropical lily to bloom. More updates to come!

Getting Our Garden On: Take 2

Posted on June 3, 2013 by Frame by Frame Style

So our first go around at a vegetable garden didn’t work out as planned. Only a few of our seedlings survived the cold weather.

After a few weeks of rain and cold, our garden looked like this:

All of the seedlings except for our sweet corn and some of our herbs didn’t survive. We were also left with a lot of tiny weeds.

To replace our failed seedlings, I bought a selection of mature vegetables and some garden soil from the Home Depot. These vegetables (and technically “fruits”) came in really neat biodegradable pots that you can plant straight into the ground. To learn more about the biodegradable pots and how to plant them, check out the Bonnie Web site.

In addition to the mature plants, I also planted new green bean and red pepper seeds. I planted the seeds in garden soil in hopes that the rich soil will produce better results.

Our sweet corn stalks are doing really well despite a few cold days. The stalks are getting pretty tall compared to when we planted them.

How are your summer gardens going?

Before I wrap up this post, did you notice anything different about our photos? I’m working on some upgrades to Frame By Frame Style and this is the debut of our new photo tag. Hope you like it!

Geraniums, Gerberas, Petunias and a Calla Lily, Oh My!

Posted on May 28, 2013 by Frame by Frame Style

We hope you had a great Memorial Day weekend. BJ and I enjoyed a few days with my parents and even did a little mowing and gardening on Monday.

To catch you up on our outdoor projects, a few Sundays ago we had an incredibly productive day. We went to Lowes in the morning to pick up a few gardening supplies and flowers, and then we went home and started planting our vegetable garden and potting plants.

The same Sunday that I planted our vegetable garden (an update on that soon), I also planted the flower pots on our front porch.

BJ and I chose brightly colored gerberas daisies for our flower pots. Gerberas daisies are one of my favorite flowers! BJ and I love the bright colors, which is why we also chose them as our wedding flowers.

Earlier this Spring, my mom brought us two old ceramic pots that she stained in ceramic class when I was a little girl. We’ve had these pots in our family for a long time and my grandmother also has a set.

When my mom offered the ceramic pots to us, I immediately thought to use them to dress up our back patio, however, after I potted them, I liked them better for our front porch. I chose geraniums for the pots in red in white.

The Monday night following our productive Sunday, I planted petunias in the flowers beds out front.

We had such great luck with our petunias last year that I decided to plant even more this year. Yesterday, I planted pink petunias to go along with the purple and fuchsia candy-striped petunias I planted two weeks ago.

While I was planting yesterday, I also added this beautiful calla lily to our garden.

I think our front two gardens might be complete for a few months. 🙂 Now we just have to maintain them throughout the summer.

Here’s a view of our two front gardens. We’re building some pretty nice curb appeal!

Fireplace Spruce Up

Posted on April 27, 2013 by Frame by Frame Style

Happy Saturday! I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend so far. We’ve been busy working on DIY projects and plans and I will have new posts to share with you soon.

Before we dive into our latest projects, I wanted to share some small decor upgrades we made to spruce up the look of our fireplace.

I found this large blue vase and sand blasted milk jug at Target during their Threshold sale a few weeks go. I’ve had my eye on the blue vase for a while and when it went on sale, (and I had a coupon) I couldn’t resist bringing it and the milk jug home.

After we added the vase and milk jug to the area in front of the fireplace, I decided to swap the flowers in the tall vases for white dahlias.

The yellow bloom twigs in the large blue vase came from Michael’s.

I like varying depths and dimensions that the vases add to the space. And Zoey’s blanket basket is still close by so she can sleep in one of her favorite spots.

Going Green for Earth Day 2013

Posted on April 22, 2013 by Frame by Frame Style

Happy Earth Day 2013!

I got an early start on our Earth Day celebrations this weekend by purchasing fresh flowers and house plants and planting a seed starter kit for our vegetable/herb garden.

On Friday afternoon, I stopped by the grocery store and decided that it would be nice to have fresh flowers for the weekend. I picked up these daisies and arranged them in Ball jars to use as coffee table decorations. They went perfectly with our West Elm owl, Threshold coasters and West Elm tray.

I also brought home fresh tulips for the kitchen and arranged them in our bright green vase.

On Saturday, I made a trip to Home Deport and found some gerbera daisy annuals for our kitchen. The flowers and their brightly colored pots (which we already owned) add vibrance to our kitchen while helping with our air quality. Very Earth Day appropriate!

I also picked up a few foliage plants including this prayer plant and palm.

We decided to kick-start our vegetable/herb garden by purchasing a Burpee seed starting kit. You can find these kits at places like Target or Home Depot. The kit is really easy to set up and even includes a QR code on the package that you can scan to watch a “how to” video.

I planted 12 different rows of vegetables and herbs in our seed starter. Hopefully, in a few weeks we will have little seedlings ready to plant outside.

The seed starter can be stored inside in direct sunlight or under a grow light. If it’s nice enough, you can also store the starter outside in direct sunlight. Since we still have the lingering possibility of a freeze over the next week or so, our seed starter is seeking refuge in the loft window.

How are you celebrating Earth Day this year?

Photo Finish

Posted on March 7, 2013 by Frame by Frame Style

A little over a week ago, we added three new frames to our stairway wall. The top right frame was based on a pin I found on Pinterest. I made the printed quote using Pages on my computer and then I printed my design on to plain white paper or you can also use card stock.

On the other side of our stairway, we already have several small frames lining the wall. Eventually, we will add to these small photos and make this collection more of a collage of photos.

Speaking of collages… Our collage on the foyer wall looks like it needs a few more photos to continue on to our stairway wall. Right now it looks like something is missing from the top left corner of the foyer wall.

I bought a few frames during our last trip to Ikea that I was planning to use in our bedroom, but now a few of those frames may find a different home in the foyer. It’s time to get out the paper and painter’s tape and start planning the blending of our two collages!

Do you have any projects planned for this weekend?