Modern House Minimalist Design

 I am so excited! Not quite a year ago we received an e-mail from an editor at Better Homes and Gardens saying they were interested in photographing our home for their 2012 Christmas Ideas issue and a few days later spoke with her on the phone. As a girl, I never dreamed of being a movie star or any of other "normal" things,  I dreamed of being the first girl in the NBA (I snort now at such a thought) and of having my home be featured in a magazine...yeah, I was a very strange kid. =) And even though it was my dream I never thought it would actually happen. Even after speaking to them, I kept thinking it was too good to be true or at some point they would call and say they had changed their mind. After they came and photographed our home back in January I still kept thinking maybe once they saw the finished photos they would realize our little townhome didn't belong in a magazine and tell me they'd made a mistake, so it wasn't until I saw a proof earlier t...

  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. N...

As if I have all the time in the world  to not only create real cookies with my "real" hands in my "real" kitchen but to create some "virtual" cookies with my fingers and my keyboard and the help of BHG.  Tonight  I found this really cool way of wasting half an hour icing virtual cookies.  My first attempts were a bit wonky, I am certainly better with a paintbrush, but by the third cookie I had got the hang of it. If you click on my cookie it will take you to the link at Better Homes and Gardens, who thought up this time stealing but fun idea! You basically choose from a sidebar menu your cookie shape, star, angel, tree, snowman, gingerbread man etc, then you pipe around the edges with your chosen colour,  fill in with icing (again your chosen colour), choose your sprinkles, then your background and voila! a "virtual" Christmas cookie. So after you've read this post and looked at the real cookies, click on the cookie below or "here"...

I am still posting away at bedroom ideas and absolutely brimming with them after spending a few hours searching out possible headboard ideas for my own bedroom.  I have an incredible amount of patience when it comes to my paintings, dogs and children of any age, but absolutely none when it comes to finishing off my bedroom.  I feel like I have plonked a new bed in a newly carpeted and curtained room and camped out in it for the past year, no accessories, pillows, pictures or lamps and it's these finishing touches that make a house a home. I am now consequently rushing around purchasing those items that will make me proud to put  before and after photos on my blog.  I want my bedroom to feel fresh, restful and French, with a touch of "country". One friend after viewing my blog said you do seem to like the French touch, after you add some French pillows to your bed all you need is a French man, I had to giggle at that comment! Actually the only French male to have made...