by Alaina | Mar 21, 2021 | Sunday Scripture
“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”
John 15:5 NIV
We have a Red Lab named Rosie- let me rephrase that: we have the most adorable dog on the planet, her name is Rosie, and we love her very much. My husband and I may or may not talk to her more than we talk to each other; but hey to each their own!
One of the cutest things about her is that she has a toy rope that she is obsessed with- if she isn’t laying at our feet then she can usually be found chewing on her rope.
If we see her walking around without her rope and we ask her,”Rosie, where is your rope?!” She stops, looks at us, looks around and then goes running off to find her rope. Sometimes it takes her a couple minutes to find but typically she comes running back with a “smile” on her sweet face, rope in mouth ready to play! Occasionally though, we see her laying down trying to grab it from under the couch- her precious rope just out of reach, then we have to get down on hands and knees and help slide it out for her. If we don’t do this she will be there for a very long time, perhaps taking a break to come up to us and try to lead us over to where the rope is stuck. She does this, continually, trying to get our attention until we realize that she needs our help! She will try to grab it but once she sees she can’t she comes to us for help liberating her rope!
I think our journey of faith can be much the same. God will plant a passion in our hearts, leading us on a path, but that doesn’t mean the path will always be smooth. We will run into roadblocks and try as we might we may not be able to get around it and solve the problem on our own. I notice though, at least for me, even though I know that I can do nothing without Him I end up trying and trying to do the thing He has set before me, banging my head off the wall, trying to do it on my own. Ultimately I have to remember who placed these desires in My heart to begin with. He never intended for me to do it by myself! Just as my dog needs our help to retrieve her toy, so we also need God’s help to overcome any obstacle in our lives. We try so often to solve things on our own and in our own way, when if we would only surrender sooner and ask God for help He would come to our rescue and deliver us.
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by Alaina | Mar 19, 2021 | Decorating, Homemaking
We recently redid our floors in our home. Then I decided to paint another room. Then I decided to get serious about furnishing another room . . . which led to wanting to “tweak” (redo) the decor in my guest room/office. And then our bedroom needed some attention. Over the course of all this I realized that—alas!—I still have a lot to learn about furnishing my home! But, I also realized that I have learned a lot already about how to start decorating a room.
The first thing I learned was that I have done it all wrong.
Oh yes, I have read the books, listened to the podcasts and know all about the “right way” of tackling something of this nature but then . . . I got a little ahead of myself and ended up with four rooms 90% of the way finished and wondered what in the world was I thinking when I bought those curtains—do I even have a room they would work in???
The experts say when redoing a room or tackling a house to try to work on finishing one room first, then you know you have one room that looks the way you want it before moving on to tackling another project. If you are moving into a home that you plan on doing some major remodeling (in our home we redid the kitchen cabinets and flooring), you may have to get a little out of order before you can then start with the fun decorating—rugs, lamps, wall decor, etc. If you are needing a couch, a table, end tables, and everything in between, I would suggest you furnish the necessities first and then start with the smaller, more fun decorating pieces room by room. BUT, before you buy the first cute couch you see: stop, make a plan, and then proceed.
What if you aren’t starting from scratch?
In our bedroom, for example, I recycled the curtains from our former house. They are working. And I moved a rug from a different room into our bedroom, and while I did purchase a duvet for our bed, I’m thinking it will be moving into another bedroom which means I will have to buy a new one for our room. So, I am now at a crossroads in our bedroom decorating and there are some questions I need to ask myself:
· What do I want the feel of our bedroom to be?
· Do I love the pieces we currently have enough to decorate around them?
You may already have pieces that you can use in a room but if you aren’t loving them already, you won’t love them after you have decorated the whole room around them. You will just be out more time and money and will only have a room that you still aren’t thrilled with. Don’t fall into the trap of saying to yourself that you have already spent so much time and/or money that you might as well invest more! If you don’t like something you already own—get rid of it. Try to sell it if you can and cut your losses!
Pick an Inspiration Image
Regardless of whether you are starting from scratch or already have a few items that you know you want to use, pick a piece to draw your inspiration from. Look on Pinterest and formulate an idea of what you want your room to feel like. Then look for one piece that embodies the look you are going for and start building your room from there. This may be a large piece like a rug or it may even be as small as a pillow!
My guest room/office was a good example of this. I hadn’t loved the paint color since we painted it when we moved in, but I also didn’t hate it. In the back of my mind I was thinking that I would like to paint it and had a general idea of what color I would go for; but, I felt no pressing need to immediately act. Until I found The Rug. I was innocently scrolling around on Pinterest and up pops this gorgeous rug! I clicked and to my delight I found that it came in the size I needed and it was on sale!
When I found the rug the rest of the room came into focus and I could picture the look and feel of the room. It established my guidelines for my room.
Our bedroom is working out much the same way. As I said already, I have a rug and curtains. The curtains were inexpensive and had been purchased several years ago so if I decide that they won’t work, I am totally fine with getting new ones as they have already had a good life. I also have the rug. It is fairly new and I do like it so I am going to use it for inspiration for the rest of the room.
I am not saying that every room you do you should pick a rug to build your decor around, but pick something!
In our other guest room I have curtains. Again, they are recycled from our former home, but I love them! When we moved into this house, I didn’t have anywhere to use them and was considering making accent pillows out of them. It didn’t happen and in the meantime I painted the guest room. It needed curtains. I came across the old ones and decided to see how they would look. They are perfect!! They are my inspiration for that room and I will build the rest of my prints and colors off of them.
Side note: I do have a color palette for my home (read my post “How to Create a Cohesive Color Palette” here) so, for the most part, I try to decorate within that color palette. However in my case, my two guest rooms are considerably smaller than every other room and because we live in a rural area with no close neighbors, I don’t use curtains in the main living area of my house. This means that things like curtains and rugs in the guest rooms will only be able to be interchanged with each other. I advise sticking with one color palette for your home but you can stray when it comes to guest rooms and certain pieces (like the examples I gave above) that may not work anywhere else in your house. Therefore you don’t need to tightly coordinate them if you don’t wish too. Just remember you’ll be more limited with what you can interchangeably move about your house.
Plan It Out
In the past I have bought things willy-nilly and been less than pleased when it all came together. I have now started in my mind roughly mapping out how I want it to look. If I see an item that I am needing, like a rug for example, yet don’t have a mental picture for the room, I hold off on buying anything until I decide what I want it to look like. Your inspiration piece can be the jumping off point, like my rug was, but I still didn’t buy it until I had thought through how everything else in the room would coordinate with it.
Have fun!
Try not to let yourself get stressed out. Stress is a creativity killer! If you are feeling too stressed to make a decision, then don’t. Wait until you are feeling calmer to resume looking at pictures and furnishings. I’m willing to gamble that it won’t be long before creativity strikes!
We want our homes to be reflections of us. We want them to be cohesive. We try to follow the rules. But, the only unbreakable rule in decorating is that you do what you love! Don’t confine yourself to the “decorating rules” if it is not you. Do what you love and love what you do! Happy decorating!!
by Alaina | Mar 16, 2021 | Book Nook
If there is one area of my life where I could possibly be a minimalist, it is in my clothing. I love the thought of looking at my closet and seeing only the things I absolutely love! I crave guidelines for curating my wardrobe to be full of pieces that I am excited to wear and am always on the lookout for new outfit “formulas” to fall back on for days when I am rushed or feeling uninspired. Culling through my wardrobe and fleshing out much needed pieces to make my wardrobe better suited to my life is what, The Curated Closet, by Anuschka Rees helped me to do!
The Curated Closet isn’t just another style book, or a book alerting you to the newest trends, instead this is a book about identifying your personal style and building a wardrobe that is timeless to you, built around your style, and usable for your everyday life.
Identifying Your Style
In the first part of the book, Ms Rees takes you through an in-depth study of your own style. She gives you assignments to complete that delve deep into finding and honing in on your specific style. She doesn’t just suggest looking on Pinterest for 20 minutes, rather gives you a step by step guide of where to look for style inspiration and gives you a guide for what to look for in order to identify your personal style. Then Ms Rees then walks you through step by step, how to do a complete overhaul of your closet.
Curate
Ms Rees helps you clarify what you need in your closet; if you work from home everyday you don’t need as many formal pieces, if you hardly ever get dressed up you don’t need a million different pairs of heels. This helps you look at your closet with a critical eye and see the holes in your wardrobe. Ms Rees stresses the importance of taking time to build the core of your closet around quality pieces- and not just rushing out to buy the item to fill the hole. You want the core pieces to be ones that last you because you have spent the time to make sure they are really pieces that you love, then you can spend less on pieces that aren’t essentially to your wardrobe.
Simplify
I started implementing the advice in The Curated Closet early last year, and looking back now I am pleased with how my wardrobe has evolved. I now have several good quality core pieces that I know I can fall back on to build an outfit. I have invested in a few better quality pieces that I know I will have for a long time, and while there are still a few more core items that are on my list that I would still like to get soon, I also know that taking my time to find them will pay off because taking extra time now will give me more time to mull over the decision and help eliminate buyers regret- I haven’t had any buyers regret over the core pieces I have purchased to date!
Ms. Rees also sets forth several different methods to simply your wardrobe and make getting dresses easier. For example: how to build a color palette for your wardrobe, how to implement and use outfit formulas, and how to identify the quality of an item, (Hint: Quality has little correlation with price) and she provides a troubleshooting guide for common clothing issues and how to fix them- I loved this one!!
My Takeaways
These were my big takeaways from The Curated Closet, but another area that Ms Rees spent a lot of time covering is how to stop overspending on clothes- especially clothes you seldom wear! This section got a little bit lengthy for me and since I really don’t shop for clothes that often and therefore do not tend to overspend. I ended up skimming through that section of the book for the most part. I really appreciate the valuable information in this book and I think there is most likely at least a few nuggets of information that would be valuable for anyone- I even suggested to my husband that he might benefit from reading the section on building and identifying holes in your wardrobe!
If you are someone who struggles to find clothes that feel like you, or if you are someone who wants to simplify your wardrobe then I think there is a lot of valuable information tucked within the pages of this book, The Curated Closet, that you will benefit from reading, and if you do decide to read it let me know what you end up thinking of it!
by Alaina | Mar 14, 2021 | Sunday Scripture
Open my eyes so I can see what you show me of your miracle-wonders.
Psalm 119:18 The Message
Moses parting the Red Sea has always been one of my favorite Bible stories. It is amazing. Can you even imagine what it must have been like??? The Israelites are finally allowed to leave the land in which they had been enslaved for years. I like to imagine the excitement bubbling in the air as they made their way out of Egypt. They had been told such a day would come and now finally it had! But, of course, it wouldn’t be that simple. Pharaoh changed his mind and the Egyptian army comes after them as they are camped on the edge of the Red Sea. They start to panic—knowing they will all be killed or taken captive once again. Then God works a miracle. Moses stretches his hand out over the water and the water parts—an enormous wall on either side and, miracle of miracles, dry land appears in the middle! The wagons will be able to come through!!! Everyone makes it to the other side and just as the Egyptians are trying the same trick, the water comes crashing down.
We all know this story; indeed, most people who are not even Christ followers know this passage. It is hard to miss. But there is another passage like it that we do miss. After making it out of Egypt, safely crossing the Red Sea, and after wandering for 40 years in the wilderness, the Israelites are finally allowed to enter the promised land. For them to do so, God must part the water of the Jordan River for Joshua just like He did for Moses all those years ago. (Joshua 3) A second body of water was parted! We miss it though. We have heard about it being done before so we hardly take time to notice this second parting of a large body of water. We are numb to the miracle.
Why is this? Why is it so easy for us to overlook this miracle? And if we overlook this one, how many other hidden miracles do we miss? How many miracles happen in my life that I miss or take for granted? What day-to-day events do we dismiss as nothing when a miracle actually happened right before our eyes? The car that was speeding around the bend on the wrong side of the road that should have hit us. The medical scare that the doctors re-examine and are unable to find. All of these are miracles. But we dismiss them as nothing. We are skilled drivers and averted the accident. It was a misdiagnosis and that’s why the doctor couldn’t find anything. How many opportunities to honor and glorify God do we miss out on by discounting the miracles He puts in our path on a daily basis?
Yes, I know miracles are considered miracles because they aren’t supposed to happen all the time—or are they? The definition of the word miracle is: “a surprise and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divine agency.” (From Oxford Languages) What if instead of dismissing miracles as something God only does in the Bible, and maybe once per century now, what if we reveled in the event that turned out surprisingly good for no earthly reason we can credit. What if we looked at everything, not through the lens of what is comprehensible to our human brains, but rather through the lens of heaven, seeing all the times and chances that He protected us from threats we didn’t even know were there?
by Alaina | Mar 12, 2021 | Decorating, Homemaking
As I mentioned in my post, “How to Refresh Your Home for Spring,” I think spring and summer can be the most challenging seasons for which to decorate. Flowers are great, but when it’s March it can be difficult to feel like bringing a bunch of flowers into your house while there is still snow on the ground! This brings home the point of how important it is to have a strong base of staple decor. You may put your go-to’s away for a season or two, but you know they will be there when you need them! If you haven’t yet read my post, “Capsule Decor”, I suggest you read that post too as these two subjects go hand-in-hand!
Identify Your Style
First, you need to identify your personal decor style. What do you want your home to look and feel like? What do you already use and love using in your decor? These are the items that will be with you for the long haul. For example, I have a small dough bowl that my uncle made when he was young; it was my grandparents’ and was eventually passed down to me. I love it! Lately I have been really enjoying it on my entry table, but I could also use it on my kitchen counter or dining room table! I love this little bowl and I know I will use it regardless of what home I’m living in.
Your staple decor is not trendy. It will go where you go—in whatever home you live in! Your staple decor are the best friends out of your decor pieces—the ones that will be with you for the long haul! So you may be asking . . .
What Items Make Good Decor Staples?
Timeless Pieces
I think of staple pieces as the most timeless pieces you own. You don’t have these because they are trendy or because they are a specific style that you are trying to infuse into your home. Instead, these are pieces you love—that you will make sure if you move they will come too! It may be an antique mirror, a family heirloom, or a favorite piece of art. Regardless of what it is, it will be something you love!
Things Every Home Needs:
I want to be careful in saying what “every home needs,” because every home is different and styles differ from person-to-person, but on the whole these are the items that will help you add flair to your home. These items will help a collection of things to look styled rather than just bunched together and they may be items that you want just for practicality!
· Books: use as risers, as filler in vignettes, and on your coffee table.
· Plants: every house needs a little plant or two. Go faux if you really can’t keep plants alive.
· Trays: a good tray works magic! I’m always on the lookout for a good tray because it seems every time I turn around I’m wishing I had *just* one more.
· Candles: again, fill out vignettes, place on a book, or add a little glow to your kitchen.
· Candle sticks and pillars: these help add finishing touches to your home.
· A good piece of art or family picture: this is probably the easiest way to express your style in one fell swoop. Nothing says you like one statement piece of your choosing. While family pictures are a great way to add personality to a room, if not done well, it can feel a bit dated. If you want to go bold with a statement piece that isn’t a family picture, go for a painting, botanical prints, an old map, or a vintage poster.
· Pinecones, moss balls, or twine balls: these will help fill out a vignette or table center piece.
· A few different size cutting boards or charcuterie trays: use them behind your faucet as they are easier to wash than your backsplash. You can set your kitchen soaps on a small cutting board to make them look more like an intentional gathering. And, have a cutting board or two handy so when you get the whim to cut carrot sticks, you can act before the moment passes!
Where to Use Staple Items
Ok, you have the staple items but now what? Why do you have all these things??? You have them so you can use them of course! A tray, a few books, and a candle, picture frame, or plant make a lovely vignette for your end table. A tray can add some class to that mess of bottles on your bathroom counter. Having a variety of staple items in your home helps to give your decorating flexibility and not get stale. You can switch things up when you start to get bored, or you can keep things the same all year if you would rather not be bothered. Which leads to the next thing to consider when purchasing staple items . . .
A Few Rules for Staple Decor
Buy neutrals or only the colors that you absolutely, positively, know that you will love forever! Buying neutrals, or colors that you love and use all over your home allows you to be able to move items from room-to-room, and will still work as your style evolves. Check out my post, “How to Create a Cohesive Color Palette” here. If you are debating between a really modern, trendy piece and one that is clean-lined and classic, I would go with the classic one and save the trends for a piece you know you will tire of before too long.
Refreshing Staple Pieces
You may have pieces that you bought and loved but now the color or the finish isn’t to your taste—or perhaps you are just bored with it—don’t forget what simple things like a coat of paint, switching out hardware or knobs, or reupholstering or recovering can do!
I hope this helps you to think through your decor and overcome any decorating obstacles you may have been having. Remember, a good base is the foundation of great style. Happy decorating!
