Kitchen Makeover - Before & After!

warning: LOTS of pictures ahead!!! it pains me to show you these before pictures - that's how much i hated it. promise we can still be friends afterwards! here goes..

BEFORE:





....aaaaaaannnnndddd AFTER!









i think it is sooo much warmer and feels both bigger and more cozy at the same time. obviously, we still need to put some stuff on the walls. i have a couple of things picked out, but it involves a road trip to cincinnati for me to get both of them. overall - i'm kind of in love with this room now! what do you think??

what's dominating my time?

THIS MESS:




remember that kitchen makeover i was hoping for? yeah, well, it's in full effect. before and after pictures to come soon...(hopefully)...

2010: Show me the MONEY!

for some reason, i always think of "resolution" as such a dirty word, so like a lot of other people, we are just going to set some "goals" for 2010 instead. one of our biggest goals this year is to SAVE MONEY!! we aren't doing anything drastic, just making some little changes that will hopefully go a long way!

one of my friends, mandy, always seems to find the best coupon deals and i read about them on her blog and on facebook, so yesterday i decided to ask her for her secrets! i was curious about joining "the grocery game" (which requires a paid membership) but she helped me learn that there are a lot of free resources out there that give you the same information! since there are SO many of the coupon/deal websites out there, i was so happy that she was able to give me a few of her favorites. here are the sites:

www.hip2save.com
www.moneysavingmom.com
www.kcpennypinchinmama.com
www.mommysnacks.net
www.mymemphismommy.com
www.stlmommy.com

(p.s. - if you don't have meijer, kroger, etc. i have seen a TON of other coupon sites for the publix & bi-lo stores as well as the west coast stores like albertsons, vons, ralph's, etc.)

so, armed with my artillery of websites, i sat down for about 3 hours last night and worked out my "game plan." it probably wouldn't have taken so long but i was reading EVERYTHING on these websites, and making a ton of notes. i went out on my shopping trip this morning and my 2 stops were target and meijer. since i am a newbie at this heavy-duty couponing, i forgot to take pictures of what i bought! i will say that i definitely had a full and somewhat over-flowing cart of stuff at meijer, and it was about twice the volume of stuff that i normally buy. here is what my receipt looked like:



that is definitely an impressively long receipt in this household! so, how much did all that stuff cost? well, when the cashier originally rang it up, it was a few cents under $70. After all of my coupons... it was... $33.00!!!!! That means that I SPENT $33 and SAVED $37!!!!! at target, I only had to buy a few things (12 pack of pepsi max, granola bars, green tea) but my total was $3.73 after my $3.80 in coupons!!!

i'm going to keep a running tally of my coupon savings on my sidebar so that i can keep track of our savings! is anyone else starting a 2010 savings plan of their own?

2009 in pictures

i have LOVED seeing everyone's "2009 in pictures" posts so much that i decided that i needed to do one of my own! it seems like a lot of people didn't really enjoy 2009, but i absolutely loved it. yes, the economy sucked and we felt it just like everyone else... but for us, the good definitely outweighed the bad in 2009. here are some fun pics and highlights of our 2009!

the ice storm/blizzard of january 2009:


finishing our wedding invitations after MONTHS of work:


we bought our first house!


my bachelorette party in chicago:



GETTING MARRIED in may!




honeymooning in maui:




MEETING DAVE MATTHEWS!!!!


uk basketball becomes first team to get 2000 wins!


this, in a very tiny little nutshell, sums up my 2009! i hope that everyone's year was just as blessed and eventful as ours was. have a safe and happy new year's eve- and best wishes to all of you in 2010!

kitchen confessions

i hate my kitchen. i know, hate is a strong word, but not strong enough to express how i feel about our kitchen. to make matters worse, i picked out everything for our kitchen LESS THAN A YEAR AGO. our house is barely a year old, and we have lived here for 10 months. over those ten months, i kept telling myself that i would "get used to" the horrible, horrible color mistakes that i made in the kitchen. buuuut, that didn't happen; i only grew to loathe the space more and more. the room was such a beast to paint that my poor husband laughs nervously everytime i talk about my desire to re-paint the kitchen. he thinks i'm kidding. i hate it so much that i'm not going to post pictures of it, but they are obviously spread throughout this blog for anyone who wants to look at them and feel thankful for their own kitchen.

that being said, there are structural and design parts of the kitchen that i DO like. i love the dark wood cabinets, i love the picture window with window seat, i love the big open wall, i love the stainless steel appliances and i'm okay with the tile and countertops. so basically, everything i hate about my kitchen lies completely in what i have done to it. i blew it. and, anyone who knows me will know that admitting defeat is not something that i do on a regular basis.

so i have begun scouring the internet and various design magazines in hopes of finding some inspiration for our 2010 kitchen makeover that my husband still may or may not be aware of. my question to you, my dear readers, is: what online sites do you use for home decor inspiration? it is a little overwhelming to begin this search because there are SO many options. to be honest, as far as our home goes, i normally just get an idea in my head and go with it and 90% of the time, we end up loving it. our current kitchen would be the other 10%.

please answer my cry for help!! what are some of your favorite sites for inspiration?

Our Home for the Holidays...

Welcome to our Christmas home tour! Whether you are a regular reader, or your visiting via The Nester's Christmas Tour of Homes, we're glad you stopped by! I will be short and sweet since these tour posts are all about the pictures! Hope you enjoy our home tour... have a very Merry Christmas!

Our First Married Christmas Card!

I was sooo excited to see the UPS man show up today because I knew he would be bringing our Christmas cards with him! After searching high and low on every card-selling website that I know, I ended up creating our cards on Shutterfly. I decided on Shutterfly because they met all of the items on my wish list for our Christmas cards. I wanted our cards to be: photo cards, less than $100 total (for around 40 cards), good quality and just plain CUTE! Here is what we came up with:





(sorry about the photo quality - it was hard to figure out the flash on these!)

I am SO THRILLED with how these turned out because as much as I love the design, I was SO afraid of what kind of quality the paper was going to be when they arrived. Honestly, I could not have been more impressed with them. And no, Shutterfly isn't paying me to say this - although that would be great! ha ha! I chose the "matte" option because I am personally not a fan of the photo paper cards (nothing against them, I just never end up picking them!) These are very heavyweight and come with envelopes that are equally as heavy.

I ended up ordering 40 cards and paid less than $60 including shipping. I googled
"Shutterfly coupons" and found a % off coupon and a free shipping coupon and was able to use both.

And of COURSE I will be using Preppy Bride Design calligraphy to address them ;)