operation; make house a home...

well hello there. this week has been wonderful. i have had a little time off from work, and i have focused my energy on making our house feel like a home. we have been living in this house since last june, and it felt and looked like we just moved in. we had nothing on the walls, there was no color or personality and it was driving me bonkers! but now, all of that has changed, hip hip hooray!

now, mind you, we are on a pretty tight budget right now with all of the upcoming trips, and the wedding, duh. so i had to get a little creative and re-invent some things that had been nestled away in our basement. i finally got around to framing some prints i got from etsy, and i cut some pictures out of books and had them framed too. i spray-painted random things i got from markets and thrift stores, and i bought 2 plants! they are the very first plants i have ever bought in my life, and i am kind of scared. i feel bad for them, because i will undoubtedly find a way to kill them, accidentally of course. but for now they are a loverly addition, and bring a little life to our home.

so enough talk, here are some picture i took with my new macbook pro! not the greatest quality photos, but hey, who cares...

as you can see, i am REALLY excited about the changes. maybe a little too excited...

i got some new curtains that i am still on the fence about. they are growing on me though.

and the funny little nook finally got some attention. we still have no idea why this nook is here. i have dreams of making it a cushy/comfy reading room, but for now it is the record player nook.

so yeah, like i said, not the best pictures. but you get the point. right?

and in other news, we got our first gift from our registry today! so exciting! but now this means i have to start "thank you" notes. A small price to pay for people buying you things that you really want... a price i will happily pay :)

and one last note. i LOVE LOVE LOVE these flowers:

and i LOOOOOVE these colors. and her dress. and her flowers.

alright, now time to go hang out with my future sister-in-law who is visiting us from oklahoma! yeah! Bisous!

xoxoxo

some r&r...

yeah for mini-vacations! jonathan and i just got back for portland,OR for some much needed rest, relaxation, and voodoo doughnuts (i'll tell you what those are in just a sec). i feel like both of us have been so busy and sleep deprived lately, so we took advantage of some time off to reconnect and get away from computers and jobs. we stayed at our favorite place in portland, the ace hotel which coincidentally was filled with decor inspiration for the wedding. let me show you what i mean...

i absolutely love the lobby of the ace. open, airy, cozy and modern. my favorite part was the centerpiece on the gigantic coffee table. it was all greenery, no flowers, and it was beautiful. they had an old bell jar filled with this grassy stuff, little potted succulents, and vintage hardware. easy, and cost efficient. yeah!

i was also in love with the floor to ceiling book shelves. i have been planning on using old books as decoration for a while, but it was nice to see how beautiful they can really look. they can add a pop of color without flowers.

and of course a photo booth, duh. i am so so so so excited about having a photo booth at our wedding reception! we have stayed at this hotel once before, and one of the main reasons i wanted to go back was for this little guy. those black & white strips of pictures make me happy. i would show you the pictures we took in it, but i can't figure out how to make the scanner work. so that will have to wait for jonathan to get home and figure that out...

so like i said, we made relaxation a priority. we slept in, took naps, and spent a lot of time just lying in bed staring out the window...

but between naps, we had to eat. this is a shot from our fancy night out...

these are our not-so-fancy-meals. we took advantage of portlands vast array of food trailers and had some tasty thai food.

jonathan indulged in a "man-cake" for one breakfast. it was bigger than his head...

and then of course, we ate LOTS of voodoo doughnuts. some of their creations include the maple bacon bar, glazed buttermilk biscuit, doughnuts topped with cocopuffs and cap'n crunch, and the list goes on... all are delicious. literally the first thing on our agenda was to buy a dozen doughnuts to keep in the hotel room for snacking. yeah, it was awesome.

so that is a very short summary of our trip. we didn't take many digital pictures, but i will post some more photos i took with my holga tlr as soon as i figure out how to scan them...

please have a wonderful night/morning/ afternoon/evening and we shall meet again soon. i will leave you with this happy spot we found in portland, right off of a street named "lovejoy." perfection.

bisous!

xoxoco