New Giveaway!!!

We're excited to announce our latest giveaway!  The folks over at http://www.uprinting.com/ have graciously gifted us with a set of 250 Die Cut Business Cards and they're ready to send you a set as well!

Check out the details:

250 Die Cut Business Cards

2 x 3.5”, 2 x 2” (square card) or 1.75 x 3.5” (slim card)
Die cutting options available: Rounded Corners, Leaf, Rounded One-Corner, Half-Circle Side, Circle
Paper Type: 14pt Cardstock Gloss, Matte, or High Gloss; 13pt Cardstock Uncoated
Color: 4Color Front, Blank Back; 4Color Front, Black Back; 4Color Both Sides

Here's how you can win:

1. Become a follower of Our Fine House and leave us a comment telling us why you would love to win these business cards. (This is a mandatory entry).
2. Become a follower of Our Fine House on Facebook by clicking the Facebook link to the right of this post and "liking" us. Please leave us a comment letting us know that you have become a Facebook follower. (This is a bonus entry).
3. Blog about our giveaway on your blog. Please leave us a comment with the link to your blog post. (This is a bonus entry).

The winner will be announced on September 10th, 2010.

This giveaway is limited to US residents who are 18 years old and above.
 
Good luck!

Please note that for hosting this giveaway, Uprinting is gifting us with a set of 250 Die Cut Business Cards.

How do you light up?

Is anyone else in love with hanging lanterns? Hanging lamps, lanterns and lights are something that we can't get enough of. We are constantly adding to our backyard collection.

Aren't these gorgeous?

Dinner and drinks under these lanterns? Yes, please!

How about you? How do you decorate your outside space? Do you prefer the flickering of candlelight? Or is a strand of white Christmas lights more your style? Do tell!

Exciting News!

Our Fine House is now on Facebook! We just created our Facebook page and we're so excited to get started.  We plan to share some great DIY projects, host giveaways and share photos of ongoing projects, so please stop by and "Like" us.  You can access our page by clicking on the link to the right of this post.

See you on Facebook!

Beautiful Backyard Before & After

We're so excited to share this backyard overhaul with you!  Take a look at these amazing Before & After photos that were sent to us from a reader.

Michelle's backyard was boring and blah.

With the lack of landscaping, her pool was less than inviting.

So the renovation began!

And now, she has a BEAUTIFUL backyard!

With a new patio, grass and awning, her backyard is now wonderfully inviting!

Lemonade, anyone?

Michelle, thank you for sharing your Backyard Re-do with us. You did a great job!

Our DIY Air Plant Terrariums

We love having plants in our home and unfortunately our cats feel the same way.  Our cats are always chewing on our plants and we're constantly trying to find new ways to keep our plants out of harm's way.  Recently, I came up with an idea that allows us to keep our plants from being chew toys . . . Hanging Terrariums!

For this project, you'll need Hanging Candle Holders from CB2, Sand, Air Plants and Shells.

Fill your Candle Holder with sand and carefully place your Air Plant inside.

Scatter a few shells inside. You can also use small pieces of coral or driftwood.

Take a step back and admire your work.

Beautiful!

Next, hang your new creation in a place where you will be able to admire often.

Ours hang in our kitchen window. We plan to make a few more using succulents from our garden. How about you? Do you have a green thumb? Or do you prefer plants of the silk variety?

Wine Racks? Wine Not?

The last time that you took a peak at our wine storage, it looked like this:

Our needs have *ahem* changed and our "wine nook" now looks like this:

Now that we've added wine racks, we can almost house all of our wine.

I know we've been absent lately, but I promise that we have a ton of exciting things coming up. Our Living Room reveal is next week and I'm so excited to hear ideas from all of my fellow bloggers about how we can make our room better.

Achieving the Shabby Chic Look

We love questions from readers! Let's kick off the week by seeing if we can help Kristen with her design dilemma.

Kristen writes:

Hi Jen,


I was wondering if you or some of the other followers on your blog might have some ideas for my apartment...I'm looking to do all the rooms "Shabby Chic". Also, I love your idea of make the place "your own", and want to incorporate memories throughout the house as you have done with yours. I'm not really creative, but you have given me a ton of inspiration....

Kristen, Thank you so much for writing! We have plenty of ideas to share with you. Lucky for you, achieving the "Shabby Chic" look can be quite easy and affordable. You can definitely work with what you already have or you can buy a few key pieces from estate sales, flea markets or thrift stores. Shabby Chic is all about distressed furniture and white or pastel colors.

Try painting your furniture pieces a beautiful, creamy white. After the pieces are dry, use sand paper to distress the corners and edges. Adding glass or crystal knobs would be a really nice touch.

A few throw pillows in pretty pastels or white lace would add a Shabby Chic look to your couch or bed. Check out the great bedding that Target has! They have a whole line of beautiful, Shabby Chic bedding.

Find a chandelier at a thrift store and tweak it a bit to fit your new Shabby Chic style. You may even be able to find a great chandelier at Ikea! (Take a look at this little gem). A coat of cream colored spray paint would be an easy and inexpensive way to change it's look to something more your style.

A great way for you to incorporate memories into your decorating is by adding photos. Buy a variety of frames in different sizes, shapes and designs. To unify their look, give them a coat of paint and a quick distressing. Then, you'll have a gorgeous collection of Shabby Chic frames to display all of your special photos.

Want another great way to make the space your own? Find wood cut-outs of your initials and paint them white. Then, hang them on the wall using a beautiful, satin ribbon.

Kristen, we hope this helps. Readers, do you have any other great ideas to share?

Personalizing a Home

When we have guests over, we are often complimented about how personal our space feels.  It's true, our home is very personalized! We've never purchased art for our walls, instead we prefer to create our own pieces of art or frame photos that we've taken. None of our "knick knacks" are pieces that were purchased exclusively to decorate our home. Every piece that we have decorated with means something to us and has played some role in our relationship. Take a look below at some of the things that we've done to personalize our home.

These silver letters were used to decorate the candy buffet that we had on our wedding day. Today, they reside on a shelf in our living room.

These candle holders were a wedding gift from a family member. We've filled them with shells that we have collected on vacations over the years.  Every time we pass them, we think of Hawaii.

Since our last name begins with an H, we use H's throughout our home. We have monogrammed towels, pillowcases, etc. Can't get enough H's!

These branches are from the trees in our front yard. A quick coat of spray paint made them glisten and they now have a home in my closet, right next to the "H" we used to top our wedding cake.

Now that you know some of our decorating secrets, spill some of yours! How do you personalize your space?

Cupcakes and Cocktails Bridal Shower

Winner Announcement

The winner of our Greeting Card Giveaway is . . .

Kristen, who said that she has saved EVERY birthday card she has ever received since she was 5 years old. Thanks for entering! Enjoy your greeting cards!

Jolie's Laundry Room Remodel

I've been MIA for the past week as I prep for a bridal shower that I'm hosting this weekend. I can't wait to share all of the beautiful projects that I've been working on for the bride's special day. My posts next week will be all about the party.

Recently, I came across an amazing blog that I would love to share. Jolie, over at Shopping Candy has been decorating her first new home and is sharing the progress on her wonderful blog.

Check out her Laundry Room Remodel below.

Before:

After:

Gorgeous, right? Swing by her blog and have a peak. You'll probably want to browse all day!!

Greeting Card Giveaway!!

This Giveaway is Now Closed.

We have a wonderful new giveaway, courtesy of the folks over at Digital Room. If you haven't checked out Digital Room yet, then you really should mosey on over. They're a great source for online printing. Whether you are interested in business cards, calenders, wall graphics or greeting card printing, they're the place to go!


Digital Room will be giving one lucky winner a set of 50 7 x 5 Folded Cards with Plain Envelopes. All you need to do is think of what great photo or design you'd like printed on the cards! Maybe a "Thank You" card for friends that just attended your fabulous Summer BBQ? How about cards printed with your favorite picture? Or maybe you want to get a jump start on your holiday printing and get some Christmas cards in the works!

Here's how you can enter for a chance to win:

1. Become a follower of this blog. (Required entry). If you are already a follower, leave us a comment telling us so.
2. Leave us a comment telling us what kind of cards you'd like to have printed. (Bonus entry).
3. Leave us a comment telling us if you keep all of the greeting cards you receive. If you do keep them, what do you do with them? Are they put away in a box? A scrapbook? (Bonus Entry).

The winner will be randomly selected on Monday, the 19th.

This giveaway is open to U.S. residents who are 18 years and older only.


Good luck!!

Twinkle, Twinkle Little Solar Powered Firefly

If you grew up in an area with fireflies, this may be something that interests you!! Humble Earth Productions has created an Electric Firefly. Humble Earth's Fireflies are solar powered and begin flashing at twilight and continue to flicker their cute, green light for a few hours. I haven't purchased any yet, but would love to hang some from the trees in our backyard. If you want to check them out, visit the website here.

Would you buy your dog a mansion?

Apparently, even in this economy, people are still finding the money to spoil their dogs. I keep stumbling across stories about Dog Mansions. I have to admit, these houses look cool, but would you ever spend a fortune buying your dog a house like one of these?

We're Featured!!

This past Sunday, Our Fine House was featured as a Guest Blogger over at Cassiopeia Chats. If you haven't checked out Cassiopeia yet, you should head on over! The website is full of fun tips!!


And while you're blog surfing, stop by Strictly Simple Style. Karen over at Strictly Simple Style just tackled a silver leafing project that turned out gorgeous. Every time I read her blog, I'm inspired to start a new project. Stop by and take a look!

S'more Cupcakes, Please!

The Summer wouldn't be complete without S'mores! And in this case . . . S'more Cupcakes!! Our 4th of July BBQ Bash was a success, and these S'more Cupcakes were quite the hit! Follow along, I'll tell you how I made these little beauties.

First, I crushed some graham crackers for the delicious crust. To make 24 cupcakes, you'll need about 1 1/2 cups of crushed crackers. (That's about 1 package). Mix the crushed grahams with 1 cup of sugar and 5 tablespoons of butter. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
Then, press about a tablespoon of the yummy crumbs into your lined cupcake tins. It's best to press the crumbs down firmly with a shotglass, (preferably one from your wild college years, as seen below). After pressing the crumbs and reminiscing about your wild child days, put the cupcake tin in the oven for about 5 minutes. When they are done in the oven, fill 2/3 of the way with chocolate cake mix. Then, pop them back in the oven until they are finished baking.

After cooling, use an apple corer to remove the center of your cupcakes. I'm sure you'll find something to do with all of those delicious cupcake middles.

Then, fill each hole with marshmallow fluff. I put the fluff in a plastic bag and snipped the corner off. Who needs a fancy pastry bag?

Next, frost with chocolate frosting and decorate.

Then, invite friends over to help you eat these little beauties, because you won't want to be alone in the house with them!

ENJOY!!