Nostalgic "Milk" glasses from starbucks frappichino jars

I was wanting to pick up some of those old time milk glasses for my Saturday Family Brunches. I was scouring the thrift stores and antique shops and then inspiration struck me like a bolt of caffeine! The perfect "milk" jar was sitting in my fridge. I peeled the label off, used some goo gone to get the residue off, added a plastic striped straw and voila! Breakfast is served!

DIY Earring Holder

Behold, the vintage shutter. A.K.A.-- earring holder.

Picked this beauty up for about $3 at a local antique dealer. I knew exactly what to do with it when I bought it- earring holder. I kept it as-is with it's well worn scrapes and bruises, that is of course the beauty of buying antique. Although, I made one modification- I hot glued one of the shutters so that it wouldn't flip down when I hung my heavy earrings on it.

This is one of those five min projects that you can do to add a little spruce to your earring displays. You could also replace the knob or hot glue a vintage cameo or button over the current knob.

My previous "earring organization" was a couple of cardboard jewelry boxes. But sweet earrings like this shouldn't be thrown in a cardboard box! They deserve the royal treatment.

Definitely a fun project to do over the weekend. Your earrings have been waiting for this kind of treatment!

Cookies and Milk

I told Greg I would make him cookies and milk and I thought I would make it extra special. It's the little details that make the difference!

New Years Letter 2010

Since the year 2001 I have written a letter to myself every New Years to be read the following year. It is a wonderful, quaint tradition in which I am magically surprised about how "right on" I was the previous year about the direction I felt my life was heading. I always like to start my letters by saying, "What wonders this new year will hold, if only you knew then what you know now..." It's kind of like a time capsule of sorts- peering into the future and describing what we see there. Some of my friends have adopted this tradition and it has been a moving experience for them. One said, "It was one of the most crazy, life changing, amazing things I have ever done. When I read the letter to myself, I couldn't help but cry. I had done everything that I had hoped."

I like to close each letter to myself with ten wishes that I hope for the coming year. It may be things like; I wish I would become a more peaceful person or I wish that I would look back on this year and be pleased. These are not so much "goals" (I do write those up every year) but more attributes that I hope when I look back on the passing of a year that I would have amassed into my character.

This is a wonderful tradition to incorporate in your New Years traditions, and to help spur you on I have designed some fab stationary you can print off to begin your own New Years Letter. I made two different versions this year as I always have requests from the gents to not make things girly. Here is what they both look like:

Click Here to download and enjoy!

I would love to hear from some of you who did this last year and see what your thoughts were when you read your letter!

Here we come!

{via I Can Read}

Reach for the moon

"Reach for the moon, even if you fail you'll land among the stars..." 

Keep dreaming because anything is possible.  

{Image via Lennebelle}

House of Blues

So, everyone knows from my "White House" post that I would love to live in an all white house and I got such positive feed back from it via emails, facebook, etc. that I thought it may be fun to post a few more house interiors of all one color. I now present to you...Drum roll please...

 "The House of Blues"

{All photos via House of Turquoise or Baca Creative}

Now for the house tour... I'd like to say that this home is a mix of contemporary and vintage which seems to be my specialty. First, Let's head to the master bedroom...

Don't you think that this would be such a tranquil place to wake up? 

I would love to curl up and read a book or journal in this cozy nook: 

 

The master Bath would look something like this: 

 

You have to come over and stay sometime, and if you do you can choose from one of these two rooms:

 

This is actually what I have on my mantle right now... a lovely spring mix of turquoise.  Carnations are the cheapest flower, but when they are bright pink and in full bloom they make quite an impressive bouquet at an unbelievable price.  If you want to see some more floral inspiration look here.  Also, here's the "How to" on making the little birdie nest- just in time for Easter. 

 

A few more fabulous accessory ideas: 

You've got to love decals... I am a big fan of them.  If you ever need any produced, simply email me at cbaca@gointernational.tv

A lovely kitchen

Shall we go to the Family Room? 

Let's head to the sitting room:

 

And now to the home office {There's something about this room that is oddly familiar..} 

I Know!  It actually is my home office!

And here's a shot of my actual work office at Go: 

I think that this would make such a sweet baby room: 

And finally, let's relax on the back porch and talk for a while!

I hope you all enjoyed the House of Blues tour!  Let me know if there is any other color of house interior you would like to see- maybe I can make it my next post. 

Patty-Cake Patty-Cake

My sister and I love to cook.  Here we are baking it up  during my latest visit to Massachusetts.  The cupcakes look radioactive- but are actually delicious, thanks to a secret ingredient from Greg's cousin Kendra.  (Add one cup of jello instant pudding into the cake mix. It makes it taste amazing!)  Our idea came from Cupcakes Take the Cake and here are some photos of our fun: 

Caption: "Ohhhh, you're an angry cupcake." 

The Barbara Bush Cupcake

Our Favorite: Isn't she cute?

The funnest part was spending time with one of the silliest, most adorable girl I know.  My sister Joy!

Organize your life in just ten minutes a day!

With all that we have to do in a day- who has time to organize? I don't know about you, but I have a plethora of closets that if you came over to visit you would NOT be allowed to look in. I just can't ever seem to find the time to roll up my sleeves and tackle all these crazy messes. So recently, I implemented a new method of organization and it only takes ten minutes a day. Yes, just TEN minutes a day! Sounds kind of, "Act now and I'll throw in a pair of Ginsu Knives gimmicky" but I've been trying it and wow, it really works!!

I know all of us have the highest intentions when it comes to cleaning but after a long day it is honestly the last thing that we want to do! Especially if we had to cook, clean or do laundry. So here's why only ten minutes: ten minutes is easy to do. It's not a big commitment. Like the old adage goes, you eat an elephant one bite at a time. Since none of us have HOURS to devote to a closet cleaning frenzy- we simply don't tackle the whole closet. We tackle small, tiny, bite sized parts and there is only one rule to the whole thing: You can only clean for ten minutes, no exceptions!

Well, I am sure that you are thinking, "Only ten minutes? I'm jut getting into my cleaning rhythm in ten minutes! " I hear you, and I would have totally agreed with you at one point. However, if we refer to the tell-tale states our closet are in (and the numerous junk drawers that won't close) I'm sure we can all agree that our old method isn't really working for us.

A few helpful hints to keep in mind when organizing:

1.) Concentrate on very small areas. One box in the closet, one drawer, one shelf in the bathroom- you get the picture. Don't bite off more that you can chew. Keep your expectations very low and don't over achieve. The key here is slow consistency.

2.) Pull things out and sort them into "like" categories.

3.) Use a big trash bag and THROW STUFF AWAY! Be objective here. Sure we all need the plant food that came with the last bouquet of fresh flowers we got. But do we really need eight of them? If you don't use it, lose it.

4.) Be aware of finding "many multiples". Whenever I find multiples of an item in spread out in different places in my house it is a sure key to me that I must not have a really good place for it. It means that every time I need the item, I can't find it; so I go out and buy another. Find good resting places for items don't just shove them places.

It is amazing how much peace a little order can bring in your life; you know where things are, you learn to trim down excess in your life, to save and to simplify. It is the antithesis of our culture to learn to live with less, but there is something deep inside of us that longs for a simpler way of living. Robert Southey said this, "Order is the sanity of the mind, the health of the body, the peace of the city, the security of the state. Like beams in a house or bones to a body, so is order to all things."

Ten minutes can really make a big difference in your life. This doesn't just apply to organization, it really can apply to any area of your life that you want to see change in. Small things start adding up in big ways when you do them consistently.

Want more tips and inspiration? Don't miss a thing! Follow the blog at www.bacacreative.com

Table arrangements

This year for Thanksgiving I decided to try out a new color scheme. Greg's cousin Kylee was a guest at our table and her favorite color is pink. I thought it may be fun to try something non-traditional and I think that the results are quite pleasing.

Thanksgiving

What better time than thanksgiving to decorate? I know that most people go "all out" for Christmas decor- but my fav holiday is Thanksgiving. Maybe it's the oranges and yellows (my favorite colors) that are associated with the season, but I find myself compelled to clip berries from the side of the road, make tiny papers that say inspirational words about giving thanks, and design charming floral arrangements.

Here are a few snap shots from last years festivities: