Goodbye 2011!!

From Martha Stewart

Dear 2011,

You have not been a typical year; and I mean that mostly in the best of ways. It seems that you were the year of growth. Growth of family, since I got to marry my best friend, my now husband, and my forever buddy. You've given me the chance to grow as a designer, mostly through the wonderful world of Minted, where I now have a few designs for sale. You've nurtured Miss Juliet, who has grown into a beautiful little lovemutt. You allowed my stationery business to grow, while also quickly developing the growth of my professional "corporate" career. My waistline is growing. Shit. Maybe I'm not so thankful for that.

Overall, you've been good to me. Although, you have challenged me in new ways, and you almost killed me with Carbon Monoxide, but I forgive you, because I learned a valuable lesson. Although at times I thought you hated me, and I'm sorry for stomping my feet and cursing at you. Now maybe I understand why you added three inches to my waist.

Thank you, 2011, for being a kick-ass year and for giving me memories I'll cherish forever. Cheers to you, and also to the future!

With Love,
Jackie

Post Holiday Update



Miss Juliet, waiting for company, at my parents home, on Christmas morning


Thank you, everybody, for making this holiday season such a great one! Business was booming, music was playing, and love was overflowing. I'm actually a little sad about taking down all of my holiday card listings from the shop - but they'll be back next year, and believe it or not, but I'm already thinking up new ideas for the holiday 2012 line!
For those of you that remember my previous posts (here and here), where I gushed over all the white and gold watches, I'm excited that now only does he actually read my blog, but that my husband also took the hint & I'm now sporting a new Michael Kors watch! It's the silicone/rubber banded one I lusted for in this post; and despite the bad reviews, I am absolutely in love with it. *Sigh*, I might just have to buy myself a second watch, that isn't silicone, just to make sure this one doesn't get too worn.

Anyway, we spent our holidays with friends and family, jumping from house to house to house. I love seeing everybody, but I am definitely wondering when we'll be able to stay in one place for an entire festivity. The jumping around is exhausting. Maybe someday I'll have a big enough house to host EVERYBODY in.
Hope you’re all enjoying your after-holiday-lull! I’m sure enjoying the time to catch up and relax!

Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays!

This is my husband and my first Christmas together, and we've already spent lots of time baking cookies, decorating our home, eating said cookies, wrapping gifts, and listening to cheesy holiday music. Today and tomorrow we'll be spending time with our big ol' family, and we're darn happy to do so!

Merry Christmas to all! I hope you're surrounded by love and joy this holiday season!

A Moment With Believe Notes...

Right now it's about 7:30am on a Saturday morning. That's a sin, I should be sleeping at this time on a day off! But no, I'm not sleeping, I'm working hard to get a few last holiday orders out the door and in the mail by noon.

For me, the past two weeks have been a little head-spinningly busy. Hence the lack of blog posts. I've been teaching classes at the day job, and the end-of-semester rush at grad school has included 2 in-depth research papers, a few group projects, and two finals. I'm almost done though...just one final left! (wish me luck, please!)

Christmas is in full swing here at the casa de Mangiolino. Our tree is up (and hasn't fallen, not even a once!), Trader Joe's has their Dark Chocolate Peppermint Joe-Joe's on the shelf, Juliet has on her red velvet color (thanks Mom!), and tonight we make cookies, cookies and more cookies.

I thought I would share a few iPhone shots from the past few weeks:

Hope everybody else is enjoying their holiday, whichever one it is they celebrate!

Kitchen Update: The Expensive Part is Over!

It really wasn't long ago that I posted this post, about our upcoming kitchen remodel. Well between then and now, Mike and I managed to purchase EVERYTHING we needed for the remodel.

It wasn't totally expected, but it worked out pretttttty darn amazingly. We decided, after shopping around a whole bunch, that we were going to use Home Depot for the cabinets. So this past Saturday we made an appointment for them to measure our kitchen, and the unplannedness started from there. The following Monday some dude was knocking on my front door - he was the measurer, who I totally wasn't expecting until Wednesday, but really happy to see! The very next day somebody called from Home Depot to schedule a time to sit down and create our design, and we decided to go that day. So, we decided to go in on Wednesday to do our kitchen design, and as luck would have it, Wednesday was the very last day of a big kitchen sale they were having. We ended up staying at Home Depot for over 4 hours, but at the end of the 4 hours we had ordered all of our cabinets (white painted maple), our counters (quartz), our back splash (marble and glass), our sink and our faucet. And the best part? We got everything for almost 30% off!

crummy iphone picture of our back splash tiles

I can't wait for everything to be delivered and installed! Now I just need to get through the floor remodel first, ugh!

Deal of the Day: Swiss Legand Watches

Remember this post about my obsession with white ceramic Michael Kors watches?

Well Gilt Groupe must have been reading my mind because right now they are hosting a super sale on Swiss Legand watches, and more than a few are white ceramic! Be-still my heart! Check out this watch, marked down from $995:

Swiss Legend Karamica watch - $224 on Gilt Groupe

I am smitten!!! But hurry up, the sale ends under two days!

Now for Sale on Minted: Sweet Hearts Birth Announcments

My "Sweet Hearts" birth announcement design is now for sale at Minted.

Now For Sale: Bookmarks

I really don't like the idea of throwing out paper. Call me a tree hugger if you must, but at the end of the day I try to be as environmentally friendly as possible. When you come to my home, don't ask for a bottle of water; I refuse to buy them.

While some of my designs get sent out to be printed, almost all of my invitations and stationery are printed in house. That means I cut the paper down myself. That also means I end up with tons and tons of scrap paper. I refuse to throw out the long, narrow scraps, so I have drawers and drawers full of them. And then I started using the scraps around the house as bookmarks. And then my husband started using them as bookmarks. And then I took a few to work to use as bookmarks. And then it dawned on me, these odd sized scrap papers can be recycled! How perfectly efficient!

So, new to the shop are bookmarks - totally recycled in every aspect, and the perfect stocking stuffer!

The best part about these? They're only $5 for the set of three! So head on over to my Etsy shop and grab some!