Homemade Ornaments
I don’t have an appreciation for homemade ornaments at this point in my life. However, when I saw a similar idea on another blog I knew instantly that I wanted to replicate it for our tree. The orginal blogger took a wedding invitation and cut it into strips, curled them, and stuff them into a clear Christmas ball. I instantly knew I wanted to do this with our wedding vows. I love showcasing our wedding memorabilia around the house and what a neatway to remember our wedding vows during the holidays! Jared and I made these together for even more memories!
I took one sheet of the cardstock we used for invites and programs and printed our wedding vows on the paper twice. Then we simply cut the paper into tiny strips so that each line of the vows was on one strip. Then curled them around our fingers and stuffed into the ornaments. We had enough to do four ornaments.
And here is the final product hanging on the tree!
Life Happens (then you buy a tree!)
Oh boy it has been a long time since we have dusted off
this blog! Our sincerest apologies to our dear reader, Lydia. (We
imagine that most of you have given up on us after this long!)
Truth be told, there has been much going on in and around Casa
Nolen, but nothing life altering. So we won’t make excuses, but
instead jump right back into the thick of things. There have been
several firsts for the Nolens the past few weeks. It started with
our first married Thanksgiving. Now it doesn’t sound like too much
to cheer about, but getting to spend quality time with family and
be together during it was a first for us. We traveled north to see
my family and then south to his Jared’s grandparents. What a joy it
was to be encouraged by family members! It is always a mini
vacation to get away from Jackson for a bit and come back
refreshed! Another first for the Nolens was buying our first
Christmas tree! I have to admit that I was a scrooge in the
beginning and didn’t want to buy a tree unless I could get exactly
what I wanted and so on, but we were able to find the perfect tree
for a fraction of the cost. Thanks to coupons and pre-Black Friday
sales we were able to score a deal. Here is a picture of my sweet
husband carrying our first tree to the car. He’s such a sport to
humor me while I take pictures right outside the store. Gotta love
him! Now for the most exciting part! If you know me then you know
that when I get an idea in my head that it sticks. I had an idea of
what my Christmas Tree would look like long before we ever bought
one. Thankfully we got a steal on the tree which freed up extra
funds to decorate the tree. Oh what fun that was! Being my first
tree and all I obviously wanted something very “Christmasy” or
“traditional” if you will. I loathe the ‘T’ word but in this case
it was all I was excited about. After a few trips to Hobby Lobby
and Wal-Mart I had all that I needed. The Lord blessed me with a a
husband who has a knack for lights. Putting the lights on the tree
is my absolute least favorite thing to do. Naturally, I forgot
something so I had to run back to the store while he put on the
lights. So, from my perspective it was a pre-lite tree! We turned
on our fireplace, (more info on that coming soon!) put on the
Christmas music and decorated until our hearts were content! Then
we vacuumed up all the glitter. Another first for us was making the
bow tree topper. I had never made a bow before and wasn’t too
excited about any of the video tutorials I found online. After
minutes and minutes of frustration, my husband came to save the
day. He understood the videos more than I did and made bow making
look like a walk in the park. However, I still don’t really like
the ribbon I chose so next year my husband’s bow making skills will
be better showcased. The ornament that Jared is hanging on the tree
in the picture below has special meaning. More to come soon!
File Cabinet Fabulous
I have been itching to spray paint something for a while now. First, I got my hands on a Goodwill lamp that I’ve had since summer. However, the little lamp wasn’t filling the void. So I turned to the ugly Wal-mart filing cabinet that I bought Jared after we got married. We desperately needed a bigger storage unit in the second bedroom and this find fit 
the bill. I have to admit that it hurt me to buy a new one because I wanted to rehab another Goodwill find, but our little Goodwill just wasn’t delivering in time, so I splurged.
Now for the best part! I have been on the hunt just the right fabrics for several projects and finally scored a deal at Hancock’s a few days ago. I’d been spying this fabric all summer and thankfully (for me anyways) it was in the back of the store where they pile all the modern, non-traditional fabric that people around here never buy. Since its location in the store wasn’t prime, I wasn’t 
worried about it selling quickly, so of course I waited for a sale! And boy did I get one. I paid $7 for almost 2 yards of this upholstery fabric. It’s perfect for our second bedroom and when I got it home Jared immediately said he liked it. Score! (Since it’s going in his “office” I thought I did pretty well).
The day the fabric and the filing cabinet met was beautiful. With a lot of primer, white spray paint, some mod podge and a lot of patience, this beauty emerged. After a night of spray painting I left her out to dry over night before I tried any Mod Podging. Most of the Mod Podge tutorials I read online said to put one coat on the surface you want to cover and then another coat over the top of your material. Well, that didn’t work too well for me. After putting on the top coat, my fabric changed from blue to green and got really hard and rough. I attributed that to it being upholstery fabric. So off it came. But the second time was a charm for sure. I only put one coat on the surface of the cabinet and pressed the fabric down. And ta da! Look how beautiful! I cannot wait to get the rest of the room finished so that it will all flow together. 
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It’s Almost October!
If you really knew me you would know how much I love fall, especially the month of October. When I was growing up it meant cooler Friday night football, warm colors, and hot chocolate! God’s creation is breathtakingly beautiful in Tennessee so that makes it extra special. Another fall fav is October weddings. I wanted to get married in October, but with a proposal in September there was no chance of a one month turn around nor a thirteen month engagement so that didn’t happen. Thankfully, I still have wedding blogs to get me through! One of my all time favorites it Green Wedding Shoes. I got a lot of my own wedding ideas from this wonderful blog and still frequent it. One particular wedding caught my attention many months ago because of it’s creativity, beautiful people, and ‘October’ feel. Today, I was reminded of this wedding as we drove many miles into the Tennessee country side to visit my family. Cotton fields were in bloom, remnants of corn were spotted all over, and it was actually less than 90 degrees! So I decided to uncover these oh so fabulous wedding pictures to share with you. If an October wedding would have been possible for us I would have definitely done something outside, probably in a field under a big tree with more of a laid back feel. Did I tell you how much I LOVE this wedding? Kudos to this couple for being great. Also, this wedding is once again influencing me, but this time it’s Casa Nolen that will be affected! Stay tuned for some fall home updates.
Her dress is perfect. Her hair is perfect. The charcoal gray suit is perfect. And the COTTON is such a brilliant idea! And the bouquet, well I have no words. 
Click here for more pictures of this beautiful wedding.
Koran Burning
After some discussion with Megan, this blog post has been moved to my more opinion driven blog, a Slice of Polis. You can find a direct link here.
