{Guest Post} Jessica from 4 Interior Design

Happy Thursday! 

Excited to have a guest all the way from the UK today!

 Jessica blogs at 4 Interior Design and shares some lovely interior design ideas.  

Today, she's giving us tips on how to decorate for Fall just in time for Thanksgiving next week!

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Charming Ways to Achieve Classy Fall Decor

Fall is a dreary, grey time of year, with the leaves first putting on a glorious display, then sadly falling and turning into black oozing slime, slippery underfoot and unpleasant to the nose! Make sure that your home is bursting with autumn charm this year, by switching out your summer décor for autumnal elegance and appeal.

Seasons within a Season

Fall is the time of year when we celebrate Harvest Festival, followed by the sweetly spooky delights of Halloween. Thanksgiving in the USA follows, reminding us all of everything that we should feel blessed about. Christmas arrives in the middle of winter, a burst of joy, goodwill and bonhomie to relieve the unrelenting chill and gloom of the season. Allow each of these sub-seasons a place in your home décor, even if it means that you are changing decorations and ornaments every month or so! Harvest speaks of plentiful food and can be celebrated with laden fruit bowls or even an attractive cornucopia spilling its bounty over the sideboard or table.

 Source

If the lurid orange of pumpkins, so prevalent for both Harvest Festival and Halloween does not appeal to you, purchase some of the elegant white pumpkins that are periodically seen in stores. If you are arty, you can pick out the pumpkin with silver elements, creating a surprising ethereal and delicate look, perfect for charming décor, while still acknowledging the bounty of nature! 

Wreath Around

Make not one but several fall wreaths. The first should be packed with berries, seeds and leaves that have changed their colour early. Soaking the leaves in glycerine for a day or two will keep them in good condition for several months, so you will not have brown leaves withering away and ruining your décor. The second wreath should focus more on emphasizing the beauty of autumn leaves with little other ornamentation necessary. 

Source

Togetherness

At this bleak time of year it is nice to commemorate togetherness, either as part of a large family or with a group of friends or even colleagues. Arrange your furniture so that everyone feels part of a large community, rather than permitting the gathering to break off into smaller cliques and sub-groups. Creating a large open eating space will ensure that everyone is brought together, to eat, talk and relax as equals.

Décor and Accessories

Treat yourself to some whimsical and delightful autumnal tablecloths and placemats to change the mood of the dining table – or make them yourself! Add touches of seasonal charm to accessories and ornaments, introducing a subtle acknowledgement of the positives of this changeable season. 

Source

Choose your new odds and ends by deciding, before purchase, on the theme that you want for your autumn décor. Do you want simple yet stunning elegance? Or do you prefer a touch of whimsy that looks pretty and fresh? Once you have a theme in mind, you can set about finding or making the perfect accessories and products that will help you to achieve the desired look.

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Terrific tips!! Thanks  Jessica!  

Be sure and visit Jessica's blog for more decorating tips!!

4 Interior Design

Have a happy day!

{Guest} Live.Laughter.Happily Ever After

Happy Tuesday lovelies!

I  have a special treat today! Instead of a Soiree Day post I'd like to introduce you to a new blogging friend!  It's always so amazing to me the awesome connections you can make through blogging.  Well Kalyn and I got connected through Instagram and the hashtag #SheReadsTruth, a great way to get connected if you ask me!  I love, love the crafty idea that she's sharing today! 

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Good Morning, Blog World! 

Hello Vintage Gwen readers! I'm Kalyn and I blog over at Love.Laughter.Happily Ever After. I am SO  excited to be guest posting today for Vintage Gwen and her lovely corner of the Internet! I was immediately drawn into following Vintage Gwen the moment I read one of her chapel posts. Plus, she and I share common ground when it comes to creativity, DIY projects, and food recipes. For me, it is an all around win each day I visit her blog looking for a little encouragement, advice, or blog love. It is an even better win to visit her page every Wednesday for the Show and Share link up party! If you are not joining, you totally should!

Currently, my heart is in overdrive because love month is here! Happy, happy February! Admittedly, I am a newlywed obsessed with love, life, and my Savior. I am super excited to finally have the opportunity to share the month of February with my husband. You should probably know that we started dating almost 8 years ago, became in engaged in 2011, and were married n June 2012. Five of those years we dated were long distance. Therefore, we have not spent Valentine's Day together since we were both in high school. Talk about long over due! We have had our first Valentine's celebration planned for about a month. Needless to say, we are itching to experience our first Valentine's dinner and movie together in the same zip code for once!

Since Christmas I have been looking to take some "me" time to escape school and the hustle and bustle of life to try and recreate this DIY project I saw on Pinterest while I was wedding planning. However, I added a little unique spin of creativity so that our design would be different. What better month than to break out the goods now? 

As you can tell above, those pieces of round wood are from the bottom of our Christmas tree trunk! Yes, I am that wife who makes a huge deal about all the "firsts" we are experiencing on this new journey. I made sure to seize the opportunity to save some part of our very first Christmas tree trunk. I am going to share with you how to reuse them as ornaments for next year.  

Before chunking out the tree when cleaning our home decor, my husband cut off a large section of the trunk about 6 inches long. Then, he and my father-in-law sliced up the trunk into a couple of smooth, one inch round blocks. As a method for hanging this make-shift ornament on our tree for our second Christmas celebration, I was planning to have a hole drilled into the top portion. However, my father-in-law came up with a better hanging method which you can see in the photo below. 

As you can tell, there is a round hook screwed into the top of the wood. I tied a colored ribbon through the hook to match the colors associated with our 2012 Christmas decor. 

I fell in love with this idea as soon as I saw it because it is functional, cute, and so heart felt no matter the occasion. Whether it is baby's first Christmas or the celebrating of newlywed love, the reason for saving the bottom of your Christmas tree and recreating it into an ornament is a special time piece that will last for years to come. 

As you can tell, the creative options are endless when it comes to writing or decorating your piece of wood. I am not all that creative, but I do try often. I am sure you can spruce it up with to fit your own likes! It may sound crazy, but I have yet to store these suckers! I added them to the Valentine's decor I have displayed around our home. 

I am not sure which ornament we will actually put on our tree next year. I have three to choose from and am excited to be able to show our future children a part of Mom and Dad's first Christmas that we saved not only based on pictures taken! Also, I made sure to incorporate our wedding invitation and honeymoon memories into glass ornaments for our tree (Follow the links for those tutorials). In future years, I know that we will love looking back at where we once were and how far we have come! :) 

What You Will Need: 

Wood Chunks

Sharpie Markers

Rhinestones

Ribbon

Hooks

I hope you all have a wonderful day, friends! If you enjoyed this post I would love to invite you to my little corner of the Internet.Typically, I may seem all over the place from day to day in posts but I normally blog about whatever is on my heart at the time. Whether it be random life lessons, marriage, Jesus intervening my to-do list, cooking a recipe twenty different ways based on Pinterest posts, DIY projects, or fashion- You can bet I will blog about it.

As always, until next time- Happy Blogging!

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What a special way to preserve Christmas memories! And I love that you could totally embellish the wood chunks any way you want! Isn't Kalyn great?  Be sure to go check out her beautiful blog!

Have a Happy Day!

{Guest} twelveOeight

{Guest}

It dawned on me last week that I hadn't had a guest in a while and knew exactly who to ask to remedy it! 

Love Tanya of twelveOeight! She does wonderful, easy crafts and shares some yummy recipes. 

And since it's November 1st she's kicking off the Thanksgiving fun!

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Hi everyone! My name is Tanya, and I craft & create over at twelveOeight.  I am so excited to be joining you today here at Vintage Gwen (thank you so much for having me Jennifer!!)

Each year Thanksgiving kind of sneaks up on me, does it you? It seems like I am just taking down my Halloween decor when it's time to be planning the Thanksgiving menu, music, desserts (my fave!) and where guests will sit, sleep etc...  I wanted to get a jump-start on a quick project that I can make now and have ready for our table on Thanksgiving.  I have seen a few of these floating around on Pinterest in different materials, but I really wanted to use some of the gorgeous scrap booking paper that I have found at Jo Ann's recently.

Are you ready to make your table even more lovely this year? Let's get to crafting...

I used sheets of scrap booking paper that measure 12" x 12" and folded each piece in a tri-fold as in the picture below.  I then turned one end up and lightly hot-glued the edges in place to form a pocket for the flatware.

Next I trimmed a piece of burlap and some ribbon that I already had on hand, wrapping it around the holder, I tacked them down on the underside with a dot of hot glue.  To personalize the flatware holder I used letters from my alphabet stamp set, and some black stamp ink.  Alternatively you could stamp the year, a verse, or something pretty in place of each guests name.  I attached the place card with a small dot of hot glue, and used one of the gorge bird stickers I found on my most recent craft supply bonanza.  It was 40% off, a girl must stock up on these things.  Plus I was able to use them right away, which reduces any addition to the craft supply/paper hoarding situation I am trying to organize.

I loved the polka-dots because they are kind of unexpected this time of year.  The black and white pattern with the burlap and moss colors made it perfect for my Thanksgiving table, fun to make and easy on the craft budget too!

Thank you so much for crafting with me today, I would love to connect with you! You can find me knee-deep in a pile of fabric and supplies over at:

twelveOeight.blogspot.com

Facebook

Pinterest

Twitter

Hugs & Blessings to you, and thank you again Jennifer!

xoxo, Tanya

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Aren't these great? And I love that you can totally have these made way ahead of time or they're easy enough to do at the last minute! So great!
Don't know about you but I'm glad Halloween is over and we can now focus on Thanksgiving!

Happy Thursday!

Soiree Day-Soiree Guest vixenMade

I'm so,so excited to have a guest for Soiree Day today!! And I can't think of anyone better than Victoria of vixenMade to be the first Soiree Guest! She's sharing some fabulous budgeting party tips that I can't wait for you to read!!

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Hello, Vintage Gwen friends!
It's so great to be here today!  I'm Victoria, the 'vixen' of vixenMade and I'm a crafting, sewing, DIYing mess. I love doing it all.  And something else I love doing is party planning.  Every time I have a party, I can't wait until the next one.  Thank goodness for my three lovable children that I can throw parties for, too!  But with my parties, there comes a budget.  It's usually a pretty tight budget since it can get costly very quickly.
So, today I'm giving you some budgeting tips so you can throw your own party for less!
First off, plan ahead.This isn't always possible.  Especially if it's last minute or your kids like to change their minds on a 'theme' for their birthday.But if it's possible, plan ahead by knowing the main colors/theme/look you're going for so you can buy things for cheap!  What do I mean?  Well, my daughter is a bit of a planner (NOT like me.  I am a procrastinator.  And I'm a bit spontaneous, too.), so she'll tell me what kind of party she wants before her upcoming party has even passed!  That's a bit extreme.  But still, even 3-4 months prior to your party, you can keep your eyes open for things that may be on sale that would work perfectly for your party.
Examples:  * props - an eiffel tower decoration for your 'Paris' party on clearance (I found mine about a month before the event)

* supplies - clearing out last years popular color in paper straws, but that grey/white color would go perfect for your upcoming 'Woodland' theme* holiday decor - end of year holiday clearances help you stock up on those purple bows which would be perfect for your 'Mardi Gras' party in a few months
Next, dig into your storage.If you have a lot in storage like me, it might be just what you need to fill the spaces for the upcoming party.Whether it's your Christmas decorations or your Grandma's old knick-knacks.  You need to have a little more of an open mind.
Examples:  * that old vase is headed for the trash, but wait--maybe painted a fuchsia color it would be perfect to hold lollipops at your daughter's sweet 16!* have some ugly candlesticks?  Don't give them away!  Find some old plates and glue them together to create new cake plates.

* even an old patterned throw rug can become a eye popping backdrop for a dessert table!
Thirdly, spend some time at the Dollar store.It's true, some people find they hate going to their local dollar stores.  Yes, their toys will probably fall apart in a few days or their cheesy picture frames are too much to even look at.  But you must look beyond that and use your brain.Seriously!  Nab some color-coordinated napkins while your there and you might just find something for less than what you had planned on spending.
Examples:  * you will always find cheap glass ware!  I've found a 6 pack of shot glasses for $2 in the past.  It worked perfectly for my Girly Bling party.* check out the ribbon.  Grab a couple spools to adorn your apothecary jars or to tie up those goodie bags.* candy!  Hoard those bags of gumballs.  They'll work great to fill your jars up at your 'carnival' themed party and the kids will go nuts over them.
Lastly, teach yourself to bake.So what if you are NOT miss suzie homemaker.  Sugar cookies are easier than they seem to make.  And cake is conveniently found in boxes of cake mix for those who just don't have time.For me, I love to bake, when I'm in the mood.  The only thing is, I don't have patience.  Or time.  And I can't fathom having to frost each cookie with royal icing for those star cookies my kids might want.  But I will, to save me a handful of money I might be shelling out if I got them made at a specialty bakery.

And if you really can't do it... go with something easy.  Marshmallow pops.  Jello.  Prepackaged treats such as Oreos, popcorn, rice krispy squares or mini chocolate bars.  You can use it all and still come across like you've spent time putting it all together.
I hope I've helped some of you in your attempt to pull off that party that seemed almost impossible.  I could really keep going.  I'm a bit of penny pincher in some aspects, so I hate to spend more than I have to.At the same time, like I said, I love to throw a party.  
Thanks so much for having me, Jennifer!!  I had a blast.

See? Great tips and I love what she achieves on a budget!! Here's some of my fav vixen soirees....

Girly Bling Party

{This is my most favorite!}

Medical Party

{I will be referring to this when my sister graduates from nursing school!}

Green & Black Halloween Party

{Love that green lace!}

All photos courtesy of vixenMade.

Go check her out at her place, vixenMade and be sure and look her up at these other fun places...

Facebook

Twitter

Pinterest

Etsy Shop

Happy Soiree Day!

Visiting The Crafty Scientist

Just a quick heads up that I'll be over at The Crafty Scientist tomorrow!

I'm getting to 'pay it forward' for all the help I got while moving!

Mel has a fun, crafty place!  I'm sharing my new sewing machine cover!

See you there!

{Guest Series} The Best of Me-Southern Lovely

Welcome to the final Best of Me series guest!

Hello lovely friends of Vintage Gwen. I am excited to be here today!
Since I consider Jennifer a dear friend of mine, it is wonderful to be in her space today!

I'm Lindsay, from Southern Lovely. Over at my place you will find all sorts of DIY's, sewing, painting & lots of hot glue projects. It's kind of a little of this & that. :) I have a great time creating it all though.


When Jennifer explained her 'Best of Me' series, I had to think what I wanted to talk about. Then it hit me, as far as projects go, my favorite is our loft area. It's a place in our home where I go to breath & relax. I love this space, it definitely makes me happy.


It wasn't always like this though. We gave it a big makeover several months ago.

Started with this space..

Added the board & batten



Used this art piece as the inspiration for the color scheme.
The blues & yellows were the perfect combination for this space.

And this is it!
The space I love.
The best of me. :)


Board & Batten tutorial


Painted Rug


Curtains


Desk makeover

So I'd love to know what space makes you happy?

Thanks so much for having me, Jennifer!

Wasn't that great inspiration? I tell ya, Lindsay has such a sense of effortless to her projects that I love!

As you already know she is behind our awesome Wednesday link party, Show & Share.  I'm so honored to be one of her partners, it's been amazing! Thanks my friend!!

And thanks to all of my guests, I so appreciate you lovelies helping me out during our move!

Happy Thursday!

{Guest Series} The Best of Me-Romance On A Dime

Welcome to my next Best of Me guest!
I'm in desperate need of today's post! So it's perfect timing!

Hello! My name is Betsy from Romance on a Dime. I'm SO excited to be guest posting for Vintage Gwen! The "Best of Me" series has definitely been so inspiring to read and I'm really glad to be a part of it. Thanks for having me Jennifer!!

I blog about all sorts of stuff, such as thrifty living, menu planning, budget/DIY decorating, and organizing and simplifying life. I still consider myself a newlywed (1 1/2 years into marriage). A couple of my most popular series are 31 Days of New Uses for Old Things, Take it on Tuesday blog hop, and Cutting your Grocery Bill 101.

Awhile ago, I shared my best projects of 2011, but what I'm going to share today is a more recent post that quickly climbed the ladder of most page views. It's currently the fourth most viewed post on Romance on Dime!

Ready for free printables and a tutorial on How-to put together your own Home Management Binder?

DIY Home Management Binder/Planner

I spent a lot of time looking through all the ideas for printable planners, home binders, lists, and daily to do sheets I could find. I did go back and forth about whether I wanted a planner that fit into my purse or not (last year my planner did). I finally decided to make my own planner using a 3-ring binder and several printables I found. Here are some of my favorite printables:

Week at a Glance from Mommy Tracked (I LOVE the color and the scalloped edges!!):

Daily Planner Printables from Desiring Virtue - I LOVE these daily pages! Each day of the week has a different main task: Mon. - Laundry, Tues. - Kitchen, Wed. - Office, Thurs. - Town, Fri. - Cleaning, Sat. - Outdoors, Sun. - Lord's Day/day of rest. What is great is now they have blank daily sheets!!

Daily Docket from Simple Mom - this one I actually scanned in and spent HOURS editing and changing sections to be able to print it on a smaller sheet. Then, I decided to save it for another year and use the above daily planner.

Perpetual Birthday Calendar from The Project Girl

Money Saving Mom also has lots more printables to choose from! The one I'm definitely adding to my home management binder is her 2-hour House Cleaning Checklist.

I'm also a big fan of FlyLady and her beginner baby steps towards keeping an orderly, clean home. In the process of going through her fly lessons, I put together my own control journal resource sheet, which lists my morning routine, bedtime routine, and the cleaning zones I've mapped out in my home:

At first I had the idea to laminate the daily planner sheets and write on them with dry erase markers (so I wouldn't have to print a million pages). Since I don't have a laminator, I checked into the cost of a local copy place - $2/page - NO WAY!! I decided to instead put my daily planner sheets inside a sleeve and write on it with dry erase markers. It works really well!!

I put my Home Management Binder together, with these sheets:

Year at a Glance

B-day Calendar

Yearly Goals (still working through this)

Monthly Goals (still working through this)

Blogging Goals/resources

Monthly page

Week at a Glance

Fly Lady Reference Sheet

Daily Planner Printables

Contacts

Have you put a Home Management Binder together this year? What pages do you think are important to have?

I would love to invite you to stop by Romance on a Dime each Tuesday for the Take it on Tuesday Blog Hop!!

Thanks for reading.
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Awesome!! I've been thinking about making a cleaning schedule and now I have the tools! Thanks Betsy!!  Be sure and check out all of Betsy's fun on her blog!

Happy Thursday!

{Guest Series} The Best of Me-A Little Slice of Special

Welcome to today's Best of Me guest!

I'm excited that today's post is about makeup!  I love makeup and thought this would be perfect since Valentine's Day is around the corner...so take a tip or two and spice it up this year!

Well hey there- my name is Lori and I blog over at A Little Slice of Special.  

Jennifer asked me to write up a guest post and I right away suggested I write up a best of post on beauty... I was so happy to hear that was what Jennifer was hoping I would do!  

Now, you might be wondering, why should I be writing anything about beauty?  Well, I am by no means a professional, I haven't had any training, and I've never even read a book about makeup techniques (when it comes to makeup I'm a magazine, blog, and pinterest kinda gal!).   All I do know is I love playing with makeup.  I have since I was about 13.  I've always had a daily makeup routine and been willing to try new products and trends.  

Ok, back to the best of.  Since before I committed my blog to being a structured beauty and style blog about 8 months ago I would often write up posts and share pictures about fun new products I got or a look I tried to copy or create.  About 10 months ago my best friend asked me for a makeup tutorial from the most basic steps, everyday methods, and then super funtastic out there eye makeup.

Eventually this turned into a 10 part tutorial series and since then I've been doing lots of eye tutorials...but first...the basics.

Lesson 1:  Getting your face ready for makeup application.

http://lorilynn-alittlesliceofspecial.blogspot.com/2011/02/make-up-lesson-1-starting-from-base-and.html

Lesson 2:  Primer, Concealer, Foundation Variation, etc.

http://lorilynn-alittlesliceofspecial.blogspot.com/2011/02/makeup-lesson-2-foundations-concealers.html

Lesson 3:  Mascara

http://lorilynn-alittlesliceofspecial.blogspot.com/2011/02/mas-scary-nodont-be-afraid-its-your.html

Lesson 4: Liners

http://lorilynn-alittlesliceofspecial.blogspot.com/2011/02/not-all-liners-are-created-equal.html

Lesson 5: Understanding different kinds of liner

http://lorilynn-alittlesliceofspecial.blogspot.com/2011/03/liner-swatches.html

Lesson 6:  Cream and Gel Blushes

http://lorilynn-alittlesliceofspecial.blogspot.com/2011/03/trickycream-and-gel-blushes.html

Lesson 7:  The basic Cat Eye

http://lorilynn-alittlesliceofspecial.blogspot.com/2011/03/cat-eyemeow.html

Lesson 8: Brows

http://lorilynn-alittlesliceofspecial.blogspot.com/2011/03/brows-and-easy-purple-eye.html

Lesson 9:  Contouring, highlighter and bronzer

Coming Soon...because apparently Blogger ate it?!

Lesson 10:  Working with eyes of different shapes and sizes

http://lorilynn-alittlesliceofspecial.blogspot.com/2011/03/help-i-cant-find-my-eye-lids-eye-shadow.html

I'd love to do more specific tutorials about makeup tips and tricks in general but I need some requests to inspire me (hint hint wink wink!)  Just a few weeks ago, I committed to Makeup Monday, and I'd love to feature some general tutorials amongst my unending need to play with eye makeup and lipstick!  So leave a comment here, on my blog, on facebook, e-mail me or tweet me with your requests and/or questions!

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Because I wanted to create something new and special to be posted on Vintage Gwen I decided to tackle two of the trickiest eye makeup looks.  The smokey eye and the cat eye...both of which are perfect for that Valentines Day Date (and in my case-whenever the heck I feel like it!)

The first step is to prep your lids, this holds true for both options, I like to add concealer or a really creamy foundation to my entire lid, another option is primer, feel free to use both!  Then I like to dust a thick layer of translucent loose powder below my eye (this will catch any dark debris while doing your eye makeup and can easily be brushed away when you're done!  When doing a cat eye it's best to stick to a neutral shadow palate.  Sometimes I wear a single neutral color but for a little extra drama I chose to do a very light 3 color neutral eye.  To take some of the matching guess work out I'm a big fan of the maybelline 3 color shadow sets.  I apply the lightest shade from lashes to brow, the second darkest color to just my lid, and the darkest in the crease.

When you're happy with your line just add several coats of black mascara.  I love the drama of black but it's absolutely legit to use a brown shades of liner and mascara!  Now all you have to do is finish your look with a lip product of choice...

And now for the smokey eye...

And there you have it...two awesome kinda fancy Valentines Day options!  Thanks so much for letting me guest post on Vintage Gwen, I hope I've done you proud!  XoXo Lori Lynn

Ah! I'm prouder than proud! I really need to try the cat eye and setting spray!  Wasn't this so fun?

Be sure and check out Lori for more beauty fun!

Happy Thursday!