The countdown to Christmas is just around the corner, which means its time to start thinking of sending out Christmas cards to family and friends. I'm completely smitten with a slew of Minted Christmas cards and rounded up a few I wanted to share. 

one: Branched
two: Laughing All the Way
three: Joyfully Jotted
four: Very Merry
five: Joy Peace & Love 
six: Merry Christmas to All
seven: Wishing You Joy 

One thing, I love about Minted Christmas cards is all the options. From changing the colors in the cards, customizing the shape style of the card and sending out postcards instead of the traditional cards.

Right now, is a great time to jump on buying your Christmas cards with all the sales! Minted just extended their Black Friday sale on Holiday cards to until Sunday, click here for more details. We're planning to send out Christmas cards this year {just need to snap some pictures, love that camera these days come with timers and remotes, talk about a lifesaver!!) 

Are you planning on sending Holiday Cards out this year? 

A Dose of Orange

I recently shared one of my favorite ways to add color in a space is using colorful lamps! I also mentioned we recently ordered a new pair of lamps for our living room, now that they've arrived and are unpacked, I can share! 

I really wanted to infuse orange lamps in our living room, I think orange adds that extra layer of color and oomph that our living room needed. Plus orange plays so nicely with the shades of chartreuse and turquoise we have throughout our living areas. I was recently having a color conversation with my friend Summer about colors [we like to talk lots of design shop] and she shared with me, what orange means and I thought I'd share it will all of you. 

I'm thrilled with our new lamp addition to our home, yay! Can I also enthusiastically add these lamps look so good and look so good with my turquoise lamp! Speaking our my turquoise lamp, remember when I scored a pair of Robert Abbey lamps from a local consignment store for a killer price?? Well, here's the deal, I only have one left! My little one, broke my lamp while I was at a hair appoint last year [in daddy's care] totally broke my lamp loving heart and I'm only now able to talk about it! 

Without further adieu, here are my two new favorite lamps!! I'm in love with their style and color! This injection of orange is just what our living room needed. 

I love how orange lamps, brings out the shades of orange in the butterfly artwork. I brought the Safavieh Pamela Gourd lamps from Wayfair during a lighting sale. I love that they're sold in a pair making them even more affordable. 

Do you have colorful lamps in your home? 

Pin of the Week

Let's talk Hummus and Pita chips, one of my favorite snacks! After seeing and pinning some yummy looking homemade hummus recipes on the Pinterest, it's time I start making it at home! The ingredients are super simple and can be found at your local grocery store, I recently bought everything I need to make my own hummus and will be giving it a ago this weekend.  

via Pinterest 

What's your favorite snack? Are you a pita and hummus person too?

My Favorite Earl Grey Tea Latte

It's been a while since, I shared one of my favorites. By nature I'm a sharer and  I love sharing things in my life that make me happy: good food, great drinks, the perfect workout playlist, yummy deserts, best paint colors and pretty much anything under the sun I share on my blog series My Favorite. One of my favorites drinks to enjoy during fall and winter is an Earl Grey Tea Latte also called a London Fog. They only take a few minutes to make at home. I prefer using the Tazo Earl Grey tea its such a good flavor. 

Here's how I make Earl Grey Tea Lattes at home.

1. Early Tea Bag steeped in hot water for a 2-3 mins
2. Add I Tablespoon of Vanilla Syrup 
3. While Tea is steeping use a milk frother to warm froth your milk.
4. Next remove your tea bag and pour in the milk and foam (I sometimes use a 75/25 ratio       of milk and vanilla creamer
5. Enjoy! 

I use the milk frother that came with my Nespresso U. If you have a coffee maker or espresso machine, a milk frother is a must for making lattes at home or adding extra oomph to hot cocoa or tea lattes! You can buy an affordable hand held milk forther for $17 bucks on Amazon or buy an electric milk frother for a little over $40 bucks on Amazon. Trust me this is worth the investment! 

If you enjoy tea and love lattes, your going to love the combination of both! 

What's your favorite fall and winter drink? 

How to Fix a Crooked Picture Frame Fast

My biggest pet peeve is hanging up frames and they're crooked and almost its impossible to get them hanging straight. The stylist for the HGTV Magazine shoot Elizabeth Demos shared with me a quick and fast way to fix a crooked frame. Her tip came in handy while we worked on Avery's gallery wall over the Summer and recently when I finished his gallery wall. 

All it takes to fix a crooked picture frame is a few steps:

• Use a mounting putty
• Remove a small piece of the putty and roll into a ball
• Place putty behind frame and adjust fame until straight 

Crooked frame on gallery wall, total eyesore 

I used Loctite Mounting Putty, I bought from Target for $1.99 found on the hardware section. The mounting putty is safe to use on paper, wood, tile and more. 

Tear a small piece of putty off and roll into a ball 

Place mounting behind the corner of the frame and then straighten frame. 

Boom, nice and straight frame! 

I hope this quick tip on how to fix crooked picture frames helps, next time your hanging frames. 

Any tips you have to help keep frames staying nice and straight on your walls. 

Quick Reminder, be sure and enter the Rug Pad Giveaway with Rug Pad Corner! Click here for details. 

New Rug Pads from Rug Pad Corner & Giveaway

Over the weekend, we made a huge change in our living room and bedroom, replacing the cheapie rug pad in our living room and upgrading to Ultra Premium Rug pads. In our living room and bedroom we have Dhurrie rugs, which I love but have a few issues with them.

Issue #1  Dhurrie Rugs are very thin, giving no cushion on hardwood floors
Issue # 2 Rugs did not lay flat, creating ripples while the rugs laid flat
Issue # 3 Dhurrie Rug in our bedroom constantly moves, making it a tripping hazard 

One of the mistakes, I made while shopping for a rug pad for our living room, was buying the the wrong type of rug pad that offered no cushion and did not keep our Dhrurrie rug laying flat. Enter Rug Pad Corners, they have a variety of rugs that work perfectly with your flooring. I recently partnered with Rug Pad Corners to review their suggested rug pads for our Dhurrie Rugs and hardwood floors. I worked closely with Rug Pad Corners and decided the their Ultra Premium Rug Pads for our home and hardwood floors.  

After measuring our rugs and giving our measurement to the Rug Pad Corner we opted to have our rug pads cut a little smaller than our rugs to allow our rugs to rugs to relax to the floor. 

The rugs pads arrived super fast, and were wrapped in heavy duty plastic. 

The top layer of the Premium Rug pad, had so much cushion and a material that helps keep your rug in place, which is so needed when you have Dhurrie rugs.  

image via Rug Pad Corner

First we removed our rug and old rug pads, it was so gross to see how much dirt and dust was trapped under the rug pad and we vacuum pretty much every single day! I learned with Ultra Rug Pads from Rug Pad Corner have '45 once density protects your rug from premature wear, helps the fibers spring back after being crushed and prevents wear to the back of the rug'. All the dust I was experiencing from the prior rug pad was from the wear in tear the rug pad was causing on my rug. 

After removing our sofas out of the way and removing the old rug and our rug we cleaned the floors and read the instructions for placing our new rug pad and caring for it.

The purple side is the non slip side, that goes on the hardwood floor and is safe for hardwood floors. The rug pads went down nice and easy and smooth. The underside of the rug pad keeps the rug pad perfectly in place. 

Can I just say, I'm thrilled with our new rug pads! We placed the our rug back in place in our living room and it was so easy, the Dhurrie rug went the rug pad nice and smooth and stayed put. No ripples in the rug and  I have to say it again it stayed put! As I mentioned before we had pretty much zero cushion in our rug before and now have cushion! I'm also happy our new rug pads are environmentally friendly and have no VOCs.

Here's a quick look at our bedroom rug, prior to laying down our new Premium Rug Pad from Rug Pad Corner.  

Our rug now, with our new Premium Rug Pad. 

I'm absolutely thrilled with our new additions to our living room and bedroom. The three things that bugged me about Dhurrue rugs, no longer upset me. Our rugs now have extra cushion thanks to our Premium Rug pads, they stay flat [no ripples] and they stay in place no longer slipping. In all honestly our rugs look so much better now that they have the proper foundation/

My friends at Rug Pad Corner want to give one of my readers their choice of a 5x7 rug pad! They offer rug pads for Hardwood, Laminate, Tile, Concrete and carpet. Visit their Rug Pad Wizard to choose which rug pad style would be perfect for your home. Disclosure: I was sent to rugs from Rug Pad Corner in exchange for a review on my blog, all opinions are my own. 

In addition my friends at Rug Pad corner have a special discount code for Chic Little House readers! Please use coupon code Review15 to receive 15% off your rug pad corner purchase!! 

Please visit Rug Pad Corner and share below in the comments [for an additional entry] which rug pad is perfect for your home. 

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Pin of the Week

Happy Friday friends!! One thing I love is to sew and teach my self new things. Now that the weather is finally cooling down in Northern California, I've been thinking about sewing projects I'd like to complete this Fall and Winter. At the top of my list is transforming old sweaters into mittens, this idea is piratical and genius! 

image via Pinterest here & here

These cute mittens from sweaters would also make cute stocking stuffers! I plan to pop into a few local thrift stores and find a few holiday inspired sweaters to transform into mittens. I plan on using this How To from Martha Stewart. I'll share my project on my blog in the upcoming weeks!  

Any sewing projects you want to tackle for Fall & Winter?

Albee Studio Artwork Giveaway

Hi friends as I mentioned yesterday on Avery's gallery wall reveal post, today I have an awesome Giveaway with Etsy shop Albee Studio. While looking for artwork for Avery's gallery wall it was important to me to make sure wall was filled with meaningful prints, one of my favorite prints is the Oscar Wilde Quote, 'Be Yourself Everyone Else is Already Taken.' The quote and the sweet way the print was artistically written, had me instantly smitten and I knew it was perfect for Avery. I'm so excited to partner with Albee Studio in bringing this giveaway. Albee Studio is full of inspirational quotes, perfect for any wall in your home. 

Here's the print in Avery's gallery wall. 

Giveaway details, your choice of one Albee Studio 8x10 Print and your choice of two 4x6 Postcards. The giveaway starts 11/5/14 ends 11/11/14, open to all US Residents. Please visit Albee Studio on Etsy and share which print is your favorite! 

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Avery's Gallery Wall

Avery's gallery wall is pretty much completed and I'm thrilled with how it looks in his room! Thrilled is understatement more like happy dance! His gallery wall has been about 3/4 of the way done for months! In our home feature in HGTV Magazine is gallery wall 'looked finished', one of those 'tricks of the trade' while in reality there was no artwork past the Monsters print. Mostly a few blank areas, I needed to fill in. 

His room, is one of the happiest rooms in our home. I love that his gallery wall reflects his big personality and includes a meaningful artwork that he loves. Instead of filing his wall with lots of smaller scale pieces, I choose bigger print sizes, mixed in with one or two smaller prints. One of my favorite pieces of art on his wall is the Giving Tree print, which is Avery's favorite bedtime book. The print is 18x24 which anchors the wall as of the the focal points. 

Below, I've listed all the sources on Avery's Gallery wall. 

1. I Think I Can: Etsy Shop Miss Jill McDonald 2. Coffee Filter Watercolor Leaf: Artist Avery 3. You Are the Apple of My Eye: Etsy Shop Where is Alex 4. Monster Mash: Minted Artist Sharon Rowan 5. I Love You to the Moon and Back: Etsy Shop The Penny Paper Co 6. The Giving Tree: Etsy Shop All Geeky Prints 7. Butterfly in Orange & Blue: Artist Avery 8. Little Love Bug (with Avery's name on Banner): Minted Artist Jesse Steury 9. Sticks and Stones: Minted Artist Lindsey Johnson 10. Oscar Wile Quote: Etsy Shop AlbeeStudio

Currently there are two empty spots on his gallery wall which, I'll either fill up with artwork or leave the gaps. For now I like the gaps and how the artwork flows on his wall from one side to the other, that's why I considered his gallery mostly done. I have a few other recent updates to Avery's room, that I'll be sharing on the blog soon! 

 Another one my favorite prints is the Oscar Wilde quote from Etsy Shop Albee Studio. The quote says, 'Be yourself everyone else is already taken.' That's exactly who I want Avery to be, himself :) 

I also love the many other prints from Etsy Shop Albee Studio. Tomorrow, I'll be hosting a Giveaway on my blog to win a few prints of your choice from Albee's shop! Make sure you stop by in the morning for a chance to win! In the meantime, visit Albee's shop on Etsy. 

What do you think of Avery's Gallery wall? Should I fill up those two gaps in his wall with artwork or leave them be?