re-grouping

I have decided it is time to re-group and re-fresh my blog or perhaps re-locate it. I wanted to start this blog as a beautiful place to share stories and inspire people with projects and design. I lost site of this and now it is time to reflect and start a new. So Thank you for stopping by please look around and stay tuned for whats to come.
Creatively Yours,
Christina Marie

World Market Towel Rack Hack

I recently was searching the web for a new towel rack. You see when we moved in to our new home our guest bathroom had only one towel rack and it hung over the toilette!…Now call me crazy but I don’t want my bath towel hanging up over the toilette and I wouldn’t expect my guests would either. So I took it down along with the matching one in our master bath, my good intentions were to hang them both up behind the guest bathroom door to create a double towel rack.
 

Hitting the re-start button and welcoming 2015!

2014 was a crazy year for me. It had some up points but over all it was one stress filled year! I welcomed my Hubby home from deployment number 2, moved 3 times, had a lot of personal decisions to make about my future that were all accompanied by a lot of stress and on top of that I had some personal health issues that were not fun to deal with. Well now that it's 2015 and I have done the typical New Years reflection and have found that non of my 2014 goals were met! Partially because of the things listed above but mostly because of me. So...I have decided that this year is the year I make my goals achievable. 

My goals for 2015 are to not judge myself so harshly. In order to help me do that I want to get back to my yoga practice where I feel calm and centered. This feeling resonates into the rest of my life when I am actively doing yoga. It inspires me to take the time to enjoy life's beautiful moments and live in the present.I feel if I can get back to that I will judge less and enjoy more.  

In the process of being less judgmental about where I am in my life and what I am doing I have also decided that its truly time to throw myself back into this blog! I started it as a way to share myself with the world and it quickly became a place where I constantly judged myself because I was so worried about how I would come off. Well no more! I am over my writers block/self shaming and I am here to share and hopefully inspire. 

Below I have re-posted my first blog post about why I started this blog in the first place. I hope your read it, I know its lengthy but I hope when you read it that you get inspired too to hit the re-set button on a past project you put aside and never completed. Happy 2015 everyone and welcome back! 

Creatively Yours, 

Christina Marie

A little story about a blog

If you were to ask my Mom she would say "I'm my fathers child" because this passion to make things and the ability to visualize my projects started at a young age and it mirrors my Pops way of thinking. See my Pop, who isn’t so much a Mr. fix-it as he is a Mr. build it, taught me a lot about tools and not because he felt he had to... but because I would wander down into his wood shop in the basement and ask to help him. I started out learning how to use a good old fashion nail and hammer, then his belt sander and hand sander. By the time I was 10 I also knew how to use a table saw, jig saw and drill press. He always had neat little tricks to teach and he owns about every wood working tool you could ever want. He and I never actually didn't build furniture together but I helped him build shelves, shed doors and bird houses. He did however built me beautiful doll furniture when I was a child... but it was always a Christmas surprise so I never got to help out on those projects. 

Me and the man responsible for the maddnes...My Pop! 

Fall Reflections

It's dark out and the wind has stopped. I open the door to let Mack out and there is a cool air seeping in. I slide on my slippers, wrap my sweater tightly around me and step outside. The air is cold and I can almost smell frost. This cool frosty weather evokes a sense of magic. There's something about that first smell of frost on a falls eve that excites me and also makes me long for home.  

Finding quiet moments and balance for a stress free life.

Stress is apart of our every day lives. We wake up stressed out and go to bed stressed out. Many of us don't even recognize stress anymore because we are so use to it. Many of my friends right now are planning for new babies, moving, house hunting and weddings planning which are good stresses but still stress. Some are dealing with the lose of loved ones and others are dealing with personal illness. We all have stress! For me these past 8 months have been very stressful with my Hubby being deployed. So I wanted to share a few things that I personally believe in and try to do to in order to find those quiet moments and have balance and as much of a stress in my life as possible.
1) Breath in the fresh air… I’m not talking about just stepping outside and going, "ok I took some breaths!" and then running back inside to do your job or project. I’m talking about going out for a short or long walk, I take my dog every day, and really taking time to breath and look at nature. Really breath deeply. Maybe find a beautiful spot and stop there. Take in 5-10 really long deep breaths. Look at the beauty around you the green grass or the blue sky…Even here in New England when its cold and grey, I look at the bare trees all dancing together in the wind and I reflect on how strong they are for living through the hard winter months. To me no matter how ugly or crazy the world gets nature is always peaceful and grounding and oxygen is always my drug of choice.

A Inspiration for Wally’s on Wednesday

A small town favorite watering hole, called Wally’s, is building a new building and I wanted to put my two cents in about the decor that I feel would suite the place. (I may be friends with the owner LOL) Any way I want to give you a super quick idea of what its like in the small town. Its an agricultural community filled with lots of small farms and a few big ones. There is one tiny grocery store and one bank. Everyone comes out for fourth of July and there are two beautiful little churches with tall steeples that you can see across the farm yards. So basically your quintessential New England Town!
The new building will be built in an old farming field on the main road and is going to look like sort of like an old farm house meets a barn. So what better decor to go with it than rustic meets industrial right! OK here we go!
So I picture something like this for the counter. Its all reclaimed wood and this particular one was done by Elmwood reclaimed timber. BUT not with wood counter tops it makes it look TOO farm country.

Wicked Inspiring Wednesdays!

Wednesdays can be a hard day of the week. Filled with mixed emotions of “oh wow the week is 1/2 over” and “oh no the week is ONLY 1/2 OVER!” So here I am to hopefully make you be a glass half full type of person, get some inspiration for the rest of your week and make you look forward to your weekend.

For my first Wicked Inspiring Wednesday post I decided to go with something that I have a true passion for…..Mirrors! I don't know why I love the little buggers so much but I do! I find them all the time at antique shops and flea markets and its always so hard not to buy them all up. They can come in all shapes, sizes colors and frames. I love old ones, new ones, tall ones, skinny ones… all mirrors! (wow hope this subject doesn't make me come across as vain lol)

Thanks for the image Kingdom of style

A House Dreams Are Made Of

This past weekend one of my dearest and best friends, Meg, bought a house! So today I'm doing a post to honor the dream of home ownership. I went through the Internet and found houses that if I were house hunting right now I would want to look at...or at least drool over LOL.


This is one in Virginia that we actually looked at before we found out that we were not moving yet. Its amazing. Needs just enough work where I could put a personal touch on it but not so much that we couldn't move in right away.

Dreaming up a New Office

 I have found that my current desk is way too small to do anything except type and enjoy a cup of tea. I have also realized that my office has become a catch all room (YIKES!). So I have decided to revamp!

I found some inspiration via Pinterest, (I often wonder what life was like before Pinterest...funny I can't remember LOL)

I will give you quick tour of my "idea board" so you can get an idea of what is currently in my head visually. Then the plan is by mid April to have a completely new looking office! Filled with inspirational beautiful things...including some organization! 

 



Actually already in the process of building this beautiful desk! Building plans are FREE at Ana White.
Photo from Shanty 2 Chic