Merry Christmas to all!

We're just putting the last few items in our luggage to head down to Napa for the holidays. So excited to see my family and spend this special time together!

We're sad to leave our little kitty behind, but he'll be fine. 

In the spirit of Christmas, here's a picture of our Christmas card!

Holly Jolly :)

See you next year!

xo,

Kelsey

Things are getting spooky!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

It's been awhile since I've posted last...so much for being on top of it!

The visit with the in-laws was a blast. We went to a restaurant called Terminus, which was good as always. The service seems to lack there, so it'll probably be awhile before we go back.
We took them out to the gun range that we're members of, and did some shooting! It's become a really great pastime of ours - I have realized the importance of home defense and am starting to take it more seriously. Plus it's a huge rush!

We were so glad to have our first visitors at our little apartment in Corvallis, and to show off this special town we call home for now!

Tonight's plans include dressing up and passing out candy to (hopefully) a bunch of kids from the apartment complex we live in. There aren't a ton, but I can hear them - so I know they're out there. :)

I feel a little nostalgic of the days that I used to party it up for Halloween, but I am also grateful to have a lazy night in with my hubby, watching scary movies and seeing little kids dressed up in their special costumes.

As for our decorations around here, we didn't get too creative. I wanted to make sure the kids knew we were home, and that we'd be passing out candy, so I dolled the front stoop up just a touch.

I made this 'Boo' sign with a small wooden board from Michaels, and painted the wooden letters, also from Michaels. A little glue, and voila! A fancy little sign. Similar signs at Michaels are normally $8-10, so I decided I'd make one myself. We have a 'no soliciting' sign that we wanted to cover...we get a ton of people coming by asking for donations, etc., but tonight we wanted to make sure people come by!

We got this funny skeleton man from the dollar store. Score!

Of course I had to do some spiderwebs:

...and our spoooooky pumpkin!

In all honesty, this is our second pumpkin. We got excited that it was almost Halloween, and carved our first pumpkin about 3 weeks ago. We learned our lesson! That poor guy was moldy in 5 days. 

I'm looking forward to our night in. I'll let you know how it goes!

Xo,

Kelsey

Stuffed.

When I came across this photo on Pinterest, I knew that I needed to have some of these in.my.belly.:

Source

Chocolate filled pancakes. AMAZING!

So I did some research and discovered they are a danish breakfast dish that are basically filled pancake balls, called Ebelskivers. You buy a special pan and make special pancake mix, and poof! Yummiest breakfast ever. I went ahead and ordered my pan from Macy's, and found as many recipes as possible. My favorite of all was one that featured Nutella filled ebelskivers. They seemed pretty easy, so I thought it would be a good place to start.

Flash forward to last Saturday, I had all of my necessities, and got to work. I'm not amazing in the kitchen, but am definitely working on it! Pinterest really is to blame for all of my wild ideas. 

Ta-Da! My nommy Nutella stuffed pancakes :). They turned out a little more burnt than I wanted, but I think next time I make them, I'll do medium heat instead of med. high. Those suckers cooked fast! 

For all of you interested...the 'flipping' part is the hardest of all. I ended up using a soup spoon to scoop the cooked side and a knife to make sure it turned over all the way. Sort of wonky to explain, but once you try you'll see what I mean. Tomorrow I'll use this lady's technique of doing lots of different turns.

Tomorrow I think I'll try them with jam, per a friend's suggestion! 

Have you tried any fun recipes lately? 

In other news, Erin's parents are coming up to Corvallis tomorrow, so it will be fun to finally have visitors here. It will be our first ones! We're going to take them out to a restaurant that we went to for my birthday and really enjoyed, and then to our favorite breakfast place, called the Broken Yolk. It's basically heaven on earth.

Have a great weekend!

Xo,

Kelsey

Obsessed.

I know I'm 1 of a quadrillion people who are obsessed with Pinterest, but I really AM obsessed.

It's such an amazing place to store inspiration for outfits, future home ideas, amazing recipes and miscellaneous things that make me laugh. So far I have made 3 recipes off of Pinterest, and they've been a success in the Stanton home. Erin loves Pinterest for this one reason :)

Here are my top ten favorite 'Pins':

'50 Classics for your Closet' - I call it a Girl's Must Haves. 

I'm a pretty classic dresser, so this was such a great find.

How to print onto fabric. How GENIUS is this?!

From my 'A Girl Can Dream' board...my dream closet:

The girl's version of a treehouse (someday I will make this happen!!)

I bought an Evelskiver Pan just so I can make these lovelies - Chocolate filled pancakes:

I am not a chef, but these make me seem like Martha Stewart:

Garlicky lemon-pepper chicken

My makeup bag is a mess. This would do the trick: Magnetic makeup board!

One of the 'Randoms that makes me smile'

The inspiration of how I'm wearing my hair today:

And last but not least, my dream kitchen:

Now can you understand why I'm obsessed? I could go on for days with photos from this amazing website.

If you want to join, let me know and I'll send an invite :)

Xo,

Kelsey

Falling for Fall!

We had our first rain a few days ago, and the temperatures are finally feeling like Fall. It's my favorite time of year! I love the changing colors in the leaves, gloomy mornings and getting cozy with a cup of hot tea.

What I also love about fall is getting new clothes for it...I mean, what girl doesn't?

I try and get a few staple pieces each year, so I feel current in the fashions, but I am a cheap-o at heart, and can't ever justify buying things full price. I found the following things thrifting and at TJ Maxx:

Express sweater (left) found at TJ Maxx, 

Banana Republic sweater (right) found at a local consignment shop!

Sweaterdress, perfect for leggings and boots, found thrifting.

Boots! Both found at Ross. 

And my splurge, a rose gold Fossil watch, found at TJ Maxx. I almost fell over when I found this watch - it's been on my Pinterest for over a month and couldn't justify spending the $150 at Fossil. Score!

Needless to say I have a few things I'd still like to get for fall, but can't get myself to click 'buy' on my Forever 21 wishlist. Anyone else have this problem? 

Thanks Mom and Dad, I am officially thrifty.

xo,

Kelsey

New hair!

I decided to do something different with my hair, and went Ombre! ETA: The straight hair picture was added this morning - I think it shows it off better :)

P.s....the lighting in my bathroom is awful. Please excuse my washed-out-ness. 

I got highlights for the wedding, and missed my all-over color. But I really wanted to try something new and funky, so I mixed it up with ombre. 

I think I got pretty close to my inspiration:

Yeah? 

What do you think? I am so happy with it :)

xo,

Kelsey

The Big Two-Four

Welp, I am officially 24. Happy birthday to me!

I think 24 will have a very hard time upstaging 23. This last year has been the most amazing year of my life so far. Recap time!

Let's see...

Last year on September 19, the love of my life took me to Bodega Bay, hiked up my favorite path along the cliffs, got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. I'd say that was the best start of a birthday ever, and again, will be pretty tough to top. We went to dinner afterward, and I snuck in a picture of the ring while Erin went to the restroom. I was SO excited, what can I say :)

Peep the butter...I was too excited to even move the dern butter. 

Five days later, we took a trip to Oregon that would change our lives. We fell in love with a little college town with charm and happiness. Corvallis stole our hearts. We took the trip because there was possibility that Erin could find a job up here, but we loved it so much we decided to move as soon as we could. Two months later we moved. 

In November was our engagement party, and I was more excited than ever for the wedding. 

And fast forward to August - one of the most important days of my life - I married my best friend. 

So, needless to say, 23 was an amazing year for me. I'm sure 24 will be special in it's own way, but it's sad to see 23 go. 

To celebrate, tonight we are going to a restaurant we've been wanting to go to, and have the perfect reason to go now!

Here's to another year, and to my new life with my husband :).

Xo,

Kelsey

Project time: Bike Basket Liners

When Erin and I were visiting our friends Erin and Will in Newport, we noticed quite a few really sweet basket liners in the beach cruisers that are rampant in that area. I, myself, am a proud owner of a light pink beach cruiser, and love to ride it whenever I have the chance!

What I've always done in the past, is put a towel at the bottom of the basket, in case anything fell out, or if I only wanted to bring a few things with me, instead of my huge purse. Well, you can understand why these basket liners were heavensent to me!

I mentioned it to my friend Erin, and she said I could get them online. Well...I'm a cheap-o, and figured I could make one myself.

Fast forward about a month when we were settled back home, and I couldn't wait to do a project. With 11 months of solid wedding planning and projects, I was having withdrawal. Husband reminded me that I wanted to make a basket liner! So brilliant! I just couldn't justify spending $40 on a store-bought liner.

I googled how to make one, and found this Gem. Perfect! I got to work with some fabric that I had lying around, so I wouldn't waste time/money on fabric that I loved.

I'm bad and didn't take pictures of my process, but here is one of my final result!

So, obviously not the most beautiful example of a basket liner. But again, it was my first time, and it's scrap fabric :)

So I posted a photo of this on my Facebook, and my darling sister said she wanted one! Well, perfect timing, Brooke Lee...because her birthday was coming up very quickly! I was determined to do a better job this time!

Well, practice makes (almost) perfect, because I think this one turned out great!

It's a liiiiitle big, because I was doing this one with measurements that sis sent me, but I think it turned out great with the long-distance factor.

I'm hooked. I think I'll make a new one for my basket before it gets too yucky out. 

It's already pretty gloomy out here, but as long as it's not raining, I'll be on my bike the next few weekends!

Xo,

Kelsey

Project time: Storage

As some of you know, we are at an 'in between' stage, when it comes to where we live. We live in a teeny-tiny apartment right now, because we're a) waiting to see where Erin gets a job and b) trying to save money for a house.

Gratefully, we got a TON of gifts for our wedding, and have NO WHERE to store them. And instead of having them in a pile in my office (which would drive me crazy!) we got a great idea on how to create storage in a very full apartment. Our good friends have a baker's rack in their house, and put curtains in front of the shelving, to give it a fancier appearance. We loved the idea, and ran with it!

Target had a sale on their heavy-duty wire shelving units, so we picked a huge one up for $39. It's 6'5" and is over 4' wide. It came with 5 shelves.
We bought some cheapy curtains at 7.99 each, and some shower curtain rings to create a cover for the shelves.

Now, don't judge us..obviously it's not the fanciest solution for storage, but we're happy with it for the time being.

Without further ado...

What do you think? I think we'll buy nicer curtains when we have some extra moolah, but obviously it's not priority #1. 

I also think I'll hem the bottom of the curtains, so they don't drag so much. 

Xo,

Kelsey

First post as a newlywed!

Welcome to my new blog!

And so begins a new chapter in my life.

Some of you know that I had a blog before, that I started to feature fun things that I did with work. It very quickly became a place to feature wedding planning and new things going on in my life. Well, I felt it was time for a change. I couldn't bring myself to post on a blog that was about my 'old' life, so a fresh start was needed!

I'll post projects that I do, places that we visit, any news (if we have it!) and other fun life activities - big and small.

I think this will be a great way to keep my friends and family in the loop about our lives, seeing as we live over 500 miles away from our hometown now.

So to set the tone of our new life, here is a picture of our backyard (literally!) on a beautiful summer day:

Until next time!

xo,

Kelsey