Add Sparkle to Your Holiday with Kirklands

 

 

Kirkland's has always been one of my go-to places for beautiful home décor.

 

Whenever I walk into any of their stores I know that I will be wowed by their displays.

 

I normally decorate with traditional red, green, and white, holiday décor, but this year I was hoping to go into a different direction but I didn't know where to start.

 

As I was searching for inspiration I found a collection at Kirkland's called Majestic Metallics that caught my eye.

 

 

This pillow was the first thing that I was drawn to.

 

I adore reindeer décor and couldn't pass up this fun pillow!

 

(Santa's Reindeer Pillow)

 

 

The warm gold lettering and muted tones were exactly the look I was going for.

 

I carried on with the look with this shimmering candle.

 

(Glittered Champagne Twig Candle)

 

The soft muted gold and silver glitter add a little sparkle to my room. The flickering light from the candle really warms up the space and makes it cozy and inviting for my guests too.

 

 

So now that I have my color pallet down,  I need to bring in some natural elements to balance out the room, and there's no better way than to add a Christmas wreath.

(Metallic Antler Wreath)

 

The rustic look of the pine cones and antlers mixed with the metallic balls and leaves tie everything together, and the fact that it is not real means I wont have to worry about it dyeing in the middle of the Holiday season!  

 

A nice wreath like this is an investment because it can be used year after year in my holiday décor.

 

Then of course this gorgeous JOY sign.

 

I can't wait to prop it up on my mantel, or how about hang it by my front door instead?

 

Hhhmmm.......the possibilities are endless with a piece like this!

  

 

(Gold JOY Wood Plank Plaque)

 

These were just a few of my favorite pieces form the gorgeous Majestic Metallics line.

 

The muted tones mixed with the sparkle create a warm and inviting look that I want for my home this year.

 

There are so many ways to decorate for the Holidays that I can be frustrating. I turned to Kirkland's for inspiration because they make decorating so easy by creating different looks for your Holiday décor: 

• Cozy Christmas
• Glitz & Glam
• Nautical Noel
• Holly Jolly
• Majestic Metallics

 My favorite style is the Majestic Metallics....what is yours?

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Decorating and Happy Holidays!
 

 

Jennifer

 

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New Bamboo Shades from Blinds.com

One of the things that drew me to this house when I bought it was the large scale windows in the front room.

They let in so much light so I didn't want to cover them up with heavy light blocking curtains or drapes so I lived with mini blinds.

I never really liked the min blinds because they look cheap and were hard to keep clean and they did not look good when completely pulled up, so needless to say when I had an opportunity to work with Blinds.com I was happy to finally get rid of the mini blinds!

When you work with Blinds.com you work with a personal design consultant who helps you through the process of measuring and picking out the right coverings for your window. 

Blinds.com offers all sorts of window coverings from roller shades, to natural woven shades, plantation shutters to different styles of matchstick blinds, so I was like a kid in a candy store when it was time to pick out my window coverings! 

With help from my design consultant we worked together to find the perfect window covering.

I selected the Budget Woven Shades in Malay Umber.

Here they are with one up and one down so you can see how they look in both positions.

They come with a header that overlaps and covers up the mounting hardware for a finished look too.

I chose the Malay Umber color for several reasons.

It has various shades of brown in it and some random flecks of black, so the pattern is very random and shows off the natural bamboo.

I also thought the warm shades of brown complimented my wall color and flooring too.

I have white trim with soft creamy yellow walls so I didn't want something too light that would blend in but yet I didn't want something that contrasted too much and looked too busy.

So the Malay Umber was the perfect choice for my front room!

The bamboo slats vary in size and allow a little light to shine trough, which I completely love for the day time. However, at night I wanted the option of having privacy so my design consultant suggested that I  add a privacy liner to the back. 

The privacy liner you see here is a white fabric backing that gives you full coverage when needed.

I am so glad I chose this option!

These blinds are high quality and add such a nice look to my front room.

The color and texture of the blinds add warmth and allow me the flexibility of having a fully opened window where the light can shine in, or a fully covered window for those times when I want privacy.

No more hiding my windows with mini blinds!

My experience working with Blinds.com has been great and the quality of my shades are superb.

I am very happy with my new woven wood shades!

You can  hop on over to Blinds.com to check out their latest sale and see all the beautiful options for your particular windows.

Just think how exciting it would be to get new custom fitted window coverings this Christmas! It would be a great present for yourself, or for someone on your list.

Jennifer

*I was provided free product from Blinds.com but all thoughts and opinions are of my own.  

  

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Pinned It-Done It-Pinterest Silver Cleaner

Remember the old dirty silver platter I bought from the Goodwill?

Disgusting, right? It was half priced and I can see why. People probably passed it up because it was so tarnished, but not me. I could see beyond all that.

Just look at the engraving and detail around the edges. To me this was a diamond in the rough so I bought it with the idea in mind that I would try the silver cleaning tip that everyone is passing around on Pinterest.

I started by trying to clean the platter with my silver cleaning cloth that I use for cleaning my silver jewelry.

You can see on the left where I used the cloth. It looked better than the original right side, but it still wasn't to my liking so I decided to go ahead and try the Pinterest recipe for silver cleaning.

I referred to several different sites and each one had pretty much the same recipe tweaked slightly to their liking, but the basic recipe calls for:

• Hot water
• Salt (kosher or regular iodized salt is what most used)
• Baking soda
• Aluminum foil

I lined my sink with the foil.

Then filled it with HOT water that I heated in the microwave and sprinkled in four tablespoons of regular table salt, then let it soak.

See the salt clinging to the platter?

Here it is after about 20 minutes of soaking.

I'm seeing small bubbles and the tarnishing is starting to lift slightly.

Then after about 30 minutes, I could really see it starting to come clean AND I smelled a slight smell from the reaction of ingredients.

There is a chemical reaction going on with the aluminum foil, silver, and salt.

That is how this recipe works and you could definitely smell it if you were right up on the sink.

Here is what the foil looked like after I was done. You can see the discolored area which is where the salt affected the foil.

OK, so back to the soaking. I started with salt but decided now to add two tablespoons of baking soda too.
I was in "science experiment" mode!!!!

After 30-40 minutes I decided enough time had passed so I removed the platter and dried it off with a paper towel.

I was a little surprised that it didn't come out sparkling clean, keep in mind I still had to buff off the tarnished with a soft cloth, BUT I will say that it came clean very easily.

The soaking process helped lift off the tarnish, for sure!

And here it is!

All clean and shiny!

I will be honest and tell you that I was not totally "WOWED" by this process since I still had to use a cloth to buff out some of the tarnish, but I was happy with how much easier it was to buff out after soaking in the mixture.

I would like to try it again but tweak it a little bit by using a different salt.

In the end I give it a thumbs up and can't believe how nice my platter looks. It still has some rust spots but that's OK.

I want it to look old, just not DIRTY!

 

 

So what do you think of the before and after?

 

Have you ever used this recipe for cleaning silver?

 

 

 

Jennifer

 

 

 

 

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