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Bedroom wall makeover

So awhile ago you saw what the other side of my room looked like and a little while ago I told you I was taking up the other wall as well, and then I showed you a little bit of how the wall was turning out. Now I'm here to show you the couple of new additions that I just added to the wall tonight. As you can tell by the image below, the wall is not completed. There's still two more things that need to be added. 

{click on the images to enlarge them}

{Please don't mind the girl statue, she holds all of the headbands and necklaces. I have to do something about that!}

images by sara

Scarf and Scrap Bracelet

After getting my first sewing machine for Christmas,

I've been working on making some scarves and

braided scrap bracelets for the shop.

Since I love to share things on my blog, I thought I'd discount the scarves and bracelets until next week.

Leopard Print Scarf

$8

originally $12

Braided Scrap Bracelet

$1

originally $2

Add on $2 for shipping.

email me if you're interested:

smtornow@sbcglobal.net

Sponsors

When I started to do the free advertising, I asked everyone to tell me a little bit about their blog so that I could share it with everyone and you can decide on which blog you'd like to visit before even going to it. Since it was before Christmas, but this post wasn't going to happen until after, I asked everyone to also tell me what their favorite Christmas gift has been, whether it be from this year or from previous years. 

So here's a look into our new sponsors.

I hope you'll consider to follow them and enjoy their blogs and shops!

If you're looking to take us up on our offer to advertise your blog or shop for free, you can learn more here.

My blog is a craft & art related blog that offers inspirational posts & DIY tutorials quite often.  My most recent run with a tutorial a week have been my Hooray for a Handmade Holiday! Make It Mondays posts.  For the past month or so I've been posting some wonderful holiday DIY's.  These include crochet patterns, finger knitting patterns, etc. 

You can view everything at her blog!

My favorite gift of all time has to be my large soldier nutcracker.  I went to see the Nutcracker ballet when I was very young & I came home begging my mom for a nutcracker like the one in the ballet!  Santa brought me one that year & I've collected them ever since!!

I started my blog in July 2009 to fill a creative void.. for the 5 years previous I was a manager at Pottery Barn, so I had a huge outlet, plus a lot of friends and co workers to listen to my random ramblings ;) Once I left, I came into the hockey business, in an administrative roll in a company my husband and I own/ run. Let me just say.. boring.. I am so not a hockey girl, so there started Flourish design + style. Now I can talk as randomly as I want!

My blog is based pretty simply on these few things: great designers, things I love, daily features of great rooms, great shops and must have items. It keeps me sane! It’s wonderful to meet and get to know people who are thinking / feeling/ liking the same things as me. With a husband and two little girls at home, it’s sort of like having my own space!

My favorite Christmas gift goes way back. Years ago my father in law picked out a gorgeous brooch for me at Banana Republic. It’s my favorite because a. he doesn’t do things like that. My mother in law buys the gifts period. So I knew we had a pretty special relationship, b. he dislikes shopping and c. he is an oil + gas guy, guys guy, tools and mechanics and repair guy. He picked out the prettiest brooch.

I started my blog at the suggestion of several of my nieces and a sister....actually they were pretty pushy about it, so finally I caved in and started blogging.  and I love it!!   I have improved lots and lots since I first started in March 2009...I mix a bit a family stuff with a lot of crafting stuff.  Wool is my newest passion, I love all things wool, I buy many wool sweaters to felt and create with...I also make a lot of Mizzou items, since I live in Columbia, MO, home of the Mizzou Tigers.  I am a nurse in real life and have a 16 year old son who tolerates my craftiness.  

My favorite Christmas present ever can be found here: http://ellenscreativepassage.blogspot.com/2009/12/best-christmas-present-ever.html

 I may have another favorite Christmas present ever since my mom just gave me her high school senior ring this past weekend! 

I originally started C.R.A.F.T. as a digital way to save inspiring ideas [i used to have a binder filled with magazine clippings :)] The name of the blog is creating really awesome free things [C.R.A.F.T.] and for me, creating happens every day, all the time...I create recipes, home decor, art, fashion, memories, events, I even create vacations all of course for free or at least thrifty! I typically have 3 types of posts:

#1: MMM- Making Monday Marvelous- This is a linky Party that happens every Monday. Link up your craft/ baking related ideas!

#2: C.R.A.F.T. tutorial- This something I make and then share a tutorial with my readers. Currently there are 68 C.R.A.F.T.'s, 15 kid c.r.a.f.t.'s and 16 seasonal C.R.A.F.T.'s! See the tabs at the top of my blog :)

#3: Round Up- This is a round up of craft/DIY ideas about a certain category. Click HERE to see all of the round ups!

It is so hard to pick ONE favorite Christmas gift! As a kid, my brothers and sisters and I got a group present of a unicycle! It was really fun to try...only one of 6 ever really  got really good at it! As an adult, I've had a few favorites, but the one that comes to mind today is a necklace my mom got me last year :) My mom got me THIS necklace, and I wear it almost everyday. 

Rags to Stitches Boutique is a blog centered around the crazy life of a Mom juggling a clean house, healthy home cooked meals, being a good wife, and the mom of two little ones all while being a work at home mom. I hope you'll stop by and visit my blog and my store. 

My favorite Christmas present I received this year was a bunch of gift cards to Anthropologie to go shopping!!! I'm so excited for new clothes.

If your blog or shop was not featured, it's because I either didn't receive a response from you about your blog or you did not provide me with a image and code. 

Customer Feature: Sarah Myers

Every time there's a giveaway and I send out everyone's giveaway win, I always ask them to send in a picture to show other people what the product looks like on. I think it's a great way for others to see exactly how this product could look on since I only provide an image of the products resting on a white board. Every single time I never receive an email from the person who won with any pictures, but this time I got lucky.

Recently there was a giveaway for a Jana Headband and Sarah Myers won!

The best thing about this was that she sent me an email with pictures of her wearing her headband!

Thanks so much for sending in your pictures Sarah!

You can find the Jana Headband here. 

What I Got..

Here's are some of the things I got for Christmas this year..

Of course I got more things, but I don't remember them all.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas!

I can't believe it's passed and New Years is on it's way!

What are some of your New Years resolutions?

Earrings

And I'm wearing these great little white earrings.

Christmas Eve Hair

Since it's Christmas Eve and we're going to

church and then to my grandparents after,

I decided that I would go with a little fast updo

instead of wearing my hair straight down.

I started by separating my hair to have a upper

and lower part to it.

I then pinned up the top half and took the bottom,

spinned it around a couple times and then took one of these

Goody Spin Pins and put it in.

I then took down the top part, fixed it to the side

like the bottom half, but this time I wrapped the top

part around the bottom part to make the bun / twist look larger.

Then I took the second spin pin and spun it into my hair.

Since I had pieces fall out when I made the bun,

I took extra bobby pins and stuck them in to hold that in place

where I wanted them to go.

Here's how it turned out:

The thing I love about these pins are that it gets rid of all

of the other misplaced bobby pins.

Since it twists into your hair, it helps to

grab onto a lot more hair than a traditional bobby pin.

I honestly will say I think it's the best hair invention ever

and everyone should buy a set!

Plus the best thing is that they're about the same cost

as a strip of bobby pins, so you're really only gaining here.

And no, I am not getting paid for this post.

I just really love them that much that I needed to share!

And YES! I am wearing bright red lipstick tonight.

And I'm wearing these.

Merry Christmas &

Happy Holidays!

Giveaway: Jana & Taylor Headbands

Jana

Taylor

enter here

DONE!

{source}

I am proud to say that just this minute,

well a couple minutes before this,

I finally finished my Christmas gifts and gift wrapping.

This year I pretty much made everything that

I'm giving away for presents. There were a couple

things that I bought either because I wasn't able to make them,

or because there was something else they wanted and I didn't

know what to give them.

Tomorrow I have to make puppy chow before we leave for Virginia.

My brother recommended it, no, demanded it.

He told my mom that if I didn't make it and take it to him that

he would hurt me. My mom proceeded to tell him that I know

karate, which I do not, so I better just make it.

That's love I tell ya!

Do you have any shopping to finish up?

free advertising!

Yep! That's right!

Free advertising until we reach 300 followers.

You can learn more about it

here

New Year Changes

*This does not mean I'm shutting down this blog.

At the end of this month we will be closing the

Sweet November shop. The site will still be active

until the end of April and all items will have a new home.

The items will now be listed at Sara Belle Designs.

This site will open on January 1st.

Sara Belle Designs will be our main design site where we're

going to provide our services for headers, logos, titles, Etsy headers, etc.

We will provide the link in the new year, so make sure to check us out then!

We also have a giveaway this week at Love Stitched on the 22nd!

I'll post the link on that day so everyone has a chance to win.

There will probably only be one post this week and that'll be for the giveaway.

I'll be starting my Christmas weekend early on the 22nd

where I will be traveling to Virginia to visit my brother

and sister-in-law. I'm then turning around on the 24th and heading home

to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas day with family in Ohio. 

What are your Holiday plans?

Let us know in a comment below.

Hope everyone has a great Christmas!

Happy Holidays!

xoxo

Sara

Christmas Music

Usually I'm not into Christmas music at all.

Seriously, when it comes on after Thanksgiving, I dread it.

I don't even like listening to it once it's close to Christmas.

But for some reason I had a change of heart last night and I started listening

to the Glee Christmas Album.

The best thing about this was that I was able to listen to the entire CD on my computer without having to make a single purchase.

There were 37 complete Christmas albums.

Holy cow, right?

Since everything was free I thought I'd share the site with everyone.

Listening to the same traditional songs over and over again get a little boring,

with 37 albums there is quite the mix of sounds.

You can check all of them out here.

This will take you to the Glee album, but the albums available for listening are above it.

All you have to do is select an album, select a single song, or select Play Full CD above the tracks to play the music. The player to control the songs is at the bottom.

So crank up your computer speakers and enjoy the mix of sounds!

Hope everyone has a great Holiday!

We're starting ours early on the 22nd.

This year everything is pretty much handmade, which I'm really excited about.

I also still have all of my gift wrapping to do.. yikes!

Wish me luck!

Holiday Shopping: Tiffany & Co.

I was just shopping the Tiffany & Co. site

and found some things that I would love to purchase.

Custom Blog Header Winners

I've been feeling really generous this month,

so I thought for this giveaway we would

go ahead and have two winners,

even though I said there would only be one.

Here are our winners..

Please contact me before Wednesday morning and we'll get to work!

smtornow@sbcglobal.net

welcome winter

winter has finally arrived in northwest ohio.

i don't know how i feel about this..

Giveaways: Last Call!!

Giveaways:

Lexi Headband

Jana Headband

Don't forget:

We also have blog / website headers 20% off until

December 31st.

And 20% off the shop until 

December 18th.

Bloggers Give Back Project

I'm happy to announce that we are participating in the

Bloggers Give Back Project.

We are giving away a custom blog / website header.

So make sure to put in your bid on all of the amazing

things that are being given away!

cover design

I got right to work.. 

Children's Book

One of my favorite children's books is

The Pigeon Wants a Puppy.

I recently just found this book in Target

about two years ago.

Every time I see this book in a store,

I grab it and I read it aloud for who ever wants to listen.

Most of the time it's my mom that has to do the suffering.

I think she got tired of hearing me read it, 

because Santa brought this for me last year. 

Anyways, on my 30 Before 30 list,

one of the things I want to do is to write a book.

Believe me, I am dying to write a book.

Any kind of book really, but I really want to do a 

children's book and do the illustrations for it as well.

Since I've been considering it so much,

I figured I would go ahead and use

Jake & Charlie.

(they weren't really used for The Children's Place)

Since they've been sitting on my jump drive for months,

 I figured they would be perfect to use for the project.

What do you think?

You can buy The Pigeon Wants a Puppy here:

(along with the other pigeon books)