Good morning, hope you are having a wonderful weekend. First order of business is to announce the winner of the mini pagoda giveaway. Congratulations goes to-

Please email us at [email protected] to provide your name and shipping address, so they can be on their way!

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Here, I have not had quite the weekend I had planned out, which was a serious bummer. I am sick. I had been fighting something all week but was able to trudge through and get done all that needed to be done but then the chickens came home to roost and there was no stopping them! So happy I was well enough to host my luncheon last Monday.  I have been home since late Friday and got a strep test, sure enough have strep and a bad cold. That lousy, have no energy, Calgon take me away kind of feeing:(

So I am doing all that needs to be done to get better- resting, taking meds, non stop rounds of soup, tea and liquids, my vitamin C and yes of course the obligatory Netflix binge watching. Watched a few I haven’t seen in so long, The Help, Atonement and The Devil wears Prada. When they are good, they are good and bear repeating. Onto a new round today…..Bummed as I had a fun city day planned yesterday adn tonight a birthday party, neither which I can attend. Oh well, hoping to feel much better tomorrow!

A very busy week ahead as we continue to work on ornament orders, our new tabletop arrivals and then gift wrap will be here around Nov. 15th so I really need my energy and am not messing around with taking the best care of myself in order to do so. So lots of exciting things happening. Also if anyone is wondering, the Fall Love contest will start tomorrow, lots of incredible fall pictures that I know you will enjoy. Anywho, lets get started with this weeks Seven on Sunday…..

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1 MY AMAZING STAFFORDSHIRE DOG AND NUTCRACKER ORNAMENTS I am so fascinated by all aspects of the creative process. When I dreamed up my little doggies a few years ago I never thought they would go into mass production as they have, as in thousands of them being made.

I work with a wonderful factory that employs almost all women!  I was so fascinated by these “in production” pictures from a few weeks ago that I thought it would be fun to share a bit of the “behind the scenes” as this is part of the creative process I don’t think we see nearly enough and maybe like me, you will find this interesting. The work ethic is awe inspiring and kind of makes me appreciate each little Staffordshire dog just a little bit more knowing the attention that goes into each one!

You can see all the blue and white  Staffordshire dogs and nutcrackers ornaments by clicking here.

Red dogs and nutcrackers here

Green dogs and nutcrackers here

2 AN EASY HOLIDAY ARRANGEMENT TO REPLICATE I did this literally in minutes. Almost anyone can do it, if you have some fresh greens in your yard, a vase and a few “add ons” like berries or whatever you might have on hand. I absolutely love the way it looks on my mantle, I did this with a pair of the mid sized double happiness vase  which is a perfect size for a mantle. But, you can easily make adjustments literally for any size container, jar or vase. This is very much a  “designer looking” arrangement but seriously is so easy!

In this case I also bought beaded eucalyptus but you can adapt this arrangement to using any greens found in your yard and evergreens are quite abundant-

I went into my yard with a plastic bag and cut off some branches of evergreen , almost everyone can find these. Then I bought some of the beaded eucalyptus, one of my favorite greens and had some leftover gorgeous magnolia leaves from Weston Farms. Gathered all my greens and went to work………

Started with the evergreen then the faux berries and finally filled in with the eucalyptus

Added more evergreen on my mantle with my sugar pine cones that I use every year. Added some mini white pumpkins and voila!

Then here I added the stems of magnolia I have, visit Weston Farms (click here) to order your small bundles, so inexpensive, super fresh and perfect for so many variations of holiday decorating!

Do you think I should do a post on a holiday how to tutorial for mantle decorating?

3 INSTAGRAMS OF INTEREST Never at a loss of incredible and inspiring pictures to share with you, I also love discovering new accounts and when I do,  I share them here. Lots of pretty fall/Halloween inspired posts this weekend. Hope you enjoy this weeks round up-

4 NEW PRODUCTS THAT ARE TOO PRETTY TO KEEP UNDER WRAPS You know me, I have a very hard time keeping things under wraps! Just got the professional pictures back for all the new tole and I was flipping out. So excited about this batch, seriously in love. I hear over and over how hard it is to find beautiful tray tables and brackets, so look no more! Theses will be here in about 4 weeks, can’t come a minute too soon. We will hold a presale on these within the next 2 weeks. They will be here mid December, so just in time for Christmas!

I did an entire post on all that is new and very exciting for Enchanted Home, if you missed it click here…..it’s worth seeing!

Here is what the tray tables will look like

5 NEW MOVIES! Happy to see a handful of good movies on the horizon. Just give me a great movie, with beautiful scenery, good music and a meaningful story and I am happy….is that really too much to ask? No major special effects, gore, or any of that necessary.

Love a good period film and some of my all time favorites are of this genre. Belgrariva looks extremely promising, the music, scenery, everything about this! Have you read the book?  This is by Julian Fellowes,  same author as Downton Abbey, so you know it has to be good!

If you want to know the backstory, you can always get the book.

Call me sappy but I love just about anything that centers around Christmas and this fun flick looks like a good one to see with the girls:)

The Good Liar looks darn good, just about anything with Helen Mirren to me, means a quality movie.

This looks really good, uncanny how much they look like each of the Popes!! Looks very interesting….

6 WINE CLUBS This,  to me is a fabulous gift idea (which I have given) and will give again this holiday season. Not all wine clubs however are created equally! One that has gotten consistently rave reviews is Bright Cellars, it starts with a series of questions aka the wine quiz to match you or your gift recipient with his/her taste palette.

Then for $60 a month, you will get four bottles of wine per month. Love this idea and just in case anyone is paying attention, I wouldn’t mind getting this as a gift:) I also think it’s a great gift idea for someone who may not know a lot about wine but wants to educate themselves a bit, allows them to try new wines in the comfort of their own home…think this is such a good gift. Click here to visit Bright Cellars.

7 SUNDAY’S SURVEY So this weeks question is about holiday gift giving. I vow every single year to be done by Thanksgiving, and frankly that has never happened even with the best of intentions. I just know how insanely busy the month of December is, especially now working full time that anything that can lighten the load is like a symphony to my ears. One thing I tend to do particularly with my sons and those closest to me is ask “what do you need” or “give me some ideas”.

First, they need nothing. Secondly, I am only asking for a dragged out holiday shopping season. I think this year I will refrain from asking anyone and just get something I. know/think they might love. Of course I will look for unique things not generic predictable types of gifts. But my aha moment is that if I do this (and can stay resilient in not asking) this will make my life so much easier and my gift buying so much quicker! If they don’t care for what I have gotten, then that’s on them to work out after the holiday season. Wondering how many take this approach?

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And that’s a wrap for this Sunday. Hope you enjoyed the post and hope you are having a great weekend! Anything here get your attention? You know I love hearing about it…so do tell! Especially since I will be resting all day I will be on my iPad a lot of that time:) Tomorrow begins the first round of Fall Love and if you need fall inspiration, you will have to look no more! Thanks for stopping by, until next time……

PS Today is the last day of the porcelain arrival sale! If you have not visited it and love blue and white porcelain, you won’t want to miss it. So many beautiful new arrivals, click here

(Any order requests sent via email will be replied to Monday morning when our office reopens and invoices will be sent at that time)