Graham's Cracker Box

Designer looking Christmas Trees are not hard, you just need a few simple tips.
1. First buy either cream or gold tulle (what wedding veils are made of). It is cheap $1 yard, you need about 7 yards for a 7 ft tree. Then cut it into about 8in strips and fill in the tree horizonally. It will look like someone toilet papered your tree, but be patient with each step the tree looks better and better:)
2. Buy wire Ribbon in the color you want. Run the ribbon from top to bottom, kind of curling and crossing the tulle.
3. Buy floral sprays, poinsettas, and light sticks from your yard of from the store and start sticking them around. (buy odd numbers of things, it looks more balanced in the end)
4. Put unexpected things on the tree like birds, words, hats, old pictures etc.
5. I scrapbooked a few pictures of my kids and put them on my tree.
6. Make sure you are sticking with a simple color palette. The most beautiful trees are very monochromatic (one color) in my opinion.
Have fun, and rock out a designer tree :)

I am from Carlsbad, New Mexico and migrated back here a few years ago. I love to change my decor with the seasons. The other day when I was driving by "The Flumes" (pictured above). I noticed it was so beautiful and at sunset, so I stopped and took pictures. I am going to do a season wall with 4 big frames hung in a square pattern and I will change the pictures in them with the seasons. These are the Fall photos I have taken. I will post how it looks in my home when we are done. P.S. Carlsbad natives, feel free to steal my photography, nothing feels like home like a pictures of the flumes!

I love to find a new spin off Christmas Decor. This is so fresh looking. Instead of red and green. Try another shade of green like this lime color above. I love this look!! Simple and elegant..

Well the Graham's have been a touch under the weather. So yesterday my Nana, (Merle Berry) shared this recipe with me for natural cough medicine. Those of you who know me well, know that I am all about going natural if I can. So hope you like it, here is the recipe....

I am not a huge fan of Halloween decor, however I love Fall decor. I threw together this fall centerpiece with some pretty things I found from "Keepin Up with the Jones" a great antique store in Carlsbad. Those girls have great ideas, (the French booth in the back is my fav!) anyway.... Those girls have great ideas like making old frames into art work with old documents, broaches and using beads for glitter. Also it is a great idea to stencil pretty swirls on pumpkins. I threw in a little unexpected surprise by adding some black crows. I love this setting. Hope you do too!

Sooo, I am embracing my pink vintage bathroom. Some people LOVE vintage, I like it when it is the right color!! Anyway, until this old bathroom gets a face lift, I had to give it some immediate attention! So what goes with pink...... brown. So I painted brown and ran with the girly theme. I got a few old mirrors and painted them cream, hung them overlapping over the bathtub and added some crystal christmas ornament thingies for some bling. :) I used an old coat rack to hang the mirrors and tied ribbon to each mirror and suspended them to what ever level I wanted. I have seen this kind of thing done before, but I had never attempted it. I hope they don't fall!!! It seems sturdy enough!

This is my way of getting all of us to eat our 3 fruits a day and decorating a corner in my kitchen. I found this huge glass bowl and I keep our fruit in it. It helps me remember to eat fruit throughout the day and it looks pretty. I placed a place mat under it and a "yucca top" greenery plant behind it. A great way to decorate with function!

I found these great old chest drawers at an antiques store for really cheap, and I used them to fill in places that needed a little something. The picture above I used the first drawer as a contaner for a flower arrangement. It was long and skinny like the top of the bookcase so it works great. I found this great sign and placed it in front of the drawer, because this room is primarily black and not brown.

It is great to used unexpected things, and give them a new purpose than the purpose they once had!

I have to admit guys my mother helps me create lots of this stuff, in our spare time (which isn't much) we are always decorating something.. She is the one who found me the plastic wine glasses and placed the bench by the tree. She is awesome if you guys don't know her. She rocks actually :)

Hi guys, I found this bench at a Mexican Imports place, and it looks like it is made of an old bed. The paint job is now more like chalk, but it has such great lines. I placed the bench in my back yard under a tree. I flanked it with matching potted plants and I love it. You could do this with any old bench you find, it makes a great focal point in a yard and it very simple.

Hello everyone, today I am going to show you how I keep my dining room table set and beautiful, however it is kid friendly and could withstand two little boys 3 and under. I like my house to look very put to together and maybe a touch formal. However with these boys, there has to be some adjustments. Also, another little bit of advice here if you are working with ,not the most beautiful flooring, decorate and then reevaluate. I have teal carpet, and after I got my stuff in, it isn't bugging me too bad.....for now anyway.

Hello everyone! I have so many ideas that need to be out of my head onto paper, or cyberspace. So I used this in my home and it works great. I seem to always feel like my hallway needs something on the floor, but not anything big obviously. Just the same, it is also hard to find the right size "Entry Table" So here is what I did.... I found two pillars on sale at Hobby Lobby about $13.00 each. They had chips in the plaster..(who cares!) I just put the chips toward the back. Then I added a scrap piece of wood and set it on top of the pillars to make an instant, not to deep table for my entry. The fabric on the left, with the fringe, is a curtain from Family Dollar that was $8. The piece of the right, is just an unfinished piece of brown fabric I got for $1.50. I am obsessed with "yucca top" greenery, so I had to throw of few of those in there. I love mixing the modern pictures with the antique doorway inserts.