A Family Friendly Valentine's Mantle

This is not your magazine ready, professional photo shoot mantle. While I do definitely have my perfectionist, magazine-worthy, Martha Stewart-grade design desires, hearkening back to this post, I'm trying to be family friendly and more relaxed about how my home and life look. Simple, loving and homey are what I am focused on these days and I'm very happy with that.

After I put everything away for Christmas (in mid-January - it was one of those years), I left up the wood star and brought back out beachy elements. I also added this framed piece from this post. Then one of our resident artists added some of her own works. This is some of the creativity that flowed from this post.

In a past life I might have said, Nah, let's put those in your room for display. (Not on my pretty, manicured mantle...) But that's the old me. I can have a fussy mantle again later. This joyful, kid-filled time of life doesn't last long and I want to enjoy every creative, colorful moment. This is our family. You will notice that The Bug is so happy her feet aren't touching the ground. That was a very deliberate decision on her part about her joy at her new life here and how good and safe she feels now.

We do not have the two dogs but that is where fantasy comes into the artwork...and can stay. (We're not in a place for big pets at this point.) I love the flower bows on both girls' hair and the happy flower garden surrounding us. That is a bit how our life feels right now. She also built us a pretty house. Wouldn't it be fun to live in a world that is so colorful?!

I also worked up a little garland for a little Valentine's Day touch. It was super easy using construction paper cut to four inches by three inches. I used a punch for the hearts and foam squares to attach them to the dark purple construction paper. I cut in on the bottom for a little additional detail, grabbed some ribbon and a glue stick and a few minutes later I was done.

At night the wood star is charming and homey. I though it could definitely stay up a while. It is wintry and fun to turn on at night. It makes the living room very charming. We also left up the glitter stars from Christmas for a few extra weeks. We'll probably replace them with stained glass hearts soon.

It's simple but it feels like us and our life right now. I like that. Someday I'll have a stunning mantle, but right now I have a mantle that reflects us just perfectly. And I love that.

Finding A Great Guestbook

 I hope that our home will be one with wide open doors for friends and family, filled with warm memories of wonderful dinners, long evenings of great conversation and overnight visits from loved ones near and far.

One of the traditions that I have always thought would be fun for our family is to have a guestbook so I went on the look for one. While searching online, I came across a post on Apartment Therapy about addion a guestbook to your home. While the post was positive and cheerful, many of the comments were downright rude and obnoxious. Check them out if you like, but I warn you, you might like human beings a little less afterwards. Haha. Needless to say some of those poor mannered responses made me wonder about my dreams of a guestbook for our home.

I was really disappointed at what I saw available in my initial guestbook searches but two weeks ago when I was in Santa Barbara, I passed a Papyrus store and decided to pop in to see what they had. It took me only a couple of seconds to find one that felt just perfect for our home and family. Simple, black and not too big. If you like this one, know that it comes in several other pretty colors too.

Happily we had our overnight guests last week be the first signers of our guestbook and inside it I tucked the beautiful thank you card they left upon their departure as well. I was happy to hear that they too had a guestbook at their home. I think a guestbook is a great way to keep a record of fun events and visitors in your home. I don't think it's a forced thank you card or anything like that. I would hope that guests would just remind us of the date they visited, what we did together and how much fun we had together. That's my dream for our family guestbook.

It's now at home on the table near our front door so it won't be forgotten. Just seeing it each day as I come and go is a good reminder to have people over and do my part to make sure we plan and execute those fun events we dream of with people we love and enjoy spending time with. I look forward to the fun memories we'll record there in the years to come.

Do you have a guestbook? Are you anti-guestbook? I love hearing people's opinions on these "controversial" topics. Leave a comment below if you like. I'm sending you warmest wishes for a fantastic day -- and if you come to our home, I really hope you'll sign our guestbook.