A Thousand Words is Worth a Picture

How fun is this socially-conscious wall art from Litographs? An ENTIRE book is printed on each poster. I would love to have a wall of these in an office or library (sigh, someday.) The Peter Rabbit and Aesop's Fables would also be perfect (and educational) accents in a kid's room. New prints are released twice a week and the company, committed to promoting literacy, donates a book to charity for each poster sold.

Aesop's Fables

The Prince

Ulysses (This might be my personal favorite.)

...I would also love to see someone pull out a magnifying glass and unfold one of these on the morning commute.

Images via

Tablescaping

I really love tablescaping. (I'm pretty sure that's the technical term!:)) Thanks to the Tag Outlet, OneKingsLane, and major holiday sales at Macy's, I've been able to collect a few fun items to jazz up my table. Since we live in a city condo, I don't exactly have a ton of storage space (I have a 5' ladder learning against my desk dining room table right now - no joke), so versatility is key.

During the holidays I was lucky enough to host a few sit down dinners and a family brunch and play around a bit. Our actual table is a Crate and Barrel Outlet find (with a few deep character scratches) so it deserves some dressing up!

An early Christmas brunch: placemat - Pottery Barn, napkin holder - Mariposa

Peppermint sticks and paper straws - Walgreens:), monogrammed mint julep cups - gift

sugar candy napkin rings - Tag Outlet, glass plates - OneKingsLane.com, gold chargers - super sale at Macy's, cloth napkins - Crate and Barrel outlet, 

An early Christmas dinner: Wine garland - DIY here, runner - Tag Outlet, napkin rings - Mariposa, china - Wedgewood

Gold and white napkins - Marimekko

Dinner party with a few fun couples: too small table cloth:) - Anthropologie

O Christmas Tree

5. Pick out and buy a real Christmas tree

We bought our first live Christmas tree!

Ok, so it's not quite our first Christmas (we're on Christmas number three), but for whatever reason, I feel like this is our first 'real' Christmas. We've taken our holiday decorating up a notch and have graduated from hand-me-down fake trees (Our first: a post frat house two-footer in a plastic pot. Our second: two pre-decorated topiaries) to a Real. Life. Christmas. Tree.

Holiday Decorating DIY: Oranges and Cloves

Sunday night, we hosted a dinner for family and a few friends. To kick off the season and add a festive touch, I made a few quick (and inexpensive) updates to my centerpiece.

This is an incredibly easy project (honestly, I think it's a great holiday craft project for kids - I could have used some assistants!) All you need is an odd number of oranges (I used five), whole cloves, and tough fingers - those cloves can be a bit prickly!

Stick the cloves into the oranges, long side first. You can make patterns, or just do random dots like mine. It's an easy way to add a bit of fragrance to the room and a pop of color to your table.

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