Laura J Finery Jewelry + Giveaway

Good Morning!  Today I have a little something fun to start off the week.  I am excited to share Laura J Finery, which is an upscale jewelry line handmade here in Texas.   The owner/designer, Laura Jorn, started her semi precious and fine jewelry line in 2010 and works to make custom, unique one of a kind jewelry for her clients.  She has an amazing eye for creating beautiful pieces and I immediately fell in love with her brand. 

Gorgeous, right?   Laura J Finery also does trunk shows, which is a great way to gather your girlfriends and shop for jewelry.  And what I love is that your guests can buy the jewelry available for purchase and take it home the same day.  Custom requests are available as well.  So, if you're in the Houston metropolitan area and interested in hosting a trunk show, you can email Laura at laurajfinery@outlook.com. 

Communicating with Laura about her jewelry line, I also learned that she is hosting a fundraiser at Rice Village on Sept 15th at Bar Bleu form 10am - 1pm benefiting a children's charity.  If you are local, grab your girlfriend and spend the afternoon mingling, shopping, light bites and wine tasting with part of the proceeds benefiting a great cause.  I am also planning to attend and would love to meet you!  You can learn more about it here.

And Laura is continuing her generosity for you guys today too, by giving away one of her beautiful pieces.  This Cate Diamond Charm Bracelet - Moon & Matte Black Hematite pictured above is going to one lucky reader.  It is easy to slip on and stack, and features a medium size diamond moon charm in gold and gunmetal, with matte black hematite gemstones.  Retailing at $315, this gorgeous bracelet will be a great addition to your accessories!  Head over to my Instagram to see how to enter.

*GIVEAWAY NOW CLOSED*  Congratulations to our winner @misshappymama!   

New House | Study and Piano Room Update

Good Morning!  I hope everyone had a nice Labor Day Weekend.  We stayed in town and tackled a few little projects around our home.  Mostly outside yardwork again, but we finally moved to the front yard this time.  We are slowly chipping away at it.  The amount of trash that we pull out after each weekend is crazy.  Next weekend, we plan to fill in the landscaping a little and mulch, which should be it on yardwork until the Spring. 

We have several rooms in our new home that are in the "during" phase, but I thought I would start doing a few updates anyways, because I feel like there is always something I still want to do to a space.  So, I finally pulled out my camera a took a few pictures of our study/piano room. 

It's interesting how the use of a room changes from home to home.  In our last house, the study was mostly used by the kids to practice piano.  My husband would occasionally office from home out of it, but only a few times.  However, in our new home I don't have a desk in the kitchen, so this space is seeing lots of use.  Not only does piano practice happen in here, but I use the desk space everyday.  It's one of the first rooms you seen when you enter the front door, so it needs to be both functional and presentable. 

Everything in this room, except the round mirror, is from our previous home.  The baskets on the shelves got moved up to the top two shelves, allowing me to place my printer and other not-so-pretty office items on the bottom shelves where they can be hidden.  I pushed the two tall bookcases together and moved the file cabinet desk directly in front of them, so a little bit different set up from our last office, which you can check out here.  I like the cozier feel to the space with this new arrangement.

And below I included a couple of before pictures.  We painted all the walls and ceilings Palomino Gray by PPG and they are now a very light gray color, which absolutely love! 

And here is a picture of my furry design assistant.  She is always close by :)  I also really love facing towards the front door.  When we first moved in, I thought we would set the office up like our previous  home, which had me facing the wall.  With this arrangement, I have a much prettier view of our dining room straight across the foyer and the outside of our home through the windows.  There are four big windows in the front of our home, so lots of great natural lighting.   

As I mention at the beginning, I feel like this room is still in a "during" stage as I would love a larger rug under the desk and a new light.  The lovely boob light in the before pictures is still in here, so it's definitely on long list of "to-dos."  But it's finished enough for now to look nice when guest enter.  I have to keep reminding myself that it's not a sprint to finish this home.  It will slowly come together.  So thanks for following along at my marathon pace :)

Enjoy your day!

Coton Colors Agenda + St. Jude Inspire Happy Mug

Cheers to Friday!  Now that my kids are back in school, our calendar is quickly filling up and it's time to get myself organized.  I am still very much a paper and pencil gal, so finding an agenda to organize our schedules is a must.  Luckily, Coton Colors', which is a lifestyle brand and designer of stylish tabletop, home decor and giftware, is now also helping us stay organized with their pretty agendas.  I'm sure you're familiar with Coton Colors' very popular The Happy Everything Collection, which exudes the philosophy to never miss an opportunity to celebrate. The concept of “finding a little happy… in everything” runs through the line encouraging people to celebrate life's milestones both big and small.  I love that philosophy and that their agendas reflect that as well.

Here is why I love their 17 month tabbed agendas.  They all have a beautifully designed front cover and each month has a fun design on the divider.  They feature a month-at-a-glance page, weekly pages, as well as a place for to-do lists.  They also have happy notes, a section for what made you happy this week, and a get attached section to help you remember to change your Coton Colors Happy Everything attachment.  They have truly included it all in these Happy Everything Agendas!  You can also find them in local stores, which you can locate a store here.

September is also Childhood Cancer Awareness Month and Coton Colors has teamed up with St. Jude Children's Research Hospital to help support these children and their families.  Partnering with St. Jude since 2011, this year they have designed a limited addition Inspire Happy Mug and one hundred percent of the proceeds will go to St. Jude's.  The simple white mug serves as a reminder to be a hero to those in need - with Coton Colors donating the entire $9.95 retail price directly to St. Jude.  

We are all impacted by cancer someway or another.  Being a pediatric and neonatal registered nurse, this cause is really special to me.  Having cared for children with cancer, I am happy to help support such an important cause and hope that you will consider purchasing one of these mugs and share a little happy with those who need it most!