Wednesday, June 22, 2016

KNOT & NEST REVIEW

Happy Wednesday! We are one day closer to Friday, and to help get you through the day I wanted to share this beautiful print that I received with you! Also, keep reading for a coupon code!

Rebecca from Knot & Nest sent me this adorable personalized burlap print and I am so excited to have it up in our home.

It is an 8.5 x 11 Burlap print that is completely customized to YOU! It fits an 11x14 standard-size frame with a mat that has an 8x10 opening. 


We placed this print in our foyer and I love that it's one of the first things that people see when they come through the door.


Rebecca has so many different items/prints in her Etsy shop. From weddings to holidays to nursery prints, I love it all! One of my other favorite prints is this "What A Difference A Day Makes" print. I have been looking for something just like this for my parents. They would absolutely love this!


I asked Rebecca to share a little bit more about Knot & Nest, just because I love hearing about how people got started or how they came up with their shop name. It's just so interesting!!
 So here we go...

A little about the owner of Knot & Nest and how we got started...

I was raised by an educator (a principal, to be exact!) and an entrepreneur…so I’ll let you do the math! I received a bachelor's degree in education and a master's in Reading, Language & Literacy, because I have no greater desire than to help others feel understood. I may not be doing that in the classroom anymore, but I am most certainly pouring that same desire into my work. Enter my shop, Knot & Nest: heirloom pieces of burlap & guest books to commemorate the most personal and unique moments of your life. I desire y’all (yes, I’m a southern girl at heart!) to have walls that speak for themselves, speak of the love you share for one another, and commemorate the milestones that make YOU who you are. 

How we got our name...

We wanted the name of our business to represent the types of occasions our product lines help you and your loved ones commemorate. We create heirloom burlap art prints & wedding guest books for those celebrating weddings & anniversaries (also known as, tying the Knot) and new babies & homes (what many like to lovingly refer to as a period of, Nesting). There are so many ways to commemorate these beautiful milestones, but our favorite way to do so is in print, because you can hang them in your home to enjoy for years to come. 

Some of our favorite items in the store...

I love creating the baby statistics print, probably because I know that an absolutely adorable, rosy cheeked baby boy or girl will have it hung in their nursery soon enough: http://etsy.me/237maQ2 

Our best selling item...

Our best selling item is this wedding anniversary print: http://etsy.me/25UZLLa

Friends, mothers, and grandparents love to gift the bride-to-be with this print at their wedding shower. This print can even double as wedding decor before being permanently placed in the bride & groom’s home. We also have quite a few husbands going out of their way to find us on Etsy and ordering this print for their anniversary! 

Keep a look out for some new items to be added soon...

We are planning on expanding our 'inspirational quote' product line very soon. We already offer a 'design your own' burlap art print {http://etsy.me/1UaPNj1}, so we're getting a feel for some of our customers' favorite quotes, and will begin offering them to the public very soon. 

What makes us unique as a burlap art print & wedding guest book shop?

We have a quick turn-around time (1-3 day processing time), so there is no doubt we can have a burlap art print or wedding guest book to you in time for your event. We thrive on bringing others’ visions to life, so please stop by and browse our entire collection {www.KNOTnNEST.etsy.com}. Maybe you'd like to design your own or pick from one of our 80+ wedding, anniversary, housewarming, and new baby designs. 

Rebecca is also very sweet and sent me a coupon code to share with all of my readers!
Coupon Code: LIFEas10 {10% discount on any item over $16.50, good through the end of August}


RED, WHITE AND BLUE BBQ INSPIRATION + INVITATION

Matthew and I have decided to host another cookout next month. Our Summer Soiree was such a hit we decided to do it again. Since some of our friends will be out of town or have other commitments for July 4th weekend we are doing it a little after but we are sticking with the July 4th theme. So our theme is...Red, White & Blue BBQ! I am so excited and have been planning away. I finished up our invitations the other day and I am excited to share those with you today, as well as some inspiration that I have found on Pinterest. All pins can be found on my July 4th Pinterest board.

and now for the invitation

And here is my inspiration board

There are so many cute ideas floating around Pinterest, it is hard to narrow it down to just a couple!! 

Tuesday, June 21, 2016

CREAMY RANCH CHICKEN + ETSY SHOP REVIEW

This meal turned out so easy and required minimal effort and ingredients! 
Ingredients:
1 package of dry Ranch dressing mix
1 package of Zesty Italian dressing mix
1 can of Cream of chicken soup
4 oz onion and chive cream cheese (half of the container)
3-4 chicken breast

Directions
- Mix dry ranch seasoning and zesty Italian seasoning together.
- Then mix the two with the cream of chicken soup and pour over chicken breast in crock pot.
- The last 30 minutes it's in the crock pot add in the cream cheese.
- Cook on low for 8 hours or high for 4.

I put my creamy ranch chicken over white rice, but you can do any type of rice or noodles.


I received this flag from Tammy over at Just Sew So in the mail last week and I love it! As soon as we moved in I knew we would need a garden flag for the front of our house. They are so cute and I think they just add so much. July 4th it right around the corner and I may or may not already have some of our patriotic decorations up. I just love them so when I received this flag I was beyond excited to add it to my patriotic collection. Like yesterday's sign, I can also pull this out for Memorial Day and Veterans Day. 


The detailing on this flag is absolutely incredible. I can't get over the flag ribbon on the loops and that adorable bow. Seriously, it's just too cute!!




She has so many cute things in her Etsy shop and for great prices! Pineapples are very popular this summer (I am obsessed with all things pineapples) and this pineapple garden flag is SO cute!!!!
You can find her Etsy shop, HERE.


Monday, June 20, 2016

WEEKENDING + ETSY SHOP REVIEW

I have been collaborating with a few Etsy shops on some different pieces over the past couple of weeks, and I am so excited to start sharing everything with you today! Watch for more a few more reviews this week :)

Lisa over at The Panted Sign Co. sent me this beautiful hand painted patriotic sign and I absolutely LOVE it. This piece is lightly distressed and made from reclaimed wood. It comes in a 12x20 and 16x24 size. The sign I have is 12x20 and the works perfectly for our home. We are hosting a 4th of July cookout in a few weeks and I am beyond thrilled to have this piece in time for our event. I will most definitely be pulling this back out around Memorial Day and Veterans Day.

Lisa is so talented and I asked her to share a little bit about her shop and was completely blown away by her story....

"I live in a very rural area. Literally, like the population of my town is 650ish. I have a vintage/upcycle shop where I peddle my wares to out-of-towners vacationing in the are. Last summer I made a sign out of an old softball. No big deal, I've made lots of stuff over the 3 years I've been in business. I posted the sign on my Facebook page, with just under 500 followers, and it went mini viral. In just two weeks time it had 2 million views and I had hundreds of orders from all over the country coming in. I was in no way prepared for it. Because I live in a small town where everyone knows everyone's business, everyone knew about my overnight "success" and the whole town came together and (for four months straight) helped me rip apart over a thousand softballs, stitch them back up and put the signs together. It put me on the map, if you will. I had quite a large Facebook following and decided it was in my best interest to open an Etsy shop to keep all of my orders organized. I opened my shop in October of last year and as of right now I am close to 400 sales. It is my primary source of income and I am loving every minute of it. Even when those minutes stack up to 15 hour days during the holiday rush, I wouldn't have it any other way."

How awesome is that?! Lisa also told me that she had so many people basically working full time for her for free, and that that would hardly even let her buy their lunch. Small towns are simply the best! You can find Lisa's Etsy shop, HERE, and her Facebook page, HERE.




This weekend we spent a good bit of time with our family but also got to hangout with our friends who were in town. Friday night our best friend, Ethan stayed the night with us. We ate dinner, ran a few errands, rode around since it felt so good outside, got ice cream, and the boys played Xbox while I did my nails, Later that night Ethan's girlfriend and our other best friend, Rachel, came over and we tried to go swimming but the pool in our neighborhood closes at 10:00 and it was 10:15. So we called it a night and went to bed. We woke up Saturday morning and I ran and picked up groceries, worked around the house, and then we got ready and headed to Murfreesboro to spend the weekend with our parents. We spent Saturday afternoon at my parents house and got in some puppy cuddles!


I went with my sisters to pick up the BBQ for lunch while Matthew went with my dad to Lowe's for some things. It was pretty hot on Saturday but thankfully it didn't rain.


Saturday night we went to Matthew's parents house for dinner. Matthew's dad got to use his new Father's Day present to cook us dinner...a flat top grill! We had delicious chicken sandwiches with white BBQ sauce, and enjoyed sitting outside once it cooled down while he grilled them for us. Sadly I did not get a picture of it. We gave Matthew's dad his Father's Day present that night because Matthew was just too excited to wait until lunch the next day. ;) We got him a Yedi and he loved it! Sunday we went to church with Matthew's parents and then to lunch. After lunch I met my parents while they ate lunch so I could see my dad on Father's Day and give him his present. We got him a gift card to Lowe's and made him a huge dish of his favorite chocolate Oreo pudding. I'm pretty sure he was more excited about the pudding than the gift card lol.

We met Ethan and Rachel after church for dinner on Sunday night at Dairy Queen. I saw they had a cotton candy blizzard for the month of June and had to try it. Get to your nearest Dairy Queen and get the cotton candy blizzard, it is as good as it sounds. I just got a mini since I was eating dinner, too, but goodness, it was delicious! We came back to the house and watched a little of the NBA finals before half time. At half time we decided to go swimming for a little bit, and no one was at the pool.
We had a full moon last night, too. Night swimming is quickly becoming one of our favorite things to do! We swam for about an hour and then called it a night. We had a full weekend, but it was good to see family and friends!

Friday, June 17, 2016

FRIDAY NO. 21

We are so close to the weekend, and I am very excited! We will be spending a good bit of this weekend with our families since it is Father's Day, and I am so happy about that.

Speaking of Father's Day...I text my dad the other day asking if he had any black exterior paint, because I am wanting to paint our front door black. I know to always ask him if he has any paint before I go buy some because he has SO much paint from over the years. Sadly he didn't have any paint, but he did have some mauve paint that he offered. I gladly passed on that color ;) Texting my dad is probably one of the funniest things. He just got an iPhone a couple of years ago and he LOVES emojis. He sends one for every occasion and it always cracks us up. Also, my mom makes this dessert called chocolate lasagna and my dad will literally do anything for it lol so I was trying to bribe him into building me something out of pallets with chocolate lasagna.


I am collaborating with some amazing Etsy shop owners over the next few weeks, and I can't wait to share everything with y'all, starting next week. For now, I'll share a few pictures with you. I shared these on Snap chat (mrsshelbycoats) last night and I had a ton of people asking which shop they came from, so come back next week for more information, and there may or may not be a coupon code ;) 



I wish I was laying out right now soaking up all this vitamin D, but very soon I'll be soaking up all the vitamin D in HHI! So stinkin' excited!

Last but not least, We finally got to meet my parents new puppy, Ellie Mae, last night! She is a maltipoo, and is absolutely adorable. My parents brought her to my sister's softball game last night and she slept most of the games but played around towards the end of them. We were soaking up all the puppy cuddles!

She literally did this over half of the games.
 Just snoozin' away

Towards the end of the game she woke up and was ready to play though!

Matthew was one happy camper last night holding and playing with her!
 She is tiny right now and I was eating it up. So much cuteness!!!!
We will be at my parents house this weekend some so get ready for more puppy snap chats. I just can't help myself. I probably made over 20 pictures of her last night lol. I told Matthew that when we do get a puppy I will have to delete all the pictures on my phone just to make room for all the pictures I KNOW that I will be making. :) 


Blog posts from this week:

Wednesday, June 15, 2016

HOT DOG BAR PRINTABLES

A lot of you asked about the labels I used for our Summer Soiree, and here they are! I made all of these labels through PicMonkey...free and easy to use. If you've been around here any length of time then you know I am a pretty big fan of PicMonkey.
.
 All you have to do is 'right click' on the picture and save it to your computer to print whenever you want to use them! I got the hot dog menu ideas from Kristen's blog but just changed up the look.

The BLT Dog

The Chicago Dog

The Classic Dog

The Southern Dog

Hot Dog Bar



And here are some other labels that can be used at any summer themed party!

Appetizers

Desserts

Pasta Salad

Baked Beans

Cole Slaw

Potato Chips

Lemonade 

Sweet Tea

Water

Tip: I printed them all off on card stock paper. The smaller labels I taped to card stock paper tents that I made. They were very sturdy and I can use them again in the future.

Enjoy!