How to create a neutral fall mantel using symmetry for simplicity and texture for interest.

Hello friends! Last week marked the official beginning of fall according to the calendar. Thanksgiving is just around the corner in Canada. It’s time to get our fall decor on! If you’re here as part of our week long #FallFestival blog hop then welcome! Did you see the gorgeous mantel Jamie created over at Anderson & Grant?  I hope you’ve been as inspired as I’ve been by the beautiful ideas and recipes all week so far.

Before and After: Bedside Tables Whitewashed with Chalk Paint

How to whitewash dated pine bedside tables with white chalk paint for a fresh farmhouse look. Includes before and after photos.

Hello friends, and welcome to Personally Andrea. If you’re new here you can poke around and find some recipes, crafts and projects, even learn a little more about me.   I hope you’ll stay awhile, maybe even sign up to receive my posts in your inbox, usually a few times a month...

Valentine's Candy Inspired Family Table Setting

How to make family dinner special on Valentine’s Day with a candy inspired and family friendly table setting. Inspired by kids and conversation hearts.

I'm excited to be participating in a blog hop with some Canadian blogger friends, organized by the lovely Jo-Anna from A Pretty Life in the Suburbs.  Links to all the posts can be found at the end of this one, or search social media with the hashtag #CBValentinesDay.

How To Love Your Suburban Backyard

Suburban backyards can be tough places to create, maintain, and enjoy through the summer season. Here are my tips on how to love your suburban backyard.

Hey there friends! Summer is upon us, ready or not. And if you’re nosy like me and love checking out other people’s spaces, you’re in luck today. I’m offering the very first tour in this blog’s history, a tour of my summer backyard. Plus you can hop through the links at the end of this post to see backyard/patio/balcony tours from a few of my Canadian blogging friends for a huge dose of inspiration.  If you're visiting here from one of the co-hosts on the tour, welcome!

Thoughts on Breakfast in Bed and a Giveaway

Well that was a longer blogging break than I thought it would be, but I’m happy to be back!  I’ve missed you, and hope that life has been good.  So let’s get back on the blogging track by talking about two of the best things in life… breakfast in bed and getting free stuff.

Kate Spade Inspired IKEA Desk

A plain white IKEA desk hacked into a Kate Spade inspired glamorous desk, with some gold spray paint and striped wrapping paper.  Read on to find out how...

So this is part of the ongoing story of me trying to make life happen a little bit better.  Everyone has this story, so hopefully you can relate.  My goal is always function before form.  In other words it’s more important for it to work well than to look beautiful.  But it kinda has to look beautiful too.  Here's how I came up with a functional IKEA desk made to look beautiful, inspired by Kate Spade.

How to Decorate a Summer Mantel with Nothing New

I’m just loving this summer, I hope you are too!  We’re at that point where we sometimes forget what week it is, what day it is, what time it is…  and that’s okay with me.  We’ve had a couple of trips, visits and weekends away, but right now everyone’s home.  And school still seems far enough away.  Perfect.

* summer mantel *

Organized Closet with IKEA ALGOT and Chalkboard Labels

Organized closet.  Sometimes I feel like those two words are only true for a few minutes at a time.  But in an attempt to declutter a kid’s bedroom as part of a redecorating project, I turned to IKEA’s ALGOT system and one of my favourites…chalkboard labels, to help make an organized closet a reality.

Repurposed & Upcycled Kitchen Organizing Solutions

via instagram

If your kitchen is anything like mine then it’s probably one of the hardest working rooms in the house.  All of us, including the dog, are in and out of there all day long.  Making meals for now or later, eating, cleaning, working, entertaining, …  It seems like most of family life happens in the kitchen.  And of course the party always ends up in the kitchen too.  So the trick is to keep it tidy and put away, but also to have the stuff you use be easily accessible.

Big Box Store Furniture Goes Shabby-Chic with Chalk Paint®

gonna try something new

I’d love to say I’m one of those funky, cool chicks that shops vintage and antique, and pokes around flea markets on the weekends.  But sadly, that’s not true.  I’m a full-on suburban mom who hangs out at the big box stores like Superstore, IKEA and Costco.  And while I’m there I buy everything from milk to dishes to furniture.  So now my house is home to a lot of big box store furniture which seemed practical and functional at the time, and came at a decent price point. 

Candy Cane Shortbread + Christmas Playlist

candy cane shortbread

So when I’m having a complete Christmas moment, and I’m baking away, and the tree is up, I love to have a great Christmas playlist happening that I can sing along with, and love every song that comes on.  If your Christmas playlist needs some mid-season additions, then here are my top three albums for this Christmas.  I could put this set on shuffle and listen to it all day.  I think.  That opportunity hasn’t come up yet!

October: Behind the Scenes

October perfection

Hasn’t October been a beautiful fall month this year?  I loved the progression of colour, the weather was top-notch, and some pretty great occasions happen in October too.  Looking back I realized what a busy month it’s been behind the scenes of what I usually write about here.  So I thought I’d give a little peek in pictures of life behind the blog scene from the month of October.  And it’ll give you an idea of the larger life in the Personally family.  Maybe it’s a little bit like your behind-the-scenes too.

Story of a Fireplace Wall & A Fall Mantel

what to write on the chalkboard…?

Have you ever started out with any kind of project not knowing where it would end?  This is one of those.  Both the mantel decor and this blog post, so wish me luck…here goes…

Mid-May: High Notes & Low Notes

So it’s mid-May and here are few notes on the simultaneous highs and lows of life.  No craftiness, DIY or fancy stuff happening in the kitchen.  Life is full and the days are bittersweet.  So just a bit of a week recap with a few things happening in my little sphere.

Simple Christmas Decorating: Bell Garland

It’s hard to maintain an element of simplicity at Christmas time.  The stores and the internet are bursting to overflowing with everything from sublime to ridiculous, all advertised as must-have and must-do this year.  On the weekend all my bins of Christmas Past came out of storage.  To be honest, I took out a few things and set them up, then closed the bins to be put away.  I played a board game with Personally Junior then we watched A Charlie Brown Christmas.  (The first of many times this Christmas, probably!)  So here for the next little while I’ll be sharing my few attempts at keeping it simple, but still Christmas-y and worthy of the season of celebration.

How to Set Up a Toaster Station

So I’m sure all of you have figured out a fix for this long ago…toast crumbs on the kitchen counter, toaster in the way of making dinner, toaster inaccessible during the morning rush.  That’s been my kitchen…for a long time.  But now, as part of my mini kitchen improvement, I decided to fix it.  And it was actually easy.

Who knew?  A tray, a jar, move the bread, done.

And now we have this cute little toast-making station that’s away from the rest of the kitchen busy-ness.  It stays in the same place.  All The Time.  It’s easy to  keep clean.  Did I mention it was cute?  Well, I helped it out a little bit with the cuteness because I saw this adorable sign on Pinterest.  I don’t really do signs, but I do chalkboards and I just copied the idea.

I’m loving me a little upcycled distressed frame chalkboard.  They really work for me…when I’m feeling creative it’s a blank slate.  When I make a mistake, I can erase it and start over.  When I’m fickle and change my mind, guess what?  Erase it and start over.

But back to the toaster.  So I had rediscovered this vintage silver tray.  (A lot of stuff has seen the light of day since we’ve been renovating the basement, by the way.)  And I love it and have used it in a few places, but now it’s found it’s home.  Set it on the sideboard and moved the toaster there.  Already brilliant. 

Set out the butter in a butter dish and moved the butter knives there too.  There’s a key concept of organizing right?  Putting stuff together that gets used together.

Then remember that I had bought a set of three nesting seagrass baskets?  The first one was used for the coffee station?  Well here’s the largest of the three holding the bread right underneath the toaster tray.  I made the same kind of fake, I mean faux, chalkboard tag with black cardstock,  white paint marker and twine.  In case anyone couldn’t figure out it was bread in there.

Now the bread, toaster, butter and knives all live together.  The cream cheese and the peanut butter and jam live right next door in the fridge.  I have had requests for the Nutella to live on the tray as well.  Hmmm, well, maybe.  If they would just package it in a prettier jar.

So if your toaster situation is causing you stress, this is something you can do.  Any style tray that’s large enough to hold your toaster plus your extra toasting stuff would be fabulous.  It has made the kitchen ridiculously more efficient, and so much easier to keep tidy.  Well worth your time, I promise you.

Can you name this movie?

I love daisies, they’re so friendly.  Don’t you think daisies are the friendliest flower?   

Organizing A Student Desk

Once upon a time there was a naive mom who thought that her children’s education would pretty much proceed of it’s own accord and all things academic would work themselves out.  A good school had been chosen, lunches were made, bedtimes were kept, she volunteered in the class.  Marks were fine, and so the mom assumed that all was well.

How to Set Up a Coffee Station

How to set up a coffee station to keep all your coffee-making essentials organized and close at hand by shopping your home.

Brown Sugar Drop Cookies

So my little sous-chef and I were feeling a little peckish yesterday afternoon.  Everyone else away, and only a bare minimum of groceries had been shopped on Re-entry Day One.  He felt that some baking was in order.  OK, I was up for it.  But it needs to be something quick and easy and foolproof…and good.

Tissue Paper Pom Poms: Party Decoration

Hello, lovely blog readers!  Do you think we are seeing the end of this Heat Wave?  I feel like my brain cells are coming back to life enough to write a few coherent sentences.  So, a little decorating inspiration today in case you are envisioning any parties or celebrations in your near future.  And this from my sister who claims not to have been granted any of the creative genes in our family…