Easter Tablescape Using Pieces From Around Your Home

The Easter Countdown is on! Are you ready?? Honestly, this year it totally snuck up on me. I treally thought I had at least another week and it turns out this is the last week soooo... oops! This whole week I've been scrambling to find my girls matching Easter dresses for church and it was ridiculous how many stores I had to go to just to find some that are decently priced and decently cute. Alas, I found some and all is well in my 4 year old's world. As far as their Easter baskets go, I at least have the baskets... Clearly I have a busy next few days... 

I preach all the time that holidays will be as special as you make them. As the mom, or dad, or grandparent, or whoever you are reading this... you have the power to make your holiday as special as you want it to be. I personally try to make every holiday have a special meal. Some examples are heart shaped pizzas on Valentine's Day, a BBQ on the 4th of July, a fancy Christmas dinner, a chili dinner on Halloween, etc... Everyone does Easter a little bit differently but the most common meals are Easter dinner and Easter brunch. While I'm obsessed with Christmas, Easter is quickly becoming my favorite holiday to decorate for. I looooveee spring colors. The muted pinks and soft yellows mixed with robin's egg blue and sage green are just gorgeous with all the white and cream. I decorate my home with mostly white and grey and other muted colors so this holiday is so easy for me to just grab things I already have [or what my mom has ;) ] For this tablescape I chose to make the middle of the table a statement of all things Spring. I collected cake stands my mom and I already had, greenery we already had, bunnies we already had, and then just arranged them all together to look extra springy and extra well... EXTRA! The only penny I spent was on the silverware pockets which are from the Target Dollar Spot and were literally $1 for 8. So what should you be looking for around your house to make a pretty Easter tablescape? Start with a tablecloth. My mother in law had this rose pink one and some vintage lace doilies I threw in the middle. If you don't have one, go grab one from the dollar store for a dollar. They always have SO many colors. You can also go to a local thrift store. They have the best priced linens and a lot of them are super unique. If you want to invest in a tablecloth, here's a cheap option. Next up find some chargers and dishes. I used my moms white dishes because mine are still boxed up but here's an affordable option for white beaded plates that work for any occasion! The chargers are also my mom's but Amazon has a ton of galvanized charger options! I also just used some regular silverware in a paper pocket from the dollar spot. These would be super easy to make too! My mom had these adorable place card holders and I searched the internet for more with no luck... however I did find these adorable wood round place card holders as well as these burlap bow ones! Next Up you're going to want to find all the vases, cake stands, greenery, light colored florals, and other Easter/Spring decor from around your house. If you don't have any florals or greenery... head outside or to the store! I'm sure you'll be able to find bushes, trees, and other wild flowers in your yard to arrange together. If not, trader joe's, sprouts, and other grocery stores have great flowers for cheap! Baby's breath is one of my favorite cheap Spring options. Don't have any vases or cake stands?? Head to your nearest dollar store or thrift store! The dollar store always has vases that are begging to be spray painted and you can make your own cake stands by buying a plate, a candle holder, glass glue, and some white spray paint! I made some for Oaklyn's first birthday party and have used them numerous times since. When arranging, just let the creative juices flow. Work with the different heights and designs you have. I added some inspo photos below and hope that it gets you excited for your own Easter brunch of dinner! I'd love to see photos of what you come up with, so send them my way! 

All my love, 

Aleigh Joy

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Quick and Easy Thanksgiving Tablescape

When it comes to holidays, one of the very first things I think about is the meal. With the meal comes a pretty tablescape. Most holidays are spent with our families and even though I'm really grateful for that, I honestly crave being able to style the table. We're a little ways away from being able to host these holidays at our own home, so for now I like to make a special meal the Sunday before the actual holiday so I can still have fun with decorations. I tried to make this tablescape as easy to recreate as possible and quick to put together. 

So here's what you'll need:

-A white or cream lace tablecloth. If you want one for cheap, most thrift stores have awesome linens for like a couple bucks!

-Mini Cream pumpkins (I found mine at a local grocery store for 25 cents each. I got some orange ones too and thought about spray painting them, but that seemed like more work than I wanted to put in haha!)

-One large cream pumpkin. Or a couple large ones... that would be even prettier! Mine is just a craft pumpkin I've had for a while from Michaels. I added the glitter dots. 

-Tall candlesticks. Both of these are my moms and I love them so much! But these would also be perfect. 

- Eucalyptus branches. We have tonssss of eucalyptus trees around here and I'm thanking my lucky stars! I love the silver dollar leaves but I thought the skinnier ones would lay well for a table like this. If you don't have eucalyptus near by honestly any form of greenery will work. 

- Orange and red leaves. I just grabbed a few from a tree at my parents house. They're pretty tiny and I liked it that way.

-Wood chargers. Kay, these are my moms and they're incredible. Hers are from World Market but LOOK WHAT I JUST FOUND! They have really similar ones from wait for it... Dollar Tree! Here's the link! 

- The beaded plates are also my mom's and I'm not sure where she found them but I have some very similar from the dollar store. I don't think they sell them right now, but keep an eye out! In the meantime, here's some cute ones from Target. 

- Some pretty glasses. And believe it or not, they totally have those at the Dollar Store too! But here's some from Target also! 

- And last but not least, some silverware! I'm sure you all already have some but if not, go with gold. Holy moly these would be gorgeous for Thanksgiving! 

As far as styling goes, first lay your tablecloth down. I then placed my chargers and plates to know how much room I'd have for the centerpiece. I just used a 6 ft table so most dining tables will definitely have more space but setting the plates first will still help. I then made my eucalyptus runner and then just started placing the rest! It hardly took any time and was super festive and fun! I think the reason I love holidays so much is because I love having the creative side of my brain have fun with this sort of stuff. I promise if you make holidays special, they will feel soo much more special!

I really hope you all have a wonderful holiday. I also want you all to know how grateful I am for each of you! Your constant love and support means so much to our family! xoxo

All my love,

Aleigh Joy

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The Perfect Christmas Card + Our 2016 Family Photos

We take pictures of our little family often, but about once a year we actually get all dolled up with coordinating outfits and have a photographer take our photos rather than using a tripod ;)

Since living in Utah, our good friend Kiely has taken them and I love them all!

Kiely started her business not too long ago but it's super easy to tell she should've started a while ago!

She has such an eye for capturing perfect moments that you will want to remember years later.

Oaklyn was a complete stink this year while taking our family photos and Kiely still managed to capture pictures I love!

I remember getting in the car and thinking, "there has to be at least one I'll like... hopefully."

Turns out there were so many "favorites" I couldn't even decide which ones to put on here!

But here are a few that will definitely be framed :)

Check out more of Kiely's work (and her new little baby!!!) on her instagram and book a session with her by going to her website!

 Just had to include this one haha!

 We also love that family photos mean updated pictures of hunter and I!

When it came time to pick out a Christmas card, I knew it would have to fit a ton of our family photos since I seriously couldn't just choose one!

I've always made my own card because it's so fun for me to design... but as my days just get busier I realized it was time to let someone else do the work for me ;)

The choice of which company to choose was so easy for me!

I've always loved every card I've seen from Tiny Prints!

Their designs are always the cutest and there are so many options it's insane!

You can customize just about anything over at Tiny Prints and it made sending my Christmas cards this year an absolute breeze!

Seriously, with everything I already have going on, just thinking about addressing envelopes stressed me out.

I couldn't believe how easy the process was getting my cards from Tiny Prints.

I found my favorite card from their digital catalog within a matter of minutes.

It stood out to me the most and I knew it would be perfect with the color scheme of our photos this year.

Some of my other favorites included gold foil and glitter! 

I loved that this card had a ton of space to fit all of my photos I loved and the tri fold gave it so much dimension and personality. 

We have gotten so many compliments on this card, but all credit goes to Tiny Prints for making it a breeze on me!

We also opted to have all addresses and return addresses printed on the envelope which saved me SO much time!

Not only that, but we even got personalized stamps!

You guys, how awesome is that?

We chose these stamps and they turned out sooo cute!

Our order came so quickly and I was able to get our cards out in record time! 

Seriously, I cannot say enough good things about Tiny Prints.

We will definitely be using them in years to come and I just can't wait to design another card :)

If you still need to order you have til Sunday to get THIRTY percent off your entire order with the code HOLLYJOLLY so RUN, don't walk ;)

All my love,

Aleigh Joy

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Happy Friendsgiving!

I am so so so excited to share all the details from this event! On November first I threw a "Friendsgiving" with my friend Natashia from Canary Jane and Steffanie from Life With Wings. We invited some blogger friends, ate yummy food, socialized, had a little presentation, giveaways, and listened to a musical artist. The thought to do this came after we came home from California after my father in law passed away. I was in a weird state of mind and was having a hard time seeing what I have to be grateful for. All I could think of were the negative things going on and how life just seemed so hard. I was kind of in desperate need to just vent and talk about everything floating around in my head. Natashia and I had been planning on getting together for some time but finally got around to it once I got home. She had just experienced a miscarriage and my heart was hurting from the emotional roller coaster we've gone through over here. We sat there and talked and listened and ate as our little girls played at the park. Our thoughts ran deep and I found myself sharing things I hadn't even shared with family. I felt like I had known Natashia forever and really appreciated her being there for me. I wanted to do something to really advertise my Thankful Heart Series and a little blogger event seemed like the perfect idea. I was so thankful for the friendship Natashia offered that I figured a Friendsgiving would be the perfect fit. She jumped right on board and we got to planning. Not long after that we started hanging out weekly with Steffanie and she jumped on board too! These ladies are so incredibly talented and I am beyond thankful for them! Putting it all together was a blast and we got so lucky with the best sponsors out there! Sooo I figured I'd share a bit about all of it here :)

We held the event at the Very Jane headquarters. They have the most beautiful space in all the land. We were thrilled to have them host the party there because that meant we hardly even needed to decorate. It was beautiful as it is in there! When guests arrived they socialized a bit and looked all around. Seriously how could you not? The Jane headquarters literally has a barber shop in it! However, we did decorate a little! All of the cute gold foil balloons are from Northstar Balloons and I loved that pop of gold! Each table had a like real tablecloth, utensils, and a cup from Consumer Crafts, flowers, greenery, a leaf from Rodworks, and a Bridgewater Candle. On the big food table we had super cute chalkboard pumpkins from Rodworks and a bunch of gourds, small pumpkins, and greenery in wood boxes steff had. We implemented hints of chambray all over the place and loved the unique touch. Our photographer was the wonderful Summer Nicole Photo and all images from this blog post are taken by her. Our adorable videographer was Kallie Cooper and you can check out the video here but I'm also going to put it at the bottom of this post ;)

We then had everyone head over to the tables to eat some yummy food! Around Eatery is a newer restaurant in the Lehi area and I dream about their curried cauliflower! They supplied buffalo chicken  ranch wraps and cranberry turkey wraps. Both were sooo yummy! They also supplied a winter salad with a Utah cider vinaigrette. You guys, that place is seriously amazing. I've tried several things on the menu now and crave it alllll the time! Black Sheep Cafe supplied Cactus Pear lemonade and not only was it such a fun color, but it tasted sooo good! It was so fun to have something fruity to sip on throughout the meal. Black sheep also has super yummy food and I definitely crave their burgers! Oh Joy bakery supplied the cupcakes and I don't wanna sound conceited but they were pretty good ;) Yep, I made them! So now the secret is out! I'm starting up my little in home bakery again! Before I got married I made cupcakes for events and totally loved it. Here's to another business venture! Stay tuned for more info on that!

After we finished eating we brought everyone over to listen to a little presentation. I talked a bit about my Thankful Heart Series and encouraged others to join in the fun because seriously, I just love this series! While the event was for bloggers, the series is for absolutely everyone! I'd love for you to read about it here and join in! Next week is the last week til next year! After that I handed the mic over to Natashia. Have I mentioned she's probably the most creative person I have ever met?? Seriously. She created some super cool thankful tree illustrations that you can download from her blog here. It could be a fun family thing to do on Thanksgiving! We then had some super fun giveaways from Freshly Picked, Rad Swim, Agnes and Dora, Bridgewater Candles, and Kortni Jeane. Right after that we had the amazingly talented Calee Reed serenade us with her gorgeous voice! She has such a great stage presence and an incredible voice which wrapped up everything perfectly! She chose super uplifting and motivating songs and I loved every minute of hearing her live. She has a CD out at Deseret Book and on iTunes, plus does all the Time Out For Women Conferences! So make sure to check her out!

To end things how any blogger would, we took a million and a half photos! haha. Natashia created this amazing backdrop and I just loved it! It was so fun to get together and take some fun photos. On everyone's way out they got to grab a swag bag filled with a whole lot of goodies! There was: the darling canvas tote from Very Jane, a hot iron holster from Holster Brands, swim bottoms from Kortni Jeane, a beanie from Rad Swim, a gift card to Around Eatery, coupons from Loved By Sophia, consumer crafts, gathre, and rodworks, a sample from tubby todd, a gold foil print from Calligraphy.org, baby bib from Copper Pearl, Macaroons from Sugar and Confetti, a candle from Bridgewater Candles, a wallet from Thread Wallets, and a piece of jewelry from Hope Ave or Downeast! I absolutely love every single one of these companies and was so excited to have them in the bags! Also, my dress, Steff's dress, and Natashia's shirt are from Downeast as well. 

And last but absolutely not least, here's the fun video by Kallie!
I hope you guys got some inspo for a future freindsgiving!
And... a huge thank you to our sponsors and all who came!
All my love,
Aleigh Joy

Friendsgiving from KC Film & Photo on Vimeo.

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