Garden Inspiration!

Last week I shared all the areas I can't wait to create gardens in next year and I promised a post full of inspiration. So, I'm here today with some pictures that I found through Pinterest (sources included) to get an idea of what I want the gardens to look like along the fence and along the side of our house. Let me know your thoughts, I love hearing gardening tips because I am very new at this!

First up, here's an idea of greenery along a white vinyl fence. I really like the way the green pops along the white fence. I definitely want to incorporate a lot of green, leafy plants in our landscaping.

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I definitely want to incorporate evergreens like this because they will stay green year round. Even if the garden looks fairly bare in the winter, I need to make sure there are elements that stay year round so it doesn't look completely empty. 

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I know this doesn't show a fence, but I do love the idea of having thriving hydrangeas along the fence. The only problem with hydrangeas is that you have only a few weeks a year where they look incredible. The rest of the year they don't look as beautiful so I definitely don't want to fill the garden with them. 

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I absolutely love hostas and think I want to plant something similar to this along the side of the house. I like the way the garden looks full and lush. I think this could look amazing near our Siberian elm tree.

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How gorgeous is this? Definitely too much to start off with, but this is definitely something to aspire to have one day!

Oh, I can't wait for spring!

Christmas Decor Inspiration

Happy Wednesday everyone!

I hope you are having a wonderful week so far! We have some exciting plans this weekend we are currently preparing for. Make sure you are following me on Instagram (@balancingonmytoes) so you can see what we are up to.

This past week it seemed that most of the YouTubers I follow shared either Christmas Decorating videos or Christmas Decor Shop With Me videos, talk about getting me in the holiday spirit! If you know me you know that I tend to skip right over Thanksgiving because it is not my favorite holiday. I am all for being thankful and spending time with family but I'm sick of the orange color scheme and ready to move on to glittery Christmas!

If you are looking for some serious Christmas decorating inspiration then check out the following videos:

Alexandra Beuter---> This girl has been my favorite recently! She has the sweetest newborn boy and just went shopping for Christmas decor for her first time apart from him!

Love Meg-----> Megan always does an amazing job going above and beyond on her Christmas decor and she has the BEST cleaning videos.

Beauty & the Beastons----> Tiffani is an awesome YouTuber and I admire how she takes care of her family and gets so much accomplished every week!

Brianna K-----> I just love Brianna! She seems like such a sweet person and makes amazing cleaning videos.

Those are just four videos to get you started but there are so many out there, I spend WAYYYY too much time on YouTube.

On Sunday I got the chance to run into Walmart to grab some groceries (side note: grocery pickup has been my life lately with the new puppy. I don't like to leave her if I don't have to since she's alone while we are at work all day...so going inside a store besides Home Depot and Petsmart feels like a luxury!) and of course I headed into the Christmas aisles!

I pulled inspiration from Love Meg's video while I was there. She bought garlands to decorate her mantle and the ledge above her living room and put a lot of other items on the garland as well. I loved this idea and although I don't think mine turned out as well as hers I made an attempt above my kitchen cabinets.

I honestly am not a fan of decor over cabinets in general. I prefer cabinets to go all the way to the ceiling and that's how I would design cabinets in any future renovation or house that I build. We generally don't have any decor up there but I decided it might be a fun way to incorporate decorations especially since it's an area that Sophie can't reach. I also am not a fan of the cord hanging down but since we don't have an outlet above the cabinets there isn't a whole lot I can do about that. 

Everything up there I picked up from Walmart. It's a simple lit garland, poinsettias, and gold sparkly pics. I wish it was a little bigger of a garland so it showed up a bit more behind the lip but overall I'm happy with it. I'm sure I will keep messing with it until I love it.

These little bottle brush trees came from Walmart as well and I stuck them on the ledge between our kitchen and living room for now but I'm not sure if this is where they will stay. Sophie can now jump onto the couch and I think she might find them enticing! 

The last thing I put up were these little window decals I put on side door. It's hard to see in the photo but it says "let it snow". Since we are not going to put a wreath on this door I thought that window decals would be fun!

I've already ordered a few things for Christmas decorating that I can't wait to share with you. I'll be sure to keep you updated and do a full Christmas decor tour once everything is complete.

Now as for more Christmas decor inspiration, I am definitely turning to my favorite Instagram accounts, Bloggers, and Pinterest! I love MyTexasHouse over on Instagram because she has the most beautiful home and decorates in a lot of white which I absolutely love.  I wish that we could keep all white everything clean in my house but I don't think I would be able to do it. Erin has a dog and three kids and somehow manages to keep her house beautiful, she seriously must be magic. Anyways, her Christmas decor is absolutely stunning and I wish my house could be as gorgeous as hers! 

I also love Erin over at Sunny Side Up. I've been reading her blog for years and I also follow her on Instagram. She has a gorgeous house as well and her decorating is always flawless. I love the aesthetic she goes with and am always impressed with how her house turns out.

I've been scouring Pinterest the last few weeks looking for ideas for outdoor decorations and have really liked these:

I like the idea of decorating our mailbox this year since it's the first time we've ever had one. This picture I found on Pinterest  is an idea but I'm thinking of doing prelit garland running up the post and my mom picked up a mailbox topper for us as well. I'm excited to show you how it turns out!

I would love to have something like this someday but our front steps are super skinny. I am going to wrap prelit garland down our stair railings and possibly hang a wreath on the door but I'm not sure what else I'll do with the front yard!

I love this front door! I would definitely do something like this if I had the space outside! 

This is also beautiful! I would never be able to fit lanterns on the front steps though! 

I purchased a new artificial Christmas tree this year since our old one has seen better days. I would love to do a themed tree but we have so many ornaments from our life and travels I like to include those!

I would someday love to have multiple trees, but this year I think we will be hiding the tree in our office so Sophie can't get to it or the gifts.

Here is some gorgeous tree inspiration for you...

I love then the most frequent color on the tree is white, it just pops so well. I may be incorporating this in our tree this year, we will have to wait and see what I come up with!

I'd love to know what your plans for Christmas decorating are this year? Do you have a theme or just a collection of decorations that you have collected over the years?  Also, are you ready for Christmas shopping season or have you already completed all your shopping? I'm about halfway done right now!

Have a great rest of your week and weekend everyone and I'll see you back here next week when I share all about the fun weekend we are going to have! (Remember to follow on Instgram @balancingonmytoes)

Linens and Loo Pinterest-Inspiration!

Since we are still working on our linens and loo organization- I figured I would dedicate todays post to some pretty inspiration courtesy of my pinterest page. These are pictures I found on pinterest that have things organized in a pretty and functional way.

What a great way to organize medicine! If I had to organize more medicine I would definitely implement this system for myself. This system would make it easy to know if you were running low on a certain type of medicine and makes it really easy to go through medicine and toss the expired products.

Nail polish in spice racks is a great idea! Makes it easy to see what you have and organize by color!

This reminds me of the way hair tools are kept at the beauty salon.  What a creative way to organize hair tools!

What a beautiful under sink organization system! I love the baskets for toilet paper and towels, the lazy susan for products and all the containers holding qtips and cotton balls. 

Pretty towel storage =)

Love this vanity! Seems to have the perfect amount of room for makeup storage!

This is such a perfectly labeled and organized linen closet. Man oh man. I'm in heaven.

This just goes to show there are so many ways to organize items in the bathroom and in the linen closet. There's so many brilliant ways that you can easily make it your own!

Some of my favorite organization things in the bathroom and linen closet:

• Baskets- I love the look of them and they keep things tidy while allowing you to toss things inside if you are in a hurry.
• Labels- Labels are so helpful so other people using your space know where things belong and can put things back efficiently.
• Over toilet storage- since bathrooms tend to be tiny, over toilet storage is key. There are so many ways to do it from putting up shelves, using a piece of furniture meant to go over the toilet or hanging baskets on the wall.

Happy organizing!

Day 10 and Pinterest-Inspiration

So today was day 10 and is was HAAAAARD! This was my hardest run yet by far, I was extremely uncomfortable. It may have been my own fault however, I thought it was pretty chilly outside so I dressed in a long sleeved shirt and was dying within five minutes- big mistake! I have to remember that no matter how cold it is I'm still going to be sweating so I shouldn't dress for cold weather.

Here's what todays workout looked like:

5 minute warmup walk

3 minute run

2 minute walk

4 minute run

3 minute walk

4 minute run

3 minute walk

3 minute run

2 minute walk

5 minute cool down walk

Like I said, todays run was particularly challenging-- and I was definitely feeling down on myself when I finished...perfect time to look on my pinterest fitness board for some inspiration...

I love Jillian Michaels- I have a feeling we'd get along really well!

I'm on week 4, so I should start seeing changes soon!

I need this water bottle because it completely describes my life.

I don't want to be old and gray dreaming of doing a 5K. I want to be old and gray thinking back on how many races I DID run.

Haha. This one just makes me laugh.

No more excuses.

Exactly. 

I need to remember how much I want this. 5 weeks and 2 days until I run my first 5K. Crossing the finish line will be so sweet. I need to focus on my training and getting in shape.

I'm off to shower then guzzle down some water, eat an apple and some cashews- yum! =)

Photos From the Week

Since this blog has been picture-free for the past few entries, I thought that I would update with some of the pictures I took throughout the week. I took pictures hoping I could update them but of course no computer= no pictures!

Stats from my workout on Wednesday. I don't worry too much about the calories in a workout, I just want to make sure that I'm following my workout plan and getting in the best workout I possibly can!

Yummy salad! Greens, carrots, cheddar cheese, cashews, and thousand island dressing!

My baby, woke up first thing in the morning yesterday! What a cutie all bundled up!

"Decide to continue. Decide to succeed. Decide to reach your goal."

Breast cancer awareness nails! Always thinking about my grandma =)

My personal trainer! Growled at me the whole time and barked because she wanted my full and undivided attention!