Anchor Cake Topper

the weekend is almost here! which means the Super Bowl is on SUNDAY! i love Super Bowl Sunday for many reasons...this year my Broncos are playing! oh and my QB is on that team :). bonus! and i am so excited for the commercials, they are always the best!! oh and the food, & lots of loud cheering, & being with my family! yeah, jeff thought it would be fun to be there this weekend for the big game! just to bug me tho, he is going for the Seahawks...he might have to find another place to sleep ;). good thing his family lives there too haha. anyways i am super pumped! and then the next week my old roommate Ashlee is cominggggggg! lots to be excited about it the life of julia ;).
with that aside, i have a new little project to share with you people of the interweb! when jeff & i were planning to get married i was on Pinterest & Etsy...as any other girl in the world! i was looking for anything anchor {my wedding was nautical & the anchors were a must duh. incase you haven't seen our wedding décor click here to get an idea}. i happened across this super cute anchor cake topper that i jusssst had to have! you have to check out her Etsy page, she has lots of cute wedding toppers.

 i couldn't get it out of my head & it was a must for the wedding. weird how you have to have everything for your wedding, when in reality it is only a piece of metal that is stabbed into the top of cake that you only get one bit of...just something to think about haha. but like i said, i fell in love with it & so i got it. the only thing that i didn't like, is that it was silver. easy fix. have your fiancé spray paint it gold. because again it has to be perfect!
my awesome sister in law made our cake & i loved it :). it was a simple thought, but she put in so much hard work into it! she's awesome. it was strawberry cake with lemon filling in the middle tier and the other two were lemon cake with strawberry whipped cream filling. it was delicious!

 

i loved everything about our wedding from the man i married, even to the topper of the cake. i couldn't have had a more perfect wedding. something that i wanted to do was to keep our topper & display it on our house to remember the day. thankfully i didn't have one of those toppers that was like a bride and groom kissing or something like that, because that would've been weird to just have in your house. especially with the thousands of wedding pictures that we already have. i try to make sure our house isn't like a museum of jeff & julia...it probably is tho. what i was able to do was just place it in a black frame, & now it rests on the wall above the couch. seriously the easiest DIY ever! cut of the wire that was in the cake & smash it into the frame. it is literally smashed in there, which is actually cool because it looks like its floating. go me! 





 

{click here to see the rest of the Holderness home}

i love it, i think it's kinda cool to have a piece of art in our house that was from our wedding. our little house is turning out so nice, & it has been fun to make little projects here & there. i look forward to owning our own home someday. dream come true! what are some of your little projects that you just love & have a cool story behind them?

color of the year: RADIANT ORCHID

in case you didn't hear, the color of 2014 is RADIANT ORCHID! to be honest this is not my favorite color...like at all! i tend to always stay clear of this color {no purple at all in this girls closet!}. i don't know what it is about the color purple, but i do not like it! maybe i am just stubborn, that's probably the real reason. but hey, everything is worth a try...right? i actually don't like change either haha. wow, maybe i should list all things i don't like. how depressing. NO! even though i am not totally excited about this years color, i am excited for new fresh things! i have been exploring this trend a little bit more, & there are some things i am digging. even though i don't like purple, i will look at it as the color we are calling it. maybe i will like it if i call it that, & not purple. who doesn't like orchids? and who doesn't like a little radiance in their lives? so here's to the color of the year! RADIANT ORCHID! {oh gosh i never thought i would like this color, but i do!}

 yes! simple & right amount of pop...perfection

 the true color!

 even tho this a pretty color this is not it! needs to be more vibrant

this is something that i would probably do in my own house. just one large painting & call it good!

 i wish i was brave enough to color my hair

 ok i am obsessed with this lady! Lupita Nyong'o has been beautiful on the red carpet this season. oh & i like her lipstick.

 classy. i love how she mixed it with maroon pants rather than a denim or black. {to see more of her outfit check her out}

even though the flowers are little bit more on the pink side, i think it's just the right amount! not too much, but it's defiantly a statement.

 

i think one thing that everyone should know about this color is that it is strong! this color is not just a purple, but a bright fuchsia almost with obviously a purple hue to it. it's not eggplant, a dusty lavender, or Barney the dinosaur purple. it's meant to be vibrant and happy!! so if you are wanting to incorporate this new color into your space, wedding, outfit, or even beauty routine do so with a purpose. if you are going to go all out with it, go all out & have fun with it. or if you are more like me and want to add just a touch here & there pair it with some neutrals like creams & greys. it's such a beautiful and "radiant" combo {like how i did that?} whatever you end up doing, fall in love with it! what do you think about the new color of the year??

I like Pillows OK

back when we were Boise we bought our first couch from my work {RC Willey}. we like it and everything but it came these ugly pillows. so I've been wanting to recover them with something that would go along with the rest of the living room. a couple of months ago we went to Utah to drop jeff's mom at the airport, since we were there i figured an Ikea trip was in order. duh. i ended up getting this simple pillow covers for $7 each. score! and it was super easy, all i did was throw old pillows in them. done! now i don't have nasty pillows laying around the house.

 front & back. i guess they aren't bad...i just no like them

the turquoise one is almost like a velvet and the white is more of a burlap.

We had a Merry Christmas & hope you did too

three weeks ago i was packing for a road trip home, yup on christmas eve. jeff was working late at work while i was prepping. my parents had been asking us if we were going to be there for Christmas, unfortunately we could get there the day after Christmas. so they thought ;). we made the drive at 10 o'clock at night to BOISE. my family still had no idea that we were coming, we were pretty excited to surprise them. I LOVE SURPRISES! the closer that we getting to my home, the more excited and anxious we were. jeff suggested we just go in and go to bed and wake them up in the morning. but i was scared that my grandparents would wake up {i didn't want to give them a heart attack and send them to the hospital on Christmas haha}. i called my mom, at this point it was like 1:30am, i knew she would be up because of all the Christmas presents she had to wrap still. she picked up the phone and thought she was going to listen to her crying daughter {who she thought was really sick} but no i told her that we were right outside!!! and you wanna know what she said!? "Julia, YOU'RE A TURD!!". i thought i would have gotten more excitement out of her haha. so of course my dad comes outside and is shocked and he welcomes us inside! the rest of the night we just caught up and then went to bed shortly after.
the next morning my dad woke us up to go upstairs to start Christmas morning. all i really remember is alyssa, jordan & grandma were sitting on the couch and our shadows were on the wall by the stairs. alyssa saw our shadow, and instead of thinking "ohh jeff and julia really did come!?"...no. she thought my parents hired someone to pretend to be santa...at the bottom of the stairs! hahaha we couldn't stop laughing. our family loves traditions and everything, but we have never ever hired a santa. why now?? anyways! we turned the corner and everyone was shocked! successsssss ;). my grandma's reaction was priceless. the whole time she thought she wouldn't even see us, and now there we were. she was pretty happy :). and my sisters reaction was priceless...as always hahahahahaha. lets just say she is very animated ;). love youuuuu! after that we begun Christmas morning with the opening of the gifts.
our Christmas was really good, especially since we were with family! thanks babe for making that happen. it was such a different experience sharing it with my new little family, i cant wait for more! my husband seriously has made this past year one of the best ones yet, if not the best! so many wonderful things happened & changes. i am just glad that he was there to experience them with me all year long! and now we have a new year to look forward to, it should be a good one!



 decorating our first Christmas tree :)

 oh hey that's me

i think we decorated our tree at like 1:00am...whoops! it needed to be done tho

 we got my parents this new game called Heads Up...so fun!!! it's Ellen DeGeneres' new game

 bowling with the family, of course

 my beautiful sister alyssa...she just had to get a new Christmas outfit ;)

Merry Christmas from ussssss  

 

 our men playing Just Dance 2014

 obviously megan and i were into it

 i am so glad that my best friend lives here. it makes this little town more bearable! megan last year we went to the YSA dance just last year!!

 i give you megan & danny buckley

 gotta have it

 jeff has an obsession with miley cyrus. not really thank goodness

 four cups for four friends

 

me and my man!

after our fun trip to Boise we had to come home where we celebrated New Years Eve with my best friend and her husband. it was fun time playing the new Just Dance and watching the ball drop with them! last year megan and i went to the YSA dance at BSU together and that's where i saw jeffery again. once again we are all together again + one {megans new hubby!}.

 

 

DIY Entertainment Center

yayyyyy another DIY! i think my living room is almost done, & i am seriously loving it! i just have a couple of more art projects that i would like to get done....and it will be COMPLETE! even though our place may be super small, not in the ideal location or kinda old. i still love it, because it is all ours! owning a home someday will probably be one of the coolest feelings for me {other than adding little babies to our small fam bam ;)} so in the meantime i will just continue to fall in love with this place :).
last saturday jeffery & i decided to redo our entertainment center {it's actually more like a console, but the way i am designing it it will feel more like a whole piece}. my parents gave it to us, so once again we had an awesome deal! i believe this was from target & it had a top piece on it before. we decided to not keep it because our tv wouldn't fit in it. it's not a big change but it does look a lot better & it makes more sense with the rest of our white furniture. it cost us nothing! so that just makes it better too ;).

here is the before. i do not like the lip at the bottom at all, it clashes with modern stuff we have too much. & the color is so off! yes i kinda already have a beachy theme going on, but i want to make it more light & modern. so here we go! {yay for accidental Pandora in the background}

 what a mess! i hate cords...blek

 always make sure you clean it down, no matter how clean you think it is!

 we had to sand it down because when we took the top part of it previously it left these ugly little guys.

 he had the idea then to use an exacto knife to get the bigger parts and then we sanded it again.

 all clean!

 then there was this ugly smile {lip} at the bottom that just had to go. we thought there would be like screws or something to take it off...nope. so we broke it.

 we were right...there they are. so dumb.

 supplies! this is why it was free, we used old paint. save money!

 even though it was already white to begin with, we still ended up doing two coats! i wanted to make sure it was alllllll white!

 all done!

 

& there it is! all done :). i love that it is the same white as the other furniture pieces & it does look a little bit more modern. & GOODBYE TO NASTY CORDS!! if you are struggling with knowing how to organize or decorate your piece. first know if you want it to be more contemporary/modern, rustic, eclectic, or traditional. if you are wanting more simple, i suggest boxes for all your toys/belongings and only up to three accessories {books, figurines, pictures} and then create space around them. but if you are more like me and want it to feel a little more comfy/homey add some textures into the mix like pillows. yes they are for your head but now they are a nice embellishment to the space! want more ideas? just comment or contact me! {remember i am hirable ;)}  

 

it may not be perfect but hey it was free! and it was a fun saturday project for the two of us :). and it looks so much better with the rest of the room, not soi much of an eye sore now. one thing that i was glad that we did it was because we were able to fix that dumb mess of cords and some fullness to the bottom of it with my pillows. {jeff says i have too many, i say i don't have enough!}. but there you have it! i love it! what other projects should i do!?