Scents of Style

There I go again! The English major playing word games, or just showing that yet again spell check doesn't catch homonyms. Anyway, all games aside I do have a point. When you go to style a space, even your own home, the finishing touch comes from the scent of the place. Your home can be designed impeccably, but if you have animals (like we do) and your home smells like cat litter and wet dog the style will be lost on the guests as soon as they enter your home. I've blogged about my love of Yankee Candles and how the right candle can totally change your day!
Any good company that understand this principle will carry a line of candles with scents reflecting the type of environment their furniture and decor would fit in. Obviously you will not have modern clean lines surrounded by scents that remind you of walking into your grandma's house (think ceder, sugar cookies, and heavy perfume). Even if you think I'm wrong on that one, and that's OK you're allowed, no matter what scent defines your space please for the love of design pick something better than wet dog!
People say that smell is the sense connected to memory the most. For me, I can remember my grandfather because he smelled warm. Not just any kind of warm, but warm leather rubbed in machine oil. Not exactly Santa kind of warm. This particular grandpa passed away when I was seven, and still when I see a picture of him that's what I smell. His scent would be the perfect addition to a man cave, or to a garage hang out. Your signature smell becomes part of your personality!
If I'm stressed my home starts to smell like baked goods because inevitably when I've had a bad day I either make brownies or banana bread. If I'm in a cleaning/purging mood I break out the fresh flower smells. Highly successful day? Lavender and lemon (or just the lavender!) I think that's why that particular candle is my favorite. The more lavender lemon candles I go through, the more successful I've been!
Let's play a little game. I've chosen some fantastically styled rooms and I want you to pick the smells that go along with them. What's the perk? You'll receive a $50 Visa Gift Card to indulge in some extra Scents of Style! Over the next few days I will share with you some of my favorite design elements, including some great candle lines! Ready? Let's go!

Living Area

Picture from Coastal Living

Living area off of a kitchen

Picture from Traditional Home

This is a sitting area off of a bedroom 

Picture from Traditional Home

Bedroom

Picture from House Beautiful

Kitchen

Picture from HGTV

To enter the Scents of Style challenge simply post a comment here with your first name and email address and the smell (or combination) you would use to finish the design of each of these rooms. Please number 1 through 5! I cannot wait to see what you come up with!

Until next time!

Dabble

Constant Reinvention

Last weekend one of my friends from high school came to visit and meet Abby for the first time. Steph is the perfect "wild child" aunt for Abby! I was SO excited to see her and just hang out for the weekend and let whatever shenanigans we always end up getting into just fall into place. We of course took a trip to the outlets and spiced up our house with a fantastic sale at Yankee Candle. I took a little bit out of my "emergency" fund for candles. Emergency? Absolutely....it's the little things that make you feel better when sometimes you feel like everything is falling apart.
In between the running around moments Steph was able to witness a big change moment for our family. Abby attempted to crawl. Ok, she lifted up her arm from the crawling position and immediately toppled over, but it was a start and incredible cute! More importantly, Kyle went back to school. I have been hinting for a while that there were big changes coming, going on, circling around, and I have been virtually ripping away at the pages to find the best way to talk about it all. We have made the decision to sell the brand that we have built as a custom printing company, and that's about all I can get into with that side of things at the moment. Kyle and "the guys" are working on potentially buying a restaurant and with that Kyle is going to get a culinary degree. I admire his ambition and drive to yet again take on the task of mastering a truly specialized field, and I know that he will be beyond successful in whatever he chooses to do.
Of course, that means more $$ out of our pockets to pay for school. Having Steph here reminded me of how easy we had it in high school. We were essentially care free and finding our footing, ourselves, and dreaming of where we were going to go in life. I would like to think that I still have that dreamer in me, and for better or worse I am constantly reinventing myself. Luckily enough, Kyle is in the same boat with me and we can go through the constant changing together supporting each other. However, it's very different now that we have Abby.
Parenting "forces" you to have a sense of security for your family unit and your child(ren). It creates a sense of selflessness in you that says "no matter what is going on in life and how much I have to sacrifice, my child(ren) will be taken care of". I am blessed enough to have incredibly supportive family, but every day I strive to take care of my own on my own. Maybe I finally know how my parents feel when they tell me they want to make sure I am taken care of, but as a parent I want to be able to provide for my family as my own parent. I guess the days of carefree living are over, but to all the parents, supportive families, and everyone else out there do NOT read that to mean that the days of DREAMING are over.
This blog was started with the idea that we all need a moment every day to make ourselves feel absolutely fabulous, even if it's only in a dream!

Until Next Time
Dabble