Austin + Magnolia Market Recap

I've had so many requests for a recap of my Magnolia Market trip so today I'm excited to finally fill you all in on the fun! A few weeks ago my girlfriends who I've known since elementary school and I headed down to Austin as a 30th birthday celebration.

The five of us live in 4 different states and 2 time zones, so getting together has been a challenge and I'm so glad we made this trip happen! Breaking away from work and catching up with my girls over drinks + tacos with the best guac ever was definitely what I needed to refuel my tank.

We debated on locations for our trip but ultimately the food and atmosphere of Austin won us over! And with Waco being about an hour and 45 minute trip from there, we figured why not make a day trip of it?!


I highly recommend if you're looking for a rental home in Austin to check this one out! It was the perfect location with an amazing back patio and decor, and was in walking distance to a brewery so we were close to all of the action. 

Austin is so eclectic with old school shops on South Congress Street and tons food trucks! Seriously, Austin's food truck game is on point. 

One of the places we were bummed to miss was the "trailer park" on South 1st Street. It's a collection of food trucks with tons of seating and string lights that we planned to go to before a crazy storm rolled in on our last full day of the trip.



Before getting on the road on Saturday, we stopped by Jo's Coffee for road trip essentials and snapped a group shot by their famous I Love You So Much mural.  Coffee + giant cinnamon rolls? Don't mind if I do... although I guess I missed the memo about not blending into the green wall...




Then we hit the road for the easy trip out to Waco and the mothership... Magnolia Market.

I've been watching Fixer Upper since it started and it's just amazing to me what Chip and Joanna have done with this place. It's right off the highway in a busy part of town, but you feel like you're stepping into a different world. The inside of the store feels like a normal shop at first and then you go into a warehouse-like section.

So much white and black, gorgeous landscaping, more food trucks, and so many family-friendly things to do while mama shops. There were cute wooden swings, footballs for kids to play with in the big open field, and black and white striped bean bags to lounge on.


There were lines to get into both the bakery AND the store itself, which seemed crazy to me but I get it... they have over 8,000 people visit each weekend! Fun fact: we learned that after talking with Joanna's mom while waiting in the bakery line! She was so sweet and just kept saying how blessed they feel for the success of the show and what they could bring to Waco.

If you head to Magnolia Market, don't get deterred by the bakery line. It was wrapped around the building and down the street but they keep things moving and it only took us about 30 minutes. Which obviously was made so much better by chatting with Jo's mama and debating which cupcake flavors we were each going to get.


We all started planning to get just two and by the time we got inside, we were ordering 3 giant cupcakes each. Not sorry! I went with the Red Velvet, Lemon Lavender, and Silobration (vanilla with chocolate frosting). All were SO good but the Lemon Lavender was one of those one and done kind of things because it had such a distinct taste.


Once back in Austin, we headed downtown for dinner at Grizzelda's (cool atmosphere with a couple celebrity sightings but food was just okay IMO) and drinks on Rainey Street, which is basically a bunch of old craftsman-style houses turned into bars where I felt SUPER old. Ha! 


We came armed with so many restaurant recommendations but so little time to try them all. Our favorites were definitely Terry Black's Barbecue and Torchy's Tacos. I'm not a huge fan of guac but dang Torchy's was so good!


I came home planning to add tons of string lights to our outdoor space, painting everything white and black, and bringing my husband back to Austin just for the food. Can you tell where my priorities are?! Such a fun time, love my girls for making this trip happen!!

If anyone is traveling to Austin or Magnolia Market soon and has any questions, ask away!
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Easter 2017

I hope you all had a fun weekend!

Easter officially became one of my favorite holidays this year... capped off by a surprise visit from my parents!

Though I could do without the double pink eye and colds that two out of three of us have right now. Not sure how my boys got so sick but our house has been on a bit of a struggle bus since my parents left. This could also be partially due to a crash in sugar levels after finishing the last of our Reese's eggs...

The weather was absolutely perfect so we soaked up the sun at Magnolia Plantation's Easter egg hunt on Saturday. Rowan was a bit intimidated by the large crowd of parents charging towards the eggs with their toddlers in tow (I don't blame him) but slowly got into it after tasting every piece of candy in each egg he found along the way.

 
For some reason Easter egg hunts apparently suck the energy out of adults too?! Or is it just me?

We decided after Rowan's nap to set up egg dying outside on our patio while my husband grilled some burgers. It was the perfect evening, with surprisingly little mess to clean up considering you never know what to expect when you give a toddler 5 cups of dye to drop eggs into.


On Sunday we went to an early church service and headed home to host Easter brunch with my parents and close friends. I went a bit overboard on the basket filling... every year I forget what I bought and keep adding to it but the practical things like a shark towel and new red Natives were a big hit! And the bubbles... Always bubbles.


We tried hard for a good family photo but I think Rowan was starting to feel pretty crummy at this point so we took what we could get.


He's now on day two of eye drops and hanging at home with me... honestly if I don't get pink eye and his cold after being sneezed on a million times, I must have some kind of crazy immune system. Fingers crossed!
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One Room Challenge :: Week 2

Disclaimer: This post was sponsored by Minted. As always, all thoughts and opinions are my own!

This week in ORC land, it was all about the gallery wall!


If you asked my husband for one of my worst qualities, he'd probably say my indecision.

In high school I had big dreams to become an interior designer, and luckily for myself and others that didn't happen because all of my clients would have unfinished spaces. Oops! I knew I wanted to move our family photos to our loft space and replace them with fine art, with a few family photos mixed in, but I was overwhelmed at the options.

Enter: the sweetest Minted Art Stylist, Cherie.

In case you're unfamiliar, Minted offers personal art styling for those of us that need a little boost in our decorating skills. There are a lot of perks besides not having to wrack your brain for the perfect art combination or spend hours looking through all of the pretty fine art options.

As part of Minted's art styling process, you receive 2 custom concept boards, 2 additional revisions, a full rendering of your wall with each option provided (for visual people like me this helped a TON!), and a 20-25% discount plus free shipping on your purchase!



You aren't required to buy everything, in fact to keep our gallery wall within my budget I opted to buy just the art and use my own frames for a couple of the prints.

To start you take a fun, quick quiz telling them what space you need art for, what your decorating style is, and the color palette. I think I selected contemporary, classic, and vintage if I remember correctly... this seemed to fit the overall Modern Farmhouse style I am going for.  Then I emailed Cherie an image of the wall and the exact dimensions she was working with.

And here is the perfection that she came up with...

 

Honestly she nailed it. I loved every piece of art, the subtle hint of blush in some of the pieces, and the mix of frames. I had my heart set on art shelves, but the second option she provided was so gorgeous I almost opted for that instead! Seriously how sweet is that Mother's Embrace print?

Here was option 2:


I asked her to tweak a couple things, like add a mat to the Parisian Windows print, and she sent a new rendering of the wall so I could see how it would look. I happily approved, so she sent me final hanging instructions and all of the details I needed to place my order.


I can't wait to share more progress next week! In the meantime my next to-dos are to find some bamboo shades to add texture, replace the rug, and find pillows that are toddler friendly (i.e. machine washable).

If you have any questions about the personal art styling process, feel free to reach out! I highly recommend it for a perfectly tailored gallery wall if you're stuck like me! Thank you so much to Minted for working with me on this space!

Now I'm off to get inspired by the other ORC projects!!

One Room Challenge Week 1: Before Photos and Inspiration
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One Room Challenge :: Modern Farmhouse Living Room

I've been dragging my heels on finishing our living room for SO long, its almost embarrassing. It doesn't need a major overhaul but a refresh with this thing called styling will go a long way considering how much time we spend in this room! So I thought what better time than the One Room Challenge, where I actually have to meet a deadline in 6 weeks?!  

If you're hearing from Calling it Home, welcome! I hope you stick around!

 So here are the before photos....


Not terrible by any means but it just doesn't look finished. Here are a few of the big things I think this space needs:

- Our ceiling light doesn't work so that needs to be addressed or replaced
- Accent pillows. Lots of them
- Some kind of greenery. I have a black thumb AND a toddler so I'm totally going with a faux plant in here
- An updated gallery wall with a mix of personal photos and fine art 
- Replace the rug that somehow looks white in this photo but its actually super gross and worn out after having a dog, toddler, and husband trample on it for 2 years 
- One accent chair or two? Or just a different style?
- Floor lamp to hold us over when the ceiling light stops working
- The whole thing needs a bit of styling
 

I love to add hints of the farmhouse style but I really like it to be more of a clean and modern farmhouse look mixed with classic furniture.



So there you have it! Any thoughts for mixing classic with modern farmhouse? I don't want to go too over the top with farmhouse but I also want it to be fun and relaxed!
 
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