Forget Me Nots

In a dream world, we would have a house full of Pottery Barn type furniture. But since that's not really possible, Jonathan and I love going to consignment furniture stores and seeing what kind of treasures we can kind. Recently on Facebook I came across a consignment furniture store called Forget Me Nots in Brandon.  Check out their Facebook  page! They post pictures of the items they have for sale and the prices are always great!
In the past month, we have made 3 really awesome purchases from there! The first time we went, we didn't have anything specific in mind, we just went to check it out. As we were leaving, Jonathan spotted this bench for only $35 that he convinced me we needed and I'm so glad we bought it.

We decided it is perfect for the end of our bed. Right now it is just a cream color, but soon (when the weather is actually nice) we plan to refinish it.  Currently our quilt is just a solid brown, but we love this quilt from Target and hope to own it in the near future. We plan to paint the bench the gray/taupe color to match it.
Yesterday, we went to Forget Me Nots for the second time, but this was a planned trip. We each had a piece we wanted to own. We got both pieces we wanted and for just a little over $100!!
Jonathan's purchase was a new desk chair, which we really did need. Our plastic Ikea desk chair has had a nice life and it's time to give it up.
Like I said in our dream world, we would buy everything from Pottery Barn. So ideally this is what we wanted. Keep in mind  both are $399 (without the cushion)!

 And this is what we purchased for only $69!!!

It's in really great condition and we are so excited about this awesome deal!
My purchase was not the practical purchase we can use now, but for $45 I just couldn't pass up this great deal that will one day look great in our home!

The top and part of the front are a wicker and the rest is wood. Once we actually have a place for it, I will pick a fun color to paint and distress it! I can't wait!I will definitely blog about the projects as they are finished/given a place in our home!

On another note, it's February - which is my birthday month and I changed the blog background to go along with it!  As my family and Jonathan know well, I love to countdown to my birthday! It's 19 days away in case you were wondering! :)

Want A New Blog to Follow?

If you're like me and find yourself reading blogs often throughout the week, here's a new one for you to follow-

http://jandadesigns.wordpress.com/

It's now the official website AND blog of our business, J&A Designs! It's still in the works, so things will be changing on it for a while. But now that the craziness of completing orders and everything else during the holiday season is over, we promise to blog a lot more!

Go check it out and see what's been going on with the business lately!

Christmas With Friends

Tonight we celebrated Christmas with our friends Lawren and Robert. Each one of them got us very cool gifts, that both happened to be very personalized!

Below is a recipe binder that Lawren got us. On the front and side, it says "Nutt Family Favorites"!


And the picture below is of a hammer that Robert had engraved for us with "J & A" on it. He also attached a Home Depot gift card to it which I'm sure we'll be able to use on something for our business!



Merry Christmas! Tomorrow is Christmas Eve!

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Lately...

It's almost been a month since I last blogged.  I was informed (by Lawren Todd) that we need to update this a LOT more than we do. So here you go Lawren- this blog is dedicated to you today! Enjoy!

I'm so excited and happy to say that our business, J&A Designs, has successfully taken off!! On November 13th, we had a booth at the Holiday Market in Olde Towne Clinton. The couple weeks leading up to the market were probably the most stressful weeks we've been through! They were full of many LONG nights, but it was so worth it. I guess you could say this was the debut of our business and all of our items. We are so blessed to be able to say that it was a huge success! We've been spending all of our free time working on orders from the market and other orders we've had since the launch of our online store. I'm so happy to say that we are finally finished with the last of our orders just in time for Christmas!

We spent Thanksgiving in Nashville with Jonathan's parents. It was the first time I'd ever traveled on a major holiday since all my family lives in the Clinton area. We had fun and it was so nice to leave Clinton and everything behind for a few days. We ate a lot, shopped on Friday and did a lot of relaxing!


Before we left for Thanksgiving, we decorated our apartment for Christmas! Jonathan LOVES Christmas and everything about it, so he was very adamant that our house would be decorated when we came home from Thanksgiving. Although we don't have a mantle, and we don't have a lot of places to decorate, I think it turned out really cute!

This past Sunday Jonathan and I celebrated 6 months of marriage! I can't believe it's already been that long!  But we've loved every minute of what has turned out to be a very busy 6 months! The picture below is before we left for dinner at Julep to celebrate.

Anna

Christmas Cards- It's time!

We were very excited to find out about the offer that Shutterfly is promoting for bloggers! Jonathan and I have been looking forward to sending out Christmas cards since last year, when we started to look forward to our first Christmas as a married couple! We have so many cards that we want to send out this year from our friends to our family. Shutterfly always has the cutest cards! So I am excited to be using them this year. Although, this is our first year to use Shutterfly for Christmas cards, we have ordered photo prints, a photo book and a calendar.  I've attached some of our favorite things, including cards! I really liked this card and this card and we love this one a lot. Shutterfly also has the best gift ideas for everyone on your list. Our favorites are the calendars and photo books.  


If you already got your Christmas cards, Shutterfly has cute cards for birthdays, moving announcements, etc. Check them out here. Also, if you are a fellow blogger and want to see more information on this amazing offer, click here!

We've already put up Christmas decorations at our apartment and we are looking forward to the holidays! I'll post pictures soon! Have a great week!

J&A Designs

I'm so excited that I can finally blog about what Jonathan and I have been spending all of our free time doing lately!!
I told Jonathan one night that I needed a hobby. After 4 years of being really involved in college (especially Senior year), I wasn't used to having free time at night. I needed something to actually keep me busy in my free time! I kept seeing handpainted wooden picture frames in stores and thought surely I can make these! So, that's pretty much where J&A Designs came from. I knew that every year Olde Towne Clinton hosts a Holiday Market where vendors set up booths and handmade or home grown items and that it would be the perfect place to sell these picture frames that I wanted to create.
Jonathan has been SO amazing in helping get this up and running off the ground in time for this Holiday Market.  I guess I never realized how much work this would be and what all would really go into this venture when we started. But, I am proud to say that he has learned how to use a power saw and cuts all the wood himself. At first, we let Home Depot cut all the wood, but finding someone and then actually having them cut the correct measurements has never been easy!  He also sands most of the wood, although I have recently started helping out with this some. He says all the time now, he needs a bigger tool box thanks to this!

Thankfully, Jonathan also has a love for graphic design (he created all of our wedding stationary) and so he's been hard at work perfecting a logo and inserts for the picture frames! He also has been taking the pictures you see of our products. I guess our Marketing degrees are coming in handy! :)
I do most of the painting and sanding and he actually does the assembly and finishes the frames, but occasionally he will help out with the painting if I need him. I love being crafty and feeling accomplished when something is actually finished, so this has been a lot of fun for me!
If you haven't seen any of our finished products, check out our newly created Facebook fan page "J&A Designs". We have a whole album of frames, and other home decor that we have finished and currently we are hard at work getting ready for the Holiday Market so we will have some new pictures to share soon!

The Holiday Market in Olde Towne Clinton is Saturday, November 13th from 9am to 2pm and we'd love for you to stop by and see us at our booth! Christmas is coming up and our items would make perfect gifts!
I'll leave you with a couple of pictures of our finished work!

This is one of several different schools we can customize. Others include: Clinton Arrows, MSU, Ole Miss, USM, University of Alabama, Auburn, LSU, Florida State University, University of Florida, Ohio State University. And if you want another school, we don't have listed we can try to make it!

We love to bake!

When the fall decor went on sale last year, I bought several Halloween and fall cookie cutters - so last night Jonathan and I decided to make homemade sugar cookies (pumpkins, ghosts, and leaves)! We also made his favorite glaze icing that his mom made anytime they baked sugar cookies.  Here's the recipe if you want to try it!

The Best Rolled Sugar Cookies:
 Ingredients
-1 1/2 cups butter, softened
-2 cups white sugar
-4 eggs
-1 teaspoon vanilla extract
-5 cups all-purpose flour
-2 teaspoons baking powder
-1 teaspoon salt

Directions:   In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cover, and chill dough for at least one hour (or overnight). 
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Roll out dough on floured surface 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Cut into shapes with any cookie cutter. Place cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake 6 to 8 minutes in preheated oven. Cool completely. (Says it makes 60 cookies, but it depends on size of cookie cutters)

Glaze Icing
Ingredients:
- Powdered sugar
-Almond extract
Directions: Pour powdered sugar into a bowl. Slowly add drops of hot water to make powdered sugar dissolve into a glaze. Keep repeating until you have enough to cover all cookies. Add almond extract to taste.