Behind the Scene Secrets

I’m in the mood to try something different today, and to hopefully become more transparent to my readers.  Some of you have followed my posts for years, and I feel honored that you have stuck with me this long.  I feel your support, and I am grateful.  With the holidays approaching and after almost 7 years of blogging about it, I’m beginning to think folks assume our house looks exactly like the photos I share.  The truth is, it DOES NOT 😯 .  All of my photos (or at least 95%) are staged, and then edited with lighting, etc. before I publish them.  What that means is that while the photo looks great, rest assured I am in my lint covered leggings & slippers, the sink is adorned with a pyrex baking dish soaking from the night before, and although I am an organized person, I rarely dust.  In other words…my house is messy.

So, with that being said, I thought it would be fun to share some “Behind the Scene Secrets” where I disclose what was “really” going on behind that perfect photo.  I’ll also be sharing little DIY decorating secrets on how to help you make things appear like they look better than they actually do 😆 .  This first round is all about this perfect photo of our fall rustic white hutch during a magazine photo shoot.  Next time, I’m thinking about doing our Thanksgiving table or Christmas  tree, so stay tuned as I continue to spill my secrets.

1. This gorgeous white hutch in our kitchen is the family “catch-all” where  I cry over sort our bills, keep our kid’s 10,000 school papers, store my Kohl’s returns, and organize my coupons.  See that big owl?  That’s where my purse goes as soon as I get home.  The cat likes to get up there and sniff around.
2. That’s a brown coffee bag wrapped around the mum to hide the ugly green plastic pot it was in.  It still looked ridiculous I thought, but I was so stressed out from the photo shoot I forgot to figure something else out.
3. The logs came from outside and had spiders all over them, so I had to give them a bath in the kitchen sink just like they were my babies.  Those are some clean babies.
4. I don’t normally keep white dishes in the cabinets (who does that anyhow???).  I actually store all of our wine glasses and whiskey glasses in there.  We don’t drink whiskey 🙂 , but I like whiskey glasses because of their shape.  My kids helped me empty all the glasses out of the cabinets before the shoot, and I walked around the house drinking whiskey searching for anything white to put in the cabinets.  Luckily, I had white coffee cups-bingo.  The kids also helped me put everything back a few days later.  It was too much to do in one day.
5. My husband and I went through an early major blizzard to get the caramel nut apples at the mall.  They cost a small fortune and I ended up giving them to the photographer to take to his Mom’s for Thanksgiving which was 2 days later.  I really liked that guy!
6. I filled the white ceramic tub that we usually use for wood by our fireplace with towels and then added ice on top of the towels.  I didn’t want to buy ice to fill the entire thing, so this worked great.  I used the same method for the popcorn bowl.  My husband had made that popcorn a week before and it was very stale.
7. The little caramel candles are from the dollar store and they had big stickers on the back.  They were not caramel scented I can assure you that.
8. See the upside down plate under the peanut caramel apples?  I have no idea who did that.  I didn’t.  Then again, maybe I did and I don’t remember?
9. It took me at least an hour to get that chalk board sign to look right.  I couldn’t get the “C” to look good, but finally settled for this one.  What was my problem?  It actually looks perfect now.
10. The owl is from HomeGoods and cost $7.99.  Total steal.  He’s in our living room now.
11. I cooked the popcorn in the candles a few days later.  Only a fool wastes popcorn, and I crave it.
12. I wear that scarf around my neck almost every day in the Winter when I pick up the kids (now 1 kid because the other is in college).  It smells like Ralph Lauren, my favorite perfume.

 Stay tuned for next round…I’ll add it to the top up there and mail it out to you soon.  Subscribe here if you haven’t already.

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