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Meaningful Spaces

A journey in creating a meaningful home

Archives for August 2018

A SWEET TREAT & SWEET DEALS

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Let’s get this LABOR DAY weekend started friends!  Traditionally this weekend wraps up summer and is filled with BBQ’s and spending time with friends and family, oh and a little shopping 🙂  If you’re entertaining or heading to a BBQ I want to share this easy, crowd pleasing take on ice cream sandwiches.  I also want to share some of my favorite stores that are having some amazing Labor Day sales.

WAFFLE ICE CREAM SANDWICHES

WAFFLE ICE CREAM SANDWICHES

I can’t take credit for this idea, my daughter came up with this.  A few weeks ago we had some friends over and I was brain storming with her some clever dessert ideas that we could serve.  My daughter is quite the chef and very creative in the kitchen. Being summertime we knew we wanted to use ice cream.  She suggested we do ice cream sandwiches but use waffles instead of cookies.

A few weeks prior we were at Target and she really wanted THIS MINI WAFFLE MAKER.  Being that it was $10 and our old waffle maker had just died I got it for her. This ended up making the perfect sized waffles for our sandwiches.

WAFFLE ICE CREAM SANDWICHES

We decided to keep it simple and used Dulce De Leche and Vanilla Ice Cream.  Turn out the waffle indentations are perfect for hold the Dulce De Leche!  We spread both waffles and scooped on the ice cream. For sure we plan on making these again and brainstormed some other flavor combinations.

FLAVOR COMBINATIONS

Lemon Ice Cream + Rasberry Jam   |   Peanut Butter Ice Cream + Chocolate Fudge

Coffee Ice Cream + Hazelnut Spread  |  Vanilla Ice Cream + Lemon Curd

WAFFLE ICE CREAM SANDWICHES

LABOR DAY SALES AND SWEET DEALS

LABOR DAY SALES

Most stores have amazing deals this weekend.  I thought I’d round up the discount codes to some of my favorite stores in hopes of making shopping this weekend more convenient!

POTTERY BARN– 15%-30% off with code SAVE MORE, go HERE TO SHOP

WEST ELM- 15%-30% off with code SAVE MORE, go HERE TO SHOP

LULU & GEORGIA- Up to 25% off entire site, go HERE TO SHOP

WORLD MARKET– 30% off ALL furniture with code FURN30, go HERE TO SHOP

TARGET– Major online SALE, go HERE TO SHOP

OVERSTOCK-Up to 70% off, go HERE TO SHOP

ANTHROPOLOGIE-EXTRA 40% off SALE & 20% off Furniture, go HERE TO SHOP

H&M– Up to 60% off + free shipping, go HERE TO SHOP.  Just ordered 2 of these for fall.

SHOP BOP– Up to 70% off,  go HERE TO SHOP

J CREW– 40% off with code BIGSALE, go HERE TO SHOP

MACY’S– Major sale with code WKND, go HERE TO SHOP

LOFT– 40% off with code LABORDAY, go HERE TO SHOP

Have a lovely weekend, we plan on tackling a few projects, and a BBQ with friends.  I wish summer could stay just a little bit longer, don’t you?!?!

XO-Laura

Front Porch Planters

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FRONT PORCH PLANTERS AND CURB APPEAL

Over the weekend I had a quick girls getaway to the cutest beach town of Balboa, CA.  It’s technically an island right of the coast of Newport Beach. We did a morning walk around the island and as you can imagine there is an endless supply of quaint beach houses dotting the shoreline.

Now that the exterior of our house is freshly painted (look for all the details next week), I want to spruce up our front porch.  While we were out walking I snapped some photos of front porch planters that inspired me.  It was hard to narrow it down, but I’m sharing my favorite planters and below that my favorite curbside landscaping. Enjoy!

FRONT PORCH PLANTERS

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MY PICKS FOR AFFORDABLE PLANTERS

CURB APPEAL

I also snapped a few shots of the hard to landscape area that sometimes borders a house.  I’ve heard it referred to as the parkway strip.  We don’t have an area like this at our house but in case you do here are some beautiful examples of making that space interesting.  This would also work in a planter bed bordering the house or a bed boarding the driveway.

OUR FRONT PORCH

This is how I planted our containers in May…sadly everything has died except the Rosemary topiary’s! I do know our porch looks better with at least one tree or taller element.  This spot has proved very hard to plant because the majority of the day it is shaded however there are a few hours where it receives intense afternoon sun.  Because of this I never know what type of plant will tolerate that kind of erratic lighting.  I plan on asking the nursery for guidance and find something that will last.

I hope those beach homes inspired you as much as they have me!  I’ll be sure to give you an update as soon as everything is planted.  Have a great day friends!

 

XO-Laura

Instant Gallery Wall

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INSTANT GALLERY WALL AND FRAME SOURCE

School starts tomorrow and I really wanted the kids rooms 100% done by this point.  We began the summer with painting and sprucing up their rooms and then our ambition fizzled.  Summer fun took over, and these last few days we’ve been scrambling to wrap up the final details.  One of the final details was framing and hanging a gallery wall in my sons room.

Teen Boys Room

UNFINISHED FRAME SOURCE

FRAMEUSA.COM

Truth be told, I purchased these prints last year, during the Nordstrom Anniversary Sale.  I put off hanging them because I couldn’t find the right frames for them.  Then I stumbled upon the site FRAMEUSA.COM.   They have a large selection of simple frames and I thought the Unfinished Architect Frames would be just what we needed.  I wanted a wood stained frame, but just couldn’t find the right match.  I decided to order unfinished frames and stain them myself.  We built my sons bed and used a mix of Special Walnut and Weathered Oak by Minwax.  I used that same stain combination on the unfinished frames.

The stained frames was just what I was wanting, it adds interest to the black and white beach prints.

INSTANT GALLERY WALL ART

Beach Gallery Wall

I mentioned I purchased the prints online from Nordstroms.  They came in a set of 5, and are printed on nice heavy paper.  I love the collection of images and it was such a time saver to have them already curated.  I’ll link this set as well as some others that caught my eye.

5 PIECE GALLERY WALL ART SETS

Teen Boys Room

BEDDING SOURCES (on sale now)

The plan is to finish building two shelves above his desk and this room is ready for it’s full reveal!  Now off to bed, tomorrow is a big day…first day of high-school for my son and jr. high for my daughter.

XO-Laura

LIFE UPDATE AND FUTURE PLANS

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Hi Friends!  Checking in and saying “hi” after taking the last two weeks off.  Here’s what I’ve been up to and what future plans I’m cooking up.

SUMMER FUN

The kids and I spent a week visiting my parents in northern California.  They still live in the house where I grew up and it’s fun to see the kids running around the same yard that I use to play in.  My parents were in a serious car accident last summer, and it’s a miracle that they survived.  My moms right arm was shattered and she is still healing.  We met with her new surgeon and he is planning for an 8th surgery and I’m praying this will be the last and return function to her hand and arm.

This picture is from years ago, but one of my favorites of the kids with Grammy!

Last week we heading out to Lake Mead for an annual house boating trip, with my husbands side of the family.  This is always a highlight, the kids make such wonderful memories with their cousins on this trip.  This was our 7th summer and it’s fun to look back at pictures! The week is filled with inner tubing, wake boarding, wake surfing, and water skiing.  I grew up water skiing and this year my son decided to try, took him 3 tries to get up and then he nailed it!  He did it for me and my love of skiing, it was so sweet.  I said “I’m passing the torch” to which he responded, “I don’t want this torch!” Ha!

NEW CHAPTER

The last 3 school year my kids were in a part time Home School program.  They would go to school two days a week and did the rest of their school work from home.  This year they are both going back to school full time.  We’re all excited and ready for this new chapter, but I am so thankful I had those three years to spend so much time with them.

Every year I take a picture of the kids by the front door, it really shows how fast they grow as how time just flies by.

FUTURE PLANS

With the kids go back to full time school, I have lots of projects and plans to share more consistently here on the blog!

I have vowed to wrap up the projects that I’ve started but haven’t finished before moving on to anything new!  This week both the kids rooms should be finished up.  We started re-doing their rooms at the beginning of the summer and I am vowing to have them 100% done before school starts next week.  I LOVE how they are turning out and will share both of the rooms very soon.

PHOTO OF MACYS ROOM

Next week the painters start on the exterior of the house!!!  I posted all about the color choices HERE, and I’ll share a before and after post when it’s done. \

I also plan on adding some trim work on the wall that leads up the stairs. That will be a DIY, so I need to carve out some time for that project.

SOURCE

I also purchased THIS BED back in February for our master and it’s still in the box! I’ve started to dream up a master bedroom refresh and I hope to tackle that in the fall.

I sure hope you’ve been having a wonderful summer!  Thank you for popping in here and sharing this little corner of the internet with me!

XO-Laura

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