Pepper Design Blog

Wrapping Paper Love

Wrapping presents is always a task that I oddly look forward to each Christmas. I love beautifully wrapped packages with that added homemade love (when you can really tell the gift giver put some time into perti-fying the gift) and this year I’m attempting to find unusual odds and ends from around the house to embellish gifts for under our tree.

When Tiffany from Simply Modern Mom asked me to participate in her Wrap It Up series today, I decided to give felt, ribbon and newspaper clippings a try to make an easy project that I could replicate for all of our gifts. Check out the full post here.

Why have I never thought of newspaper before! Same goes for old book pages – they make great little name tags and there’s something a bit homemade and antique-y (and very wallet-friendly) that’s so pretty about the look. For more details (and fun wrapping ideas), be sure to check out Simply Modern Mom’s site!

Project Nursery: A Painting Party Weekend

I was looking forward to creating some pretty neat animal wall decals out of fabric or wallpaper for the new nursery (see the inspiration board here), but then I received the most wonderful surprise from Kevin’s mom and aunt. They offered to drive all the way from Phoenix to help paint the nursery just this past weekend – in any design that we’d like!

His entire family is filled with amazing artists and his aunt is especially talented as a professional home muralist (Palette of Possibilities). Because of the short notice and the gender-neutral theme, I stuck with my original animals and asked them to paint several zoo/safari style characters around the room.

They’re so talented! Here they are in progress:

They spent an entire Saturday from dawn until well after dusk finishing the room and I was so impressed with how fast the colorful animals came together. And then, just as quickly as they had arrived, they zipped away back to Phoenix leaving us with a beautiful nursery.

If you’re on the hunt for some easy-peasy not-so-hands-on mural ideas, here are a few of the resources that I love:

Jiving Jungle Pals fabric stickers by Pop & Lolli (completely reusable – just peel off and stick anywhere) are whimsical and adorable!

My Wonderful Walls has created a neat line up of wall stencils (such as the safari animals above) and they work with local children’s hospitals to help decorate bare rooms. Beautiful art for a good cause!

The original designs that inspired an animal theme for the nursery were these beautiful patterned wallpaper decals by Inke over in the Netherlands. Shipping might be expensive but it would be well worth it!

For more Project Nursery posts, click the Home Makeover button on the right sidebar. The nursery is almost finished!

{Deliciously Decorated} Holiday Dessert Tables

There are so many creative {and beautiful} holiday ideas out there that I thought I’d share a quick round-up of a few of my favorite dessert tables.

These buffet-style spreads are full of great DIY projects - from adorable crafts to favors for friends to yummy recipes – that even if you don’t have time to tackle an entire table at your holiday party there’s sure to be an “ah-ha” idea that you’ll love in there somewhere.

For all of the juicy details and plenty of pictures, just click on the link with the theme name to jump out to the original full post.

I love the idea of using a striped fabric or wrapping paper as a backdrop to a delicious spread – and how wonderful are all of the gingerbread details in this “Christmas Candyland” theme design by Bird Crafts and featured over at Hostess with the Mostess?

Below, TomKat Studios shares a whimsical “Let it Snow” dessert table with splashes of bright pink:

Check out the adorable sugar-covered marshmallow men (in the form of skewered pops) on this Christmas Snowman table by Shindig Parties to Go:

Above, WH Hostess (of The Party Dress) shares a “Sweet Treats” aqua and red theme with beautiful feather and tissue paper details.

Below, a “Pink Nutcracker Suite” buffet shared on HWTM by Kate Landers Events makes for a great little girl’s birthday party or even a grown-up girl’s spread before a night out on the town to see the ballet or catch a chick flick!

And that’s the round-up!

Christmas decor is going up in a flurry over here at the Spenla house – I keep wondering what will happen if babe decides to come early (he/she is technically full term now at 37 weeks!) with me amidst rolls of garland, flashing Christmas lights and tiny ornaments as I get the house holiday ready! I don’t think I’d like to come back from the hospital in the chaos that is our living room now…