Hi guys! Sorry, I don't have a "real" blog post planned for today. I've been spending the last few evenings trying to plan our itinerary for our Southern road trip in October! Honestly, trip planning is not my favorite thing to do, so I've procrastinated this for way too long. I love vacations, I just don't like all the research and planning beforehand--and I never feel like I have a good chunk of time to work on it. But since the trip is coming up really soon, I've finally been making it a priority to get some plans squared away. I know you all have great taste, so I thought I'd enlist your help and ask for your recommendations! I posted about our trip awhile ago when we were just starting to think about it, but since that post was fairly general, I'm hoping some of you may have specific recommendations for the cities we are planning to visit. I'm looking for things to do, restaurants that we shouldn't miss, and places to stay. I'm struggling most with where to stay. We were hoping to find places for under $100/night, although we could go a little above that if the place was worth it...but all the hotels I saw recommended were more than a little out of our budget. I also checked out airbnb, which looks promising, but there aren't too many options for apartments/homes that we'd have to ourselves (which would be our preference). Do any of you know of a great hotel in the cities below--or someone that rents their place out? If so, please let me know!! We don't need a place to be fancy or luxurious, just clean and maybe a little fun and unique. We're renting a car, so it's ok if it's not downtown.

Here are the cities on our list:
Nashville, Tennessee / Chapel Hill, North Carolina / Charleston, South Carolina / Savannah, Georgia / Pensacola, Florida / New Orleans, Louisiana / Atlanta, Georgia ... and then back to Nashville!

Do any of you have recommendations for me??

I'm also curious, how do you guys normally find places to stay? Do you ever do the "name-your-own-price" thing on sites like Priceline? We've done it once before and were happy with how it turned out, but I'm nervous that we might not get so lucky the next time. Also, have you guys used airbnb? If so, what was your experience? Please share your trip planning tips with me! I totally need your help...

Photo via The Weekend File.

Remember way back in May, when I talked about wallpapering my fridge? Well, a few weeks ago I decided to do it. I was all set; I'd picked out some temporary wallpaper and had it in my (online) shopping cart...but once shipping was added in, it was over $70, and I just couldn't pull the trigger. Then I remembered this post with copper contact paper circles on the wall...and my friend Jenn's fridge, which she recently covered with circles punched out of extra-wide washi tape. And I knew just what to do! I got some gold contact paper and a small circle punch, and went to town punching away. I decided not to do an organized pattern, because I knew if it was off by even a little bit I'd get annoyed at it. Instead, I just placed the circles randomly. I tested peeling a couple off to make sure it wouldn't damage the fridge, and they came right off without leaving any residue. Best of all? I only spent around $15 and I still have over half the roll of contact paper left!

What do you guys think? See my "before" fridge here.

A couple months ago, Villeroy & Boch reached out to me with the opportunity to use some of their beautiful pieces in a post on summer entertaining. I've never owned nice china (most of our plates are ones I've collected from Ikea, Walmart, and Goodwill)--so I immediately said yes! I've been trying to embrace more colors that I used to shy away from (like orange) so I picked out their Anmut Orange Salad Plates. I had a bunch of ideas I wanted to do for this post, but I ran out of time to put together anything elaborate--so I just used some simple items I already had around the house. I realized that many of you are probably the same way. Maybe you're having some friends over for dinner, but you don't have time to run to the store and get anything fancy. Don't feel like it's a lost cause! I'll bet you already have plenty of items that you can dress up if you just put a little creativity into it.

I put little clementine oranges at each place setting and pinned a leaf onto them. Then I wrote names on the leaves--a super simple idea for placecards.

I love the ease of wipe clean tablecloths from Simply Tablecloths, and added an inexpensive table runner from a roll of painter's kraft paper. The color scheme was inspired by plates themselves: orange, white, and silver, with some green mixed in. Simple, summery, and fresh.

I rescued some tin cans from the recycling to use as cheap and casual vases. I've seen a lot of fun ideas with tin cans (painting them, wrapping them with fabric or yarn, etc.) but I wanted to do something different. I've been really loving confetti lately, so I got the idea to make confetti tin cans! I punched out two different sizes of circles from regular white printer paper, then I covered half the cans in glue and rolled them around in the paper circles. I love how they turned out, and it was so quick and easy! I sprinkled the remaining circles on the table runner.

For the flowers, I grabbed a bunch of greenery from my yard, then mixed in more clementines and some white flowers from the grocery store. $5 for all of them! I really like mixing fruit with flowers--it's such a budget-friendly way to add some color.

I also love mixing casual elements (like tin can vases and cans of soda) with luxury pieces like fine china and nice flatware.

The whole thing took me less than an half hour to set up. I love how cheap and simple all the ideas are, and the china plates add a layer of luxury to the otherwise laidback tablescape.

What do you think of these ideas? I really like the confetti tin cans--it would be easy to make a bunch of these for a wedding (just start saving tin cans now)! Thanks to Villeroy & Boch for sending me these beautiful plates. I'm excited to use them more!

Yesterday was one of those days. I started a new job on Monday (same company, different role), so I've had orientation & training this whole week. Then I got sick on Tuesday. All day yesterday I was woozy and chilled, and my throat hurt so much...but I couldn't miss training, so I had to suck it up. Then Ben got off work super late (we carpool) and there was a crazy amount of traffic from both the regular commuters and a Mariner's game that had just gotten out. Needless to say, nothing was going right! I had planned to take photos of a fun little project to post today, but by the time we got home it was getting too dark for photos, and I wasn't feeling up to it. Feeling exhausted and a bit discouraged, I checked Instagram and saw the best quote: "you can do anything, but not everything." So I decided to give myself a break, curl up with a cup of tea, and watch some episodes of Psych with Ben (do any of you guys watch that show? We're loving it!). Ever since you guys told me you wanted to see more of my own home and projects, I've tried to post something of my own at least once a week. But I'm not going to hold myself to it this week. Maybe I'll have time to do it tomorrow but I'm not going to stress out about it! One way or another, soon you'll get to see some cute ideas I've been working on.

I hope you all are having a good week. If you're feeling wiped out like me, be encouraged--no one can do everything!

And also be encouraged by the fact that tomorrow is Friday :)