I’m honored to have been invited to complete a simple Love Your Home Challenge inspired by the new book, Love The Home You Have, written by my blogging friend Melissa @ The Inspired Room.

Beauty creates connection.

“Create a home inspired by your life & what you love and then your home will inspire you.” ~ Melissa Michaels

 

Visit LoveFeast Shop to see our NEW Spring Nests & Velvet Mushroom Sets & find inspiring, beautiful things for you & your home!

Do you ever feel like you don’t know where to begin?  Do you get the feeling like there are too many tabs in the files in your brain and you don’t know where to start?  Well, sometimes we do too.  I once read a book that said before you do the fun stuff, you should do the important stuff first, like eating your vegetables before dessert.  But, what if your to-do’s both moved you forward and also were fun?  What if you just had “JUST ONE THING” to do that would begin to make an incremental change in you, your style, your home?

Just One Thing is inspiration for making incremental changes in you, your style, your home and your kitchen.  Easy tips to make your life simpler, better, and more beautiful simply by adding #justonething

Here at our lifestyle blog,  LoveFeast Table we are going to inspire you to make changes in DECOR, STYLE, FEAST & sometimes even LIFE that will enrich you & your home.   By sharing a tip or trick or design idea that is easy, quick and simple might inspire you to get some things done that you might have been putting off or hadn’t thought of trying.  JUST ONE THING is just one idea idea for you to take away and execute.  If it’s a tip or trick or a thing that’s just not you, then pass on it.  But, here is a challenge for you, try it.  You just might like it.  It’s sort of like trying something  just for fun, that might not be your style, but ends up looking so, so great on you.  You won’t know until you try.  By adding JUST ONE THING at a time to your life, your look, your home and your cooking you will begin to see that not only is it easy, it’s going to be fun.

Just One Thing ~ Tips to make your life simpler, better, and more beautiful.  #justonething   

JUST ONE THING ~ Inspiration for getting it done!

You may have seen some of our fun on Instagram last weekend. We were both in New York City with our husbands to see Prince Igor at the New York Metropolitan Opera. I’d like to say that we are opera aficionados and we were well aware that this was the first time Prince Igor had been performed at the NY Met in 100 years, but to be honest, this was a first, for all of us! To attend an opera was on both of our bucket lists and seeing as my cousin, Maria Dolan is an opera singer and was performing in Prince Igor…and…seeing as the dates of the performance lined up with my birthday, well, we just couldn’t let this opportunity pass us by.

Maria Dolan

Our husbands agreed, but we must confess, we didn’t tell them until the week we were leaving that the opera was 4 hours long. Not that that would’ve been a deal breaker, because they love us AND we had already bought the tickets. Friends of ours joined us for dinner before hand at The Lincoln where we had an exceptional  meal, great conversation and superb service…and some of the best salmon roe I’ve ever tasted!

Our hostess at the restaurant knew we needed to be done in time to get to our seats at the opera house. “The opera waits for no one!” she said. Most of us finished dinner with a coffee (to help with the long night ahead) and left with plenty of time to spare. The New York Metropolitan is everything you think an opera house should be; ornate, grandiose, extravagant and beautiful. Chris Ann immediately recognized the painting on the wall as a piece by artist Marc Chagall.

We found our box seats and settled in. Devon and I had read the synopsis of Prince Igor on our ride up to New York. If you’re as curious as we were, you can read it HERE. My cousin told us afterwards, that we had chosen quite a first opera to cut our teeth on. She was impressed. She went on to say that most operas are 2 1/2 to 3 hours long. We did have bets as to which husband would be asleep first. (I’m not going to rat out who won.) The chandeliers raised and the lights dimmed.

The orchestra started playing, the music swelled, the curtain rose and for the next four hours, we were mesmerized by powerful, melodic, bold and sensual voices. The sets were awe inspiring and the people watching during our intermissions was fascinating. But the best part of the evening, was being with the people I love while watching someone I love, pursue her passion for all to see.

Have you heard about the trend of choosing one word as your theme for the upcoming year?  The idea is to choose one word as an expression of a goal that you want to accomplish or work towards in your life for that year.  Yes it’s February 1st and 2014 has begun – but it’s not to late to create intention around what you want your future to look like.

Having ONE WORD  to focus on, is like driving down a long highway with your word at the horizon.  It might take a while to get there, but your location is on the horizon and you can see that you are driving in the right direction. 

Choosing this type of intention for your year can began a baby step of opening your eyes to possibilities in your life and seeing things a little differently then you might have.   Once you put your mind to something it’s amazing how things began to come into focus and bloom right before your very eyes.

 

1.)  Choose a world that harmonizes with your soul.  It needs to ring true.  You need to feel it in your guts.

2.)  Choose something that encourages and inspires you and puts hope in your heart.

4.)  Choose a word that gives you vision of how you want to live and who you want to be.

What do you want your ONE WORD to be for 2014?  We’d love to have your share it here!

Our LIFE category is where we share a bit more of the behind the scenes of the LoveFeast lifestyle.  You will see a bit into our personal lives here as well as the beauty and inspiration we find along our journey.

This year we started the year going to NYC Gift Fair.  It was there we found these beautiful hand embellished dishes which have become a popular item in LoveFeast Shop.

 NY International Gift Fair

This past summer we packed in all the good things that make summer special.

LoveFeast Instagram Summer Memories

We love to see new things, and taste new foods and of course we love to travel.

 London Weekend ~ Places To See & Be

This is the third part of our Friendship Story. We have been friends for 18 years…there is so much to tell! Just to give you a glimpse, we lived in the same neighborhood while raising out first 7 (Kristin 4, Chris Ann 3) children. We sold both of our homes within a month of each other with Chris Ann’s family moving back to Minnesota and Kristin’sfamily traveling the world. We wanted a way to see each other, so 4 years ago, we started a business together.  

Our Friendship Story ~ Beads

You can read Part 1 HERE and Part 2 HERE.  

Where We Gather

There’s other places to find what inspires us!  Here’s where we share behind the scenes ~ our life, our shop and the beauty & inspiration we find all around us on our journey!

Join us on Pinterest ~ Instagram ~ Twitter ~ Facebook  

Don’t miss our 2014 Promotions & Features ~ SIGN UP for our NEWSLETTER

We’d love to know what were your favorite times of 2013 ~ leave a comment and let us know!

For years we’ve daydreamed about the Shop we’d own and all the fun trips that we would take. We’d dream about poolside meetings and trips to the NY market with weekends spent discovering new finds. Last winter, in a “pinch us” moment, we found ourselves in NY, together with days on end to spend at the NY International Gift Show. We were like kids in a candy store (with sore feet from the miles of walking) with aisles of endless possibility.

We took notes, snapped pictures and lingered with new friends and old. The joy of the discovery, being in the moment and the synergy of two best friends created a weekend to remember.

When we came home and took a look at the weekend through the eyes of our lens, we realized we have a strong aesthetic and are drawn to the same things. I mean, we always knew we had similar taste, but when we took a look objectively at the pieces we were drawn to, it was pretty amazing to discover that our love for pattern, texture and color was woven through our weekend.

We wanted to give you a little taste of the finds we discovered and the beautiful things to come at LoveFeast Shop!

 Found now in LoveFeast Shop ~ Loose Antlers ~ perfect rustic chic accent!

Found now in LoveFeast Shop ~ Ceramic Dishes ~ for artistic place settings!

 Don’t forget to sign up for our Newsletter so that you can receive our Special Promotions & inspiration for a beautiful life!

“The whole of the life — even the hard — is made up of the minute parts, and if I miss the infinitesimals, I miss the whole. These are new language lessons, and I live them out. There is a way to live the big of giving thanks in all things. It is this: to give thanks in this one small thing. The moments will add up.” ~Anne Voskamp 

We are thankful for you and hope that as you gather this Thanksgiving with your family and friends, the little moments of this year add up and are reflected in the Feast your share.

From our table to yours!

*Thank you to Annie at Be Small Studios for the Be Thankful art. You inspire us!

Fancy Friday Link Up at the bottom of this post ~

Theme ~ What 12 Guests would you invite to your table for a BBQ?

The winner is:

Janelle Allen from Everyday Imperfections!

You should receive an e-mail from us shortly.

Fancy Friday Link Up Celebrating Memorial Day Weekend

Link up to share your inspiration at our LoveFeast Table Facebook page.

Have a wonderful Memorial Day Weekend! With special thoughts & remembrance to those that have served us!

Thank you for joining us for Fancy Friday! The prompt today is, “Share a time with or memory of your mom, where life was Beauty Full.” The Inlinkz link up button is at the bottom of the page along with our featured giveaway. Thank you for joining us!

Handmade Paper Dolls

Kristin’s Memory

The above picture isn’t very beautiful, but the memory is Beauty Full. On Christmas Eve this year, we had another flood. This time in our storage unit. Directly under the busted pipe was my childhood scrapbook. It was ruined. But it was so full of memories I decided to go through page by page and capture them on camera. One of the pages took me back to a time when I was about my daughter’s age (10).

Growing up, my father was a pastor. Where there was a lack of money, both my parents made up for it with creativity. My mother especially. She was pretty passionate that we take a vacation every year, whether we could afford it or not. Usually those vacations meant pitching a tent and camping out so there were funds to visit historical sites or amusement parks during the day. She was a teacher too, so we were always learning. Vacations were special. They meant turkey lunch meat on sandwiches and not the usual bologna and mustard and green grapes instead of red delicious apples. But, one of my favorite vacation treats, were the extra special creative things my mom would tuck into the trip, to keep us occupied. She would make me paper dolls. She would draw me, the doll. Then she would create page after page of outfits for me to dress my doll with. Then I would spend the car ride, coloring and adding detail.  I’d carefully cut them out and do a fashion show for my mom and dad.

I’m sure she saw the lingering in my eyes when we went to Williamsburg, VA and I saw the colonial paper dolls. But, like a caring mama, she wanted to give me my heart’s desire, so she improvised using her greatest gift, creativity.

Anyone who links up a post to today’s Fancy Friday, will be entered to win one of our Life is Beauty Full pillows. Retail $120.

We had such a great time with the Gathered Thoughts Link Up party and many talented and inspiring writers participated.  It made us rethink FancyFriday Link Ups. We want to hear from more of you! We want the party to grow and the conversations to continue. Basically, we don’t want the time at the table to end. We seriously could linger here forever.

FancyFriday‘s will be every last Friday of the month. Each month there will be a theme, you can find the next three month’s themes, HERE. We would love for you to write a post around the theme and link up! Then, as a way to say thank you, if you link up, you will be entered to win something special from our LoveFeast Shop.

We’d love to have you pull up a chair! Our next FancyFriday is April 27th.

Theme: Share a time with or memory of your mom, where life was Beauty Full.

Featured Product Giveaway: Life is Beauty Full Pillow