Best of 2013:Delightfully Noted's Top Ten Most-Visited Posts

As 2013 comes to an end, it's time for one of my favorite times of the year.....Delightfully Noted's top ten blog posts. Yeehaw! That's right  cowboys cowgirls it's time to round 'em up. 

I know I mention this all the time but looking back over all the shenanigans that went on here helps me feel like I accomplished a few things here and there-ya know besides sitting on the couch in two week old yoga pants and serving as a dairy farm to Baby B. 

So here they are; the top ten most-visited posts of 2013, in order of popularity:

I have to say there are a few surprises, a few not-so-big-surprises, and one that makes me gag.

1. Old Dresser Makeover: How to Paint Laminate

Edging out our nursery reveal by exactly 5,000 views I have to say this one was a surprise!

Apparently folks., we live in an anti-laminate society.

2. Aqua, Orange, and Grey Nursery Reveal

Of course, my favorite!

3. Free Nursery Printable: Dream BIG Little One Wall Art

Are you noticing a trend here? 

4. Coloring Glass.....Again.

OH EM GEE! Look it's not nursery related?!

5. Baby B's Aqua and Orange Nursery: Starting the Makeover......

I'm beginning to think this blog would have died this year if it wasn't for Baby B!

6. Thrift Store Chandelier Makeover

Yes, ANOTHER nursery favorite.

7. Dear Santa Printable

It's a good thing you all enjoyed this post because that jolly ol' guy is watchin.

8. DIY Canvas

Awww.....just a week old-my how they grow. I'm not crying that's just sawdust in my eye.
I'm surprised so many of you enjoyed this post!

9. DIY Picture Frame Tray

I'm not going to lie the fact that this made it into the Top Ten makes me want to gag.

It was probably one of my least favorite projects I shared all year! Looking back I should have used a bulkier frame but hindsight is always 20/20, right?
This project now lives somewhere in my "Monica" closet (high five old Friends fans).

10. Easter Printable Tags: Bunny Kisses and Treat Bags

Who could resist bunny kisses?

There ya go-now you know what other readers are reading.
But how about a few of my favorite post of 2013?
Surprise, surprise they are all baby related.
Hands down our pregnancy announcement  and Five Things My Former Clueless and Childless Self Thought About Motherhood (I am happy to report I have started showering again)are at the top of my list and of course my favorite project of the year was Baby B (minus the awful heartburn)!!

As always, thank you to all of you who continue to support this little blog of mine!
Cheers to a New Year.

sharing here: Sugar Bee Crafts | Savvy Southern Style | The Gunny Sack

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New Year's Printables| Free Photo Props

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Greetings! I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas. As usual, I'm suffering from the Christmas-is-over-blues.  But the good news is I am over at Uncommon Designs today to share these FREE printable New Year photo props. Can you believe another year has gone by? I sure can't! It's been such a blast this year as the Uncommon Design's printable contributor and I can't wait to share more with you all in the upcoming year! In the mean time, I wanted to help you and yours ring in the New Year with some fun party printables.

So are you ready to jazz up your own New Year photos?

Then run, don't walk over to Uncommon Designs to download and print your own photo props courtesy of yours truly.

Enjoy! I love to see all the different ways pals make use of the printables so please feel free to swing by and share your New Year's photos with me at delightnoted(at)yahoo.com or tag me over on Instagram.

You can find me here if you're not following me already.

I wish you a wonderful time ringing in the new year!

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Simple DIY Napkin Sleeves for the Holidays

So before I share these oh-so-simple-you're-going-to-scream-napkin-sleeves  I wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who stopped by and dropped a note on Friday's post. Holy mermaid! There is life out there after all! I really appreciated all your insight into the whole blog commenting situation. It turns out there are a whole host of reasons why readers don't comment on blogs as much as they use to and it has nothing to do with me smelling. Phew. In all seriousness, you guys made my day and it's great to know you're out there lurking about! So as I mentioned before don't hesitate on stopping by to say "hi" every now and then.

PS. I replied to each of you individually but I noticed a lot of you were "no-reply bloggers"-which means bloggers can't reply directly back you! I know a lot of people never even know that they are "no-reply bloggers" so if you would like to check to see if you're one of them and change that there is a great "how-to" here (you basically just check a box and add your email)

Alright, enough about that-let's chat about my holiday napkin situation shall we?

In the past I've always dressed our Christmas table with paper napkins. GASP! I know, I know.

Well, not this year folks. Yep, that's right this holiday season our guest will be treated like ROYALS (how many of you now have the Lorde song in your head now?) thanks to thee almighty Tar-jay. That's right,we're moving up in the world and going linen.

I picked up these red Threshold napkins at Target last week along with some table cloths for cheap, cheap, cheap. They were 10% off + Cartwheel was offering an additional 15% off (if you are not using that app you are seriously missing out!) + I had a $5 off Threshold coupon as well.

I wanted to dress my napkins up a bit so I dove into my craft closet to see what I could come up with. After getting lost in there for what seem like hours I walked out with some mini velvet bows from the Dollar Store and a roll of polka dot paper (I believe from Martha Stewart-it's texture is similar to wrapping paper).

The paper was the perfect width to wrap the napkins so I decided to use it as the sleeve base. I just simply cut enough to wrap around the napkins and attached the ends of the paper together in the back with double sided tape. 

The bows were cute but they were held together with gold twisty ties and my dinner china is white and silver and that just seem to bother me that they wouldn't match! Bakers twine to the rescue! I removed the twisty ties and wrapped a strand of red and white bakers twine around each of the bows.

Then I adhered the bows to the top of my sleeves with some hot glue and look at that........instant napkin decor! See, I wasn't kidding when I said these were simple.

 How many of you are hosting for the holidays?
Are you a paper or linen household-or neither, you use your pants? Shh...I won't judge.
Speaking of holiday dinners can you imagine how AWKWARD Kim-Jong-un's Christmas dinner is going to be this year?

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The Future of This Blog..........Sincerely, Alone In My Cabin

Today's post is a little unique and shall I say a little on the awkward side.......but as the New Year approaches I am starting to really think about the future of this blog. I guess what I am really trying to say is I am feeling a disconnection with my readers lately. PHEW....there I said it. Views and visitor numbers are still the same but because blog comments have seem to taken a nose dive I'm having a really difficult time reading my audience here. Is there an audience? Does anyone even read this blog anymore (you don't count mom!)? Hello? Hello!?  Is commenting on blogs even still cool?

I have noticed a few other bloggy "colleagues" mention the same thing lately about the lack of comments. The fact of the matter is that we have become a "one-click" society which is why platforms such as Pinterest and Instagram are SO popular right now.

 But between Facebook's new feed algorithm in which they show diddly squat to your followers now and comments being low I'm starting to feel like the Unabomber-alone in my cabin, collecting glue guns and glitter bombs and spewing things over the internet that no body cares about.

 T-shirt: RAYGUN | Wall Print: Paper Chat | Pillow Cover: Shop Dandy | Coffee Mug: The Literary Gift Company

I know there has been a massive shift in how people interact with blogs. Remember the days when a "tweet" just described the sound a bird made and Facebook biz pages were just a twinkle in Mark Zuckerberg's eyes? Those were the days that the only way to communicate with a blogger was to leave a comment. Trust me I don't blog just for comments but it's nice a way for me to interact with my readers and to get feedback on what I'm sharing. Do my tutorials make sense? Do my readers prefer quick and easy crafts vs. big furniture makeovers? Do they enjoy my clueless rants on motherhood? So I guess I'm just saying don't be afraid to drop by and say "hi" every once in awhile! Your comments do make my day and inspire me!

PS. I know life is busy and sometimes interacting through other options is much easier so on that note I am finding myself really enjoying Instagram-so if you're not following me already I suggest you drop on by! I'm @delightnoted I share pics of the baby I baked, sneak peeks, and other daily ramblings.

PPS. Okay, I'm really going to hit that "publish" now.

PPS. No really....here I go. 3-2-1......

Sincerely,

Alone in My Cabin

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Our Christmas Mantel

Hey friends!! I have finally finished decorating my first Christmas mantel. You may recall last year when we had that green eye monster (aka our old fireplace) remodeled and for the first time I was blessed with my very own mantle. I love our new fireplace so much I just want to pet it and braid its hair and tell it all my secrets. Yes, I love it that much.

So for the past week I've been obsessing brainstorming over how I wanted to decorate our fireplace for the holidays and this is what I finally came up with.....

I didn't want go overboard and spend a fortune so I did my best on keeping the decor simple.
Our Christmas tree color theme is red and silver so I wanted the mantle decor to coordinate with that.

The red and mercury hurricane glasses were picked up at Ross.

I had never ventured into that store before but it must of have been my lucky day.

The vases were a lot less expensive than some of the vases I was eyeing at other retailers.

The NOEL sign was a simple DIY project I did using some naked letters I picked up at Hobby Lobby.

 I spray painted all the letters white except for the "O".

I wanted to jazz the word up a bit so I just simply wrapped the "O" with some red and white baker's twine I had on hand.

Excuse the annoying red aura that shows up in some of these pics.

I'm convinced it's Santa's spirit watching over me to see if I've been naughty or nice.

Oh and "Robo deer" as the hubby has so "sweetly" coined him was a little makeover I shared here last year using liquid gilding. I like him. The hubby thinks he's creepy-which makes me like him even more.

The silver beaded garland and sequined white stockings were both steals at Garden Ridge.

I love the subtle glam they bring to the fireplace. So puuurrty.

I used my little Santa (who says Santa has problems getting down chimneys?) and little evergreen trees ; both  items from my stored away Christmas stash.

I'm really happy with how our first Christmas mantle turned out.

I'm working on a few more holiday projects and hope to share them with you soon-like as in before Christmas 2016.

Have you decorated a mantle this year? Working on any DIY holiday projects?

                                                                                                                                       
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DIY Christmas Tree Cones

I made some Christmas tree cones this past weekend. This project has only been on my to-do list for two years now-that's right, put a BIG FAT check mark next to that. For those of you who don't live under rocks you know there's a bajillion variations of these tree cones all over the place-both in stores and on Pinterest. I love them and they were even featured in my Crush of the Month series last December. So I was super excited that Baby B actually allowed me some time this past weekend to whip up a few of my own {as I am sure you have noticed the crafty drought over here lately!}.

 I made two different types of trees.

I started off by cutting and rolling my poster board into a cone shape. You can Google "tree cone template" and find a slew of templates to guide you on how to cut your poster board. Now I admit this was probably the most difficult part of this project because it involved some very basic geometry but I promise if I was able to figure it out then you can too! You can buy premade cones at the craft store but making them yourself with poster board from the Dollar Store can save you some moolah.

I used box tape to hold them together-hot glue would work too.

For my first tree, I wrapped the cone in some red polka dot wrapping paper and then wrapped the top half with some sisal rope twine-hot gluing the twine here and there. 

This was inspired by a tree I saw on a recent trip to Home Goods.

Then I attached a double strand of mini beaded garland {courtesy of Ikea} with some more hot glue.

Finally, to top it off {literally} I added one of these spiral-orb-like-ornament-thingamajiggies I stumbled upon at the Dollar Store. I love the festive touch they add to the tree.

Now onto the bow tie tree-which let's face it, if Martha Stewart held a glue gun to my head and asked me to pick a favorite of the two this little guy would win hands down.

Bow tie tree was the littler one of my cones so I really wanted him to be cute and fluffy.

I started off by cutting holes out of the center of a handful of coffee filters.

Then I applied a thin line of hot glue around the inner circle along the edge of the filters and attached them one by one to my trees. The filters cut weren't large enough to fit around the base of my tree so I had to come up with another plan to cover the bottom of the cone. Enter green yarn.

I had some yarn left over from my fall wreath and I think it worked perfectly for a base to my tree.

And then for the grande finale, I topped my little tree off also with an ornament AND then I glued a few holiday bows along the front of the tree.

 Bows make everything better. I believe they could even cure world hunger.

Isn't he a cutie pie?

I'm really happy with how they turned out and I kind of want to make like a hundred more of them now. The best part is most of these materials can be found at the Dollar Store or even laying around your house so they're super duper cheap to make!

PS. Sorry for the delay in announcing this BUT Megan Nelson you are the winner of the Dragon Porter jewelry giveaway! I'll be in touch soon so you can claim your prize. Thanks to everyone who participated!

                                      
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