Keeping things simple with a smidge of Southern charm
There’s something so charming about farm fresh eggs. The unusual hues, the imperfect shapes, the rich yolks inside. They’re locally and responsibly grown, and they’re just simply the best!
A dear friend at our church started raising chickens over a year ago. Because she is so caring and kindhearted, she shares her eggs with families within the church. Each dozen is such a blessing, and my family is always so delighted to receive them.
…
I’ve been doing some deep thinking here lately, y’all. I’ve been pondering, daydreaming, and brain-picking trying to figure out this one very important thing: Is there ever a time in life when having something monogrammed isn’t appropriate?
Seriously. I can’t think of any time where monograms aren’t appropriate. If you ever ask the question, “Should I monogram this?”, I can just tell you right now – the answer is always YES! I mean, why not? What better way to add a personal touch to something than to add your initials in a super cute way?
As a Southern woman, I think my love for monograms just runs naturally. Macy Spear, the owner of Sweet Southern Drawl Boutique, asks us all this: “If it isn’t monogrammed, is it even really yours?” She’s preachin’ the truth, y’all! 😉
And speaking of truth, Macy truly has some of the cutest personalized things in her Etsy shop and on her Facebook page. Just when I started drooling over her beautiful winter items, she goes and steals my heart with her sweet Spring and Summer items!
Macy sent over this monogram floppy sunhat with bow to review. Isn’t it amazing?! I truly feel beautiful every time I wear it. I know once this cold weather leaves Alabama I’ll be wearing this hat non stop!
The sunhats are available to purchase here for just $28. You even get to choose the fabric color and monogram font! If you plan on spending any time in the sun at all this summer, do yourself a favor and pick up one of these hats. You’ll be basking in the shade and turning heads for sure!
To pair perfectly with the sun hat, this monogram beach towel, beach/lake spikers and drink koozie are all calling my name!
If you’re looking for the perfect gift to give someone, you really need to be shopping at Sweet Southern Drawl Boutique! Monogrammed gifts are perfect for birthdays, Christmas gifts, graduates, bridesmaids, brides-to-be, etc.
Check out some of these fabulously adorable items that are currently available in the Etsy shop! You can click on each picture to view more information:
To view even more super cute items, be sure to follow Sweet Southern Drawl on Facebook! Macy is always posting something new there!
One VERY lucky Southern Made Simple and Sweet Southern Drawl fan is going to take home a loot full of monogrammed sweetness!
As part of the Monogram March Madness taking place over on Sweet Southern Drawl’s Facebook page, one person is going to be taking home a monogrammed beach towel, beach spiker, koozie and personalized sunglasses! Just in time for warmer weather, too!
This giveaway will run from March 1st – March 8th. You can enter this giveaway by liking Sweet Southern Drawl on Facebook, share the giveaway post with your friends and comment saying you did so! Easy as pie, y’all! PLUS, if you follow me on Facebook (Southern Made Simple), you get an extra entry into the giveaway! Score!
Good luck to all who enter!
Do you love monograms as much as I do? What are some special occasions that something monogrammed would make a good gift for? I’d love for you to leave a comment below with your ideas!
During the busy work week, breakfast in our house is often an afterthought. It’s usually rushed, thrown together, and hardly filling. By the time 10 o’clock rolls around, my tummy is rumbling and begging for Saturday to come. What’s so special about Saturday, you ask? On Saturday, we brunch. And we brunch hard!
We put a lot of love into our bellies each Saturday morning. We’ll break out the cookware that gets neglected on weekday mornings and we enjoy a sit down meal at the table. It’s a real treat for our family, because it’s just not something we get to do every day!
This past weekend, some serious deliciousness went down in our kitchen. These Cheesy Hash Stuffed Peppers created the ultimate brunch experience for us, and boy were they delicious!
…
When my siblings and I were younger, my mother would always have Easter baskets filled with candy and goodies for us to open on Easter morning. It was mostly candy of some sort (Cadbury Eggs are my favorite), but we’d also find money, toys and trinkets as well.
I definitely want to keep this tradition alive for my children. However, my little one will only be 10 months old during her 1st Easter, so candy is absolutely out of the question! So I started brainstorming about what I could put in her basket this year. I came up with 20 different things that I think would just be perfect!
…
Easter egg hunts were a big deal in my house growing up. Like, a really big deal. To put it into perspective for you, every year my mom had an extensive list of rules, clues and prize information on deck at all times during the hunt. Easter egg hunts were of course just for fun, but we all knew what they really were: full blown Hunger-Games-style take-no-prisoners competitions amongst the siblings. Maybe that’s a little dramatic, but it’s not far from the truth! There were clear winners and losers in our hunts. Feelings would sometimes get hurt (mostly mine), but they were always a good time and were definitely memorable. My mother always had fun surprises along the way, and even the “rotten egg” got a really good prize!
My mother never hid candy inside the eggs that we hunted. We always had candy in our Easter baskets, but never in the eggs. If anything was in the eggs, it was money. It was always a blast finding an egg and hearing coins rattle inside! It made me start to think about other really fun things you could incorporate into Easter egg hunts. While I don’t know that I’ll want to do competitive Easter egg hunts with my children, I do plan on making their hunts really fun in ways similar to what my mother did for us. One way I’d like to do that is to put all sorts of different surprises in the eggs that they find!
…
This past Sunday, I had a discussion with a few 4-6th grade students in my Sunday school class about sharing the Word of God with other people. I asked them to tell me a few different ways that we can share Christ with others. They were very quick to tell me that there are numerous ways to do it – and very simple ways to do it at that. They were full of wonderful examples and fabulous ideas. They’re very creative! But then I turned the tables a little bit on them and elevated the conversation.
“So, why do we have so many excuses as to why we don’t do all of the things you all mentioned?” I said. There was silence. I could tell the wheels in their heads were turning. I may have struck a nerve, but the biggest nerve that was struck in that room was my own. They had several different answers to my question, ranging from things such as being intimidated, fear of rejection, not feeling qualified, fear of offending, etc. It seemed to me that a lot of our excuses (including in my own life) boiled down to having some sort of fear about something. I have been allowing fear to sweep over my life, telling me over and over that “I can’t”.
“I can’t do this, because…”. How many times have I said this in my life?…
Picture this: Your child comes home from school without their lunch box. You assume that they just left it in their cubby or at their desk at school, so you remind your child to check the next day. Your child never finds their lunch box. It was unknowingly placed in the lost and found box in the office that neither of you even knew existed. It stays there for months, and then it is ultimately donated or thrown away because no one knew who it belonged to.
[the_ad_group id=”278″]
Sad story, right? But how many times does something similar to this actually happen? Most parents can probably think of numerous times that their child has lost something. And if we’re perfectly honest here, I can think of a few times where I was the one that lost something that belonged to my daughter, Taralynn. We can all be forgetful sometimes!
My daughter is currently 8 months old. She is not old enough to lose things on purpose, but she has definitely had things turn up missing before. She is at the age where throwing things on the floor, kicking off shoes and socks, and swapping toys with others is just part of her daily routine. It is so easy for her bottles and juice cups to wind up thrown across the floor without me even noticing. I’m also really bad about setting something down and never picking it back up. This is definitely not a good habit to have when you’re in a public place!
That’s where Mabel’s Labels comes in to save the day, folks! Mabel’s Labels understands that sometimes things just get lost, and sometimes we’re forgetful and leave things sitting around for others to find. They’ve come up with a clever (and super cute) solution to help those lost items return to their owners. And it’s SO much nicer than getting out the ol’ black magic marker and tagging all of your items with your initials!
Mabel’s Labels come in numerous sizes and super adorable themes. They even make labels for different purposes, such as iron-on clothing labels, shoe labels, organizational stickers for the household, and even scan and store stickers! (I’m fighting the urge to go through all of my closets and label EVERYTHING, y’all!)
I was sent a pack of 45 personalized peel-and-stick labels to review. They are such a perfect way to help this scatter-brained mama worry less about accidentally leaving things where they don’t belong. They’re even dish washer and microwave safe, so I know they’ll last a long time!
My daughter does not attend day care, but I can imagine that these labels would be extremely useful in that type of setting. No more wondering about what cup or snack container belongs to what kid! As my daughter grows older and becomes more independent, I can definitely see her taking after her mama and leaving her cups/toys laying around at our church or at a friends house and neglecting to pick them up. With these labels on all of her items, they’ll have no problem finding their way back to us. What a relief!
You can purchase these fabulous labels that I’ve reviewed for just $21.00 for a pack of 45. Be sure to check out all of their other labels and combo packages while you’re at it! And as if Mabel’s Labels wasn’t already awesome enough, they offer FREE US shipping on all orders. No expiration date, and no minimum! Click the banner below to visit their site and start customizing your own labels!
$500 Disney Gift Card Giveaway!
I’ve been to Disney World three times in my life. The first time I was a baby, the second time I was 5 years old, and the third time I was 11. Unfortunately, I only remember just a few bits and pieces of the trip I took when I was 11, and that was in 2000 or 2001!
I am dreaming of the day I get to take my little girl to Disney World for the first time. She’s only 8 months old right now, but in a few more years I think we’ll be ready for our first trip. I cannot wait to see the twinkle in her eye as she meets the Mickey Mouse for the first time like I did. I can envision the magic that fills her heart when she sees the Disney princesses dancing and singing in real life. Ahh, I get chills!
Disney World – 1995
…
Have you “liked” Southern Made Simple on Facebook yet??
Head on over NOW, because we’re giving away a $10 Amazon gift code to ONE lucky Southern Made Simple fan!
The drawing will be held on Valentine’s Day. I thought it would be appropriate since I just LOVE all of you to pieces! 😉
In order to win the gift code, you MUST do the following:
That’s it, y’all! Go ahead and get your entries in now, and don’t be a stranger to our page! I always love for folks to stop in and say hello!
While you’re at it, if you aren’t using Amazon Prime, here’s a free 30 day membership just for you! Hooray for 2 day shipping!
My husband’s great grandmother was truly a wonderful lady. I was fortunate enough to get to know her for 4 years before she passed away. I never got to know her as well as I would have liked, but I knew two things about her for certain: She loved her great grandson, and she could sho’ nuff make some delicious desserts.
She had some cookbooks made for friends and family several years before her passing that had lots of her yummy recipes in them. I haven’t tried all of them yet, but I’m working on it! When my husband and I were dating, I remember her making a batch of these special little lemon cakes. My husband LOVED them so much, and once I tried them for myself, I thought I had died and gone to Heaven. I understood why my husband loved them so much!
…