I wanted to share a tiny little living room update we accomplished last weekend: we finally got around to framing and hanging two pieces of art!

The top piece is a painting of the Blue Ridge Mountains, a gift from one of John’s sisters. The bottom was also free to us – it’s the letterpress Christmas card our friend Meredith sent us! I thought it was too cute to throw away.

If you love it, too, you can pick up a card in Sarah Parrott’s shop!

While visiting Virginia right before Christmas, I had the opportunity to visit Old Lucketts Store in Leesburg. I’d been itching to go ever since I heard the Ritzy Bee gals mention it, so I was excited to finally have the chance!

Because I had been wanting to go for awhile, I had high expectations. I wouldn’t say I was disappointed, but I would say my expectations weren’t quite met… but that might be because my expectations weren’t realistic. My main issue was that I felt most pieces, while beautiful, were overpriced.

However, I realize now that it wasn’t quite fair to expect the goods to be at flea market prices, because the Lucketts Store folks had already done the hunting, rummaging, and curating for me. A willingness to dig for treasure = lower prices. Treasure already found? Higher prices.

That being said, I very much enjoyed looking at the curated displays, and got lots of ideas for ways to transform future flea market finds of my own! Here’s a little peek!

I pretty much died over this… piece. Mini greenhouse? Play house? Chic dog house? The possibilities are endless!!

Of course, I couldn’t go away without picking up something. This mini trophy cup lookalike is a perfect addition to our wedding silver collection, and was reasonably priced at $5.

If you go:
Old Lucketts Store is open daily from 10am to 5pm. Their address is 42350 Lucketts Road in Leesburg, VA, and they can be found on the web here.

To end our little Em for Marvelous Christmas series, I thought I’d share a snippet of our apartment decor! We don’t have a ton of space to work with, so I try to keep things minimal and small-scale — but still colorful :)

Here’s our baby tree. The “skirt” is actually an extra pashmina!

Colorful balls in a berry basket on the coffee table

These are foot-high kraft letters I bought from JoAnn Fabrics a few years ago and painted red.

Every Christmas I realize how few available flat spaces we have in our apartment, which is why our poor nativity is clustered around the TV. I collect the Willow Tree version. It’s kind of expensive, so I just started with Mary, Joseph, and Jesus, and then have added a piece every year. This year it was the stars!

I hope you enjoyed the tour! I’m happy to say that I almost feel ready to do a more extensive tour of our apartment, so look for that (kind of) soon!

After a week of gift ideas for friends and family, I thought you might like to see a few things that are on my wish list this year…

1. A set of those tortoiseshell glasses from yesterday’s gift guide! ($10 each)

2. A pretty neutral ballet flat ($90)

3. A Southwest gift card. We will be doing a lot of traveling next year!

4. A large and in charge utensil crock ($30)

5. A soft throw for our couch ($30)

6. New “city sneakers.” I bought my current pair in seventh grade!! ($64)

7. The pretty birthday calendar from Wednesday’s round up! ($30)

What are you wishing for this year?

P.S. Don’t forget — today is the last day to enter my Minted giveaway!