Ready for another entry in Your Style Notebook?  Get that gorgeous notebook, your lovely pen, and get ready to dive in with just a few questions to get us going! {For more on what Your Style Notebook is, check out the first post. Also, if you missed last week’s challenge, you might want to take a moment to write down your Decorating Box words.}

And I do hope you will join in for the entire series, as we work together to fine tune and/or identify your own personal style. Not mine. Not your mother’s. Not your best friend’s. Yours!

Each week, we will work together – kind of like an online, interactive design session. Our goal: Identify our personal style so that we can surround ourselves with things we LOVE {not just like}.

Entry #2: A new decor identity

So, I love the comment that Cheryl left last week, after saying goodbye to her Decorating Box:

“out the window, eclectic! I’m feeling exposed . . . . losing my identity. . . . I hope you have a remedy for this!”

and then there was Gyen, who bravely admitted:

“Even though I love the image that those words conjure up. I’m trusting you with my identity here!”

True. These decorating “words” can really define our decor and style identity. They can give us some structure. Something to hold onto in a Pinterest world of zillions of styles. We use these Boxy words to describe the “look” we are going for, and sometimes, these words even help us shop. They help us to make decisions…

Except when they don’t.

Sometimes, we are left thinking “I really love this dresser, but it is not Vintage Beach. AND, I am Vintage Beach, so this darling dresser must not truly belong in my home.”

And yet, you loved that darling dresser….

or “This chair feels way too traditional, and I am Eclectic, and I have way too much traditional going on already in my dining room…”

And yet that chair was so dang awesome… and you loved it…

THIS is precisely why The Decorating Box words put us in a box, and often, leave us with a bunch of unfinished business in our homes. We become paralyzed by the very words that are supposed to help us.

So, “help me, Darlene,” you cry! “If these words are not my decorating identity, then I am a fish out of water! I need SOME direction here!”

I shall not leave you hanging out to dry. Because I have a solution for you. A NEW way of thinking about YOUR OWN personal style. Let’s head to our Style Notebooks, shall we??

Because I am about to tell you what your new decor identity is…. {<-Tweet this}

Entry #2: Your Style Notebook

Ready for your second exercise in Your Style Notebook ?: {this one has 4 steps, so don’t miss them!}

So last week I promised: “We are going to get rid of our boxes and replace those words with ones that will give you direction…. not fences.” Here goes:

ONE:

Your next task in Your Style Notebook is to write down your NEW Decorating Box: “I decorate with things I love.”

There you have it! See, I told you I would not leave you hanging! Everyone needs boundaries in this overwhelming image-driven decorating world; and your new boundary is this:

My New Decorating Identity is: “I decorate with things I love!” {<- Tweet this}

Now, I know that doesn’t exactly solve all of your decorating problems, but I am telling you: The minute you get this concept in your head and make it your new shopping mantra for your decor/style needs, you will feel free!

Goodbye Eclectic. You were fencing me in and I didn’t even know it! Now I am free to decorate with what I love!!

You see, the MOST amazing designers… THIS is how they operate. They may have a brilliant knack for pulling color and fabric together, but at the heart of what they really do is this:  They decorate with what they LOVE! And guess what? YOU CAN TOO!!!

TWO:

So, task two: Commit this to memory: “I decorate with things I love.” This thought is what will replace your old Decorating Box.

THREE:

Find a way to share this notion with one other person. For ideas, see below “Our Community Style Notebook.”

FOUR:

Well, as you can imagine, nothing is ever that simple {although… it kinda sorta is!}. So your final task this week is to take a sneak peek at this post. Some of you may be familiar with it {refresher course!}, but either way, it is an IMPORTANT read! Start your wheels turning, okay!?

Our Community Style Notebook

Each week, we will join each other in community, as we share our thoughts. Here are some ways you can be a part of it all!

1. Tweet your NEW Decorating Box words: “I decorate with things I love!”, and use the Hashtag #StyleNotebook

2. Share on Instagram, using the Hashtag. You can share an image of your notebook, of an actual box, one from your own home, or from a magazine, or a post, or whatever. No boxes here! #StyleNotebook

2. Head over to the Fieldstone Hill Design Facebook Page and tell the world that you are going to Decorate with things you Love!

3. Leave a comment on this post, sharing your thoughts on this.

The time has come to do it like the best of the designers: Choose what you LOVE! No more Decorating Box Words!

When is the last time you ignored the Decorating Box and picked something, just because you loved it?

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Take daily, bite-size steps toward living in a home you LOVE: Be sure to subscribe to FHD via email, bloglovin, your fave reader, and follow Fieldstone Hill on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook!

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I am into natural choices for my family, and this is the main way I avoided taking any medicines during pregnancy.

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Don’t miss a single post from Fieldstone Hill Design! Have regular decorating goodness delivered {free!} directly to your inbox.

{This post contains affiliate links. Thanks for reading and supporting and clicking to shop via FHD! You are the best!}

Have you gotten your November Issue of Better Homes and Gardens yet?

I may or may not have several copies of my own. AND I am pretty giddy about page 40!!!

{affiliate link: Find Fieldstone Hill Design in the November 2013 BHG! Subscribe to Better Homes and Gardens here}

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Take daily, bite-size steps toward living in a home you LOVE: Be sure to subscribe to FHD via email, bloglovin, your fave reader, and follow Fieldstone Hill on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook!

* * * * *

Don’t miss a single post from Fieldstone Hill Design! Have regular decorating goodness delivered {free!} directly to your inbox.

{This post contains affiliate links. Thanks for reading and supporting and clicking to shop via FHD! You are the best!}

Toasted Pumpkin Seeds

with Brown Sugar & Cayenne

Is anyone else Last-minute Lucy when it comes to holidays? Oh, I am.

That is, if I get my list done at all…

So, if you are just purchasing pumpkins this week to carve with the fam, may I recommend that you buy a ton? Because you are going to want to eat these Toasted Pumpkin Seeds by the bushel. The perfect blend of sweet and savory… Yum…

Feel free to play around with the balance of ingredients. This recipe gets healthier as you add more seeds and less sugar and butter. But I still recommend using real sugar and butter – just less of it!

Toasted Pumpkin Seeds

with Brown Sugar & Cayenne

Ingredients

2 c. Pumpkin seeds

1/4 t. cayenne, or to taste

1/2 c. brown sugar

1 T cinnamon

3 T softened salted butter

Kosher salt

dash ground clove

dash nutmeg

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F

Carve out pumpkin seeds, and clean off excess pulp. Place seeds in a boiling pot of salted water for 10 minutes. Drain, rinse and pat seeds dry.

In a bowl, combine all ingredients except for the pumpkin seeds. Spread pumpkin seeds out in a large baking pan or two baking pans {not a cookie sheet, because butter would leak over the edges}. Pour the spiced brown sugar mix over the seeds and mix well to coat.

Roast for 15 – 20 minutes, or longer, until desired toasted level is reached.

 

– Recipe by Darlene of Fieldstone Hill Design

PS: Let me know if you cook some up! I will be right over!! {mine are all gone.}

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Take daily, bite-size steps toward living in a home you LOVE: Be sure to subscribe to FHD via email, bloglovin, your fave reader, and follow Fieldstone Hill on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook!

* * * * *

I am into natural choices for my family, and this is the main way I avoided taking any medicines during pregnancy.

{affiliate link: Find me in the November 2013 BHG!! Subscribe to Better Homes and Gardens here}

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Don’t miss a single post from Fieldstone Hill Design! Have regular decorating goodness delivered {free!} directly to your inbox.

{This post contains affiliate links. Thanks for reading and supporting and clicking to shop via FHD! You are the best!}

Built-in of the Week ::

Under-Stair Drawers

I am a HUGE huge huge fan of Built-ins.

I know that they are not always possible for every home, every budget or every situation, but I cannot help but express my undying love for the brilliance of the Built-in.

Hence a new series here at FHD: The Built-In of the Week.

In so many ways, Built-ins are brilliant home solutions:

1. They resolve wasted space.
2. They are perfect for small spaces, or for enabling you to build a smaller space.
3. They make the most of every inch.
4. They can be customized to meet how YOU live.
5. They create a closed door, behind which you can hide the inevitable, un-pretty, STUFF of life.
6. They add architectural dimension and beauty to your space.
7. They address storage needs and wants.

Yep. I pretty much ADORE Built-ins and I TOTALLY recommend them if you can manage to squeeze it into your budget. I adore them so much, that when we added on to Fieldstone Hill, my contractor told me, “Enough with the built-ins! If we find any empty hole, you try to stick a cabinet in it!”

Here’s to the Built-in!

Under-Stair Drawers:

{via Traditional Home}

This Built-in is fabulous because:

1. It definitely addresses an area of wasted space, making the most of it!
2. It offers drawers, which are much better than shelves for storing individual groupings of things {easier to get to the back and see everything. “Things” don’t get lost of unused as easily.
3. The moulding/architectural detail is beautiful and interesting. A simple under-stair closet does not offer this kind of visual appeal.
4. It gives you a chance to use gorgeous knobs. Love these!

Can you dream up a space in your current or future home where this built-in would be beautiful and practical?

Where would you put this built-in? Do tell!!

PS: So thrilled with all of your comments on Your Style Notebook. So glad you are joining in!

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Take daily, bite-size steps toward living in a home you LOVE: Be sure to subscribe to FHD via email, bloglovin, your fave reader, and follow Fieldstone Hill on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook!

* * * * *

I am into natural choices for my family, and this is the main way I avoided taking any medicines during pregnancy.

{affiliate link: Subscribe to Better Homes and Gardens here}

* * * * *

Don’t miss a single post from Fieldstone Hill Design! Have regular decorating goodness delivered {free!} directly to your inbox.

{This post contains affiliate links. Thanks for reading and supporting and clicking to shop via FHD! You are the best!}