Fall Tablescape Inspiration

It has been quite a month... and it's only halfway through October.  Mike and I have been out of town for six of the last seven weekends (and the seventh weekend was Hurricane Florence), so I cannot wait to relax at home this weekend!

Being so busy, I haven't had 5 minutes to take out all of our fall decor.  Doing that is definitely on the list for this weekend, along with creating our fall tablescape.  We will be doing Thanksgiving in South Carolina again this year, and I love having our table all ready and festive throughout the next month.  My favorites are always designs that work from now until the beginning of December, when I'm ready to transition to Christmas.

Searching all over Pinterest, I found 10 pieces of inspiration, many of which I will be putting into my own tablescape this year.  Which one is your favorite?

Apples - I love the way the bright red looks on this table.  Pears or oranges would be great, too!

Mini pumpkins - Painted at that! I love this color scheme so much!

Scarf - I love the way this plaid scarf looks under the tablescape - and most of us already have one at home!

Brown paper - You can either DIY a design or leave out crayons for your guests to be creative before dinner starts!

Succulents - We have succulents around our home (hello one plant I actually haven't killed!), and this is such a fun use this time of year!

White - Especially on this light wood table, I love how everything white looks here!

Wooden slabs - These look great as chargers at each place setting, or you can use them as the centerpiece!

Pink - Think about a non-traditional color. I love the pink glass below, or anything in blue would be great, too.

Leaves - Go for a walk, find some seasonal nature, and add it to your table!

Stripes - Is anyone else as obsessed with striped anything as I am?

All inspiration found here, here, here, and here.

2017 Recap

What a fantastic year it's been!  Thank you to everyone who followed along with Borrowed Heaven in 2017.  I thought it would be fun to take a look back at some of my favorite posts as well as your favorite posts this year.  Let's start with my favorites:

January: Resolutions for the New Year, DIY Super Bowl Party, and runDisney Star Wars Race Weekend

February (basically spent recapping our trip to Hawaii): Ko'Olina, Pearl Harbor, Waikiki, North Shore, oh - and the Daytona 500!

March: DIY Porch Swing and Favorite Charleston Coffee Shops,

April: Trip to the Masters, Hosting a Masters Party, and Charleston in the Spring

May: Charleston Eats: Pancito and Lefty, A Look for Summer, and Charleston Breweries (Part 2)

June: Top Five in Milwaukee and Apple Pie Pops

July: Save Wilting Hydrangeas, Citrus Shrimp Scampi, and DIY Summertime Party

August: Five Adventures in Cleveland and The Great American Eclipse

September: Anniversary Reflections, Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup, and The Best Chicago Weekend

October: Surprise Birthday Trip to DC and Fall in Charleston

November: Pumpkin Centerpiece and Thanksgiving

December: Trader Joe's Charcuterie Board and Christmas in Charleston

By the numbers:
Most pinned:
1. Parmesan Green Beans (1.5k)
2. DIY Rope Swing (770)
3. Super Bowl Party (135)

Most page views:
1. Mini Grilled Cheese Sandwiches (87k)

2. Super Bowl Party (41k)

3. Strawberry Baked Brie (39k)

Most comments:
1. DIY Gold Striped Vase (21)

2. Waikiki (20)

3. Summer Bucket List (17)

Most liked on Instagram:
1. Disneyland (254)
2. Porch Swing (247)
3. Fall in Alexandria (207)

What was your favorite thing to read in 2017, and what would you like to see more of in 2018?

Pin to Present: One Pot BBQ Chicken Pasta

I love seeing what Anne shares in her Pin to Present posts, so I decided to share my first one in... over a year.  Does anyone else's relationship with Pinterest really ebb and flow?  Sometimes I love all of the "picked for you" things I see, but other times, like when I searched for workout ideas ONE TIME and saw nothing but fitness quotes and ideas for a week, I just want to throw my iPad out the window.   Pinterest is supposed to be about food - haha!  In "down" times like that, I find myself finally going through those recipes I've been pinning for over four years.  The recipe I made this week finally made it from my "Need to Make It" board to my "Pinned It, Loved It" board after 3 years.  This One Pot BBQ Chicken Pasta is by one of my favorite food bloggers, Damn Delicious.  Her recipes are always so easy to make and have so much great flavor.

Here's how we made the dish ours and interpreted the recipe.  We...
- used honey chipotle Sweet Baby Ray's barbecue sauce
- made sure to liberally salt and pepper the chicken before it cooked
- altered a couple items in the recipe
     - one pound of chicken instead of one breast
     - 3 cloves of garlic
     - half a yellow onion (more onion than chicken seemed crazy haha!)
     - sharp cheddar cheese sprinkled on top but not mixed into the pasta sauce

I was surprised at how well the pasta cooked in the sauce in the allotted 13 minutes (I was skeptical), and next time, the only changes we would make would be to double the red pepper flakes and maybe add even a little more chicken.  It makes a ton of pasta!

Have you had any Pinterest success stories recently?  I'd love to hear about any recipes you're currently loving!

Pin to Present: Sriracha Teriyaki Meatballs

I love these link ups from Anne.  I don't use Pinterest as much as I used to, but after Owen raved this recipe in her Five on Friday a few weeks back, I knew I had to pin it.  The following weekend, we made these Sriracha Teriyaki Meatball Bowls, and they were so good!  I loved the spice of the sauce (we might have added a bit more sriracha than the recipe suggested), and the flavor of the teriyaki.  This recipe made so many that I happily ate them with brown rice (Uncle Ben's 90 second microwave bags of brown rice are so good!) all week.

Besides as a dinner in a bowl, these would also make a fantastic appetizer if you rolled them a little smaller and stuck toothpicks in them.  I know what I'll be making for our next party!

Check out my other Pin to Pinterest posts: summer outfit inspiration and copycat orange chicken

Pinterest Tips for Bloggers

Good morning, friends!  I have a fun post to share with you today all about my most loved and most hated social media channel: Pinterest.  I don't know about you, but my relationship with Pinterest definitely ebbs and flows: some days I love pinning outfit after outfit, dessert after dessert, and other days I realize I haven't logged in for weeks.  I used to love "old Pinterest" where who you followed was what you'd see (and in the order they pinned it), but now with Promoted Pins, Pinterest has become so much less organic that it's become harder to get your pins "noticed" (without paying for it).  That's where we need to help each other; we need to share tips and get our little blogs' pins more viewed!  Before I continue any further, I fully acknowledge that I am not the most educated Pinterest user or the Pinterest user with the most followers, but I have found that the five tips below work for me, and I simply want to share them with all of you in hopes of gaining some success, as well.

1. Create boards by season and rearrange them frequently.  I used to have a single board for holidays and outfit inspiration, but now, I separate them so that followers looking for something specific can find it more easily.  Always move the most seasonally relevant boards up to the top, too!

2. Get holiday or seasonal content out there early.  Pinterest users are not looking for Valentine's Day inspiration on February 13th; they're looking for it right after Christmas ends.  Make sure you're posting holiday content at least a month before said holiday on your blog and sharing it on Pinterest then.  Even if you have a generic board that has something related to a pertinent holiday, change the cover of that board so that viewers will see it.  For example, on my "Blog it" board, I am currently featuring my "Tax Tips For Bloggers" post since tax time will soon be on the horizon!

3. Use frequently searched words to boost your descriptions.  Just posted something awesome on your blog and can't wait to share it on your Pinterest page?  Search a generic title idea, like I did for "hand scrub" below, and see what other words and phrases users are searching for.  I went from calling this pin "Pumpkin Spice Latte Hand Scrub" to those detailed descriptions below to get more search views.

4. Join group boards.  This is a fun way to find new people to follow who share the same interests as you as well as gain new followers yourself.  PinGroupie is a great resource, and usually if you comment on a group board and ask to be added, the admins will happily add you.

5. If it fits on more than one board, then pin it more than once.  Like I said before, Pinterest is far less organic than it used to be.  If you posted the same photo to two or three boards within 5 minutes, your followers would see those photos back to back.  Now, it can be hours or days before that pin appears to them, so why not double or triple your chance of being seen by adding a pin to more than one board.  I added the pin below to my fall holidays and DIY boards and created different descriptions to be seen on more pages and in more searches.

There you have it.  Like I said, this is what has worked for me, and I hope it works for you.  Here's my Pinterest page if you'd like to check it out - I'd appreciate it!  Good luck "going viral!"

• Do you use Pinterest?
• Do you have any suggestions for your fellow bloggers?

Lately

Good morning!  How's everyone's week going?  My organization is hosting our biggest event of the year, a big gala out on Kiawah Island tomorrow, so to end my week of blogging, I thought I'd share a little early "Five on Friday"-type post to share what I've been doing lately...

Traveling - The weekend before last I flew up to Philadelphia to meet Mike in Delaware for his grandmother's 80th birthday.  It was so nice to see all of his family, and during our 5 hour layover in Chicago on the way back, we even enjoyed some deep dish pizzas with a friend from college.

Cooking - Football Sundays for us mean crock pot fun!  Last weekend we made the most delicious slow cooker Mongolian beef (but I added 1 teaspoon of red pepper flakes and a bunch of dashes of sriracha) and spicy zucchini.  I haven't been the only one busy; Mike made a from-scratch German chocolate cake, and I can't wait to share the recipe next week.

Golfing - I had Veteran's Day off from work, so Mike and I played a round of golf where we've been members for the last year.  I've been striving to break the course record all year, and I did with an even par 72!  I started off playing well, parring every hole through 10, except for one birdie.  I three-putted the 11th to go back to even par, and held there through 17.  On 18, I hit my ball into the hazard and took a drop.  From 137 yards out, I hit the ball to about 15 feet from the flag and made the putt to make par and shoot even par!

Anticipating - I have another Charleston Blog Society event to attend tonight.  This time, it'll be "Bloggers at the Barre," and I'm excited and nervous all at the same time to try my first barre class.  Usually, we have events at boutiques and new spots around town, like last month's event at The Spectator Hotel, so I'm really excited to try something new!

Yelping - I was so excited to get an email this week that I was accepted into the Yelp Elite squad.  I've been Yelping for a few months now and am loving getting to know another group of people in Charleston.  I'm even helping to plan my first UYE (unofficial Yelp event) with Erika in a couple of weeks.  Are you on Yelp?  Add me!

Wrapping - 95% of my Christmas shopping is done and everything I have is wrapped.  Like last year, my parents are driving down to spend Thanksgiving with us, and they're going to bring all of our gifts back so we can fly up without a million suitcases!  They're the best.

Gifting - One of my favorite gifts I've wrapped so far is for one of Mike's cousins.  As part of an art kit, I requested Doodletopia: Cartoons from Blogging for Books.  He is absolutely going to love it!  The step-by-step instructions and tips are perfect for kids of any age, and the student learns how to draw every part of the cartoon from their expressions to their outfits.  There is even space on many of the pages to draw right in the book.  Mike's cousin is 12, and I know this will be the perfect gift for him, as he likes to follow instructions, but also has quite the imagination and can take the tips from the book and run with them.  I can't wait for him to open it on Christmas morning!

Wishing - The only person I haven't finished shopping for yet is Mike (we do our gifts at home before traveling for Christmas), and I've been thinking about gifts for him as well as creating my own wish list.  Here are the links to my lists from last year and 2013.  What's on your wish list this holiday season?