Happy New Year!!!

I hope everyone had a really great Christmas! I know I did! I also wanted to wish you all a Happy New Year! I seriously can not believe that another year is gone! It was such a great year at the store and Its all because of our loyal customers and friends! We are anxiously awaiting the arrival of our new, fresh merchandise, and we hope that you will continue to be inspired by our assortment of goods!

Just a reminder that we will be closed December 30th-January 5th. We will re-open on January 6th with all Christmas decor and candles 50% off! There are a few new scents coming in January to intrigue you. They are birthday cake, buttercream frosting, and ginger lime! Many more to come! Stay tuned!

Merry Christmas!

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
John 3:16

Holiday Hours:

December 24th: 10-3

Christmas Day: Closed

December 26th:10-5

December 27th: 10-3

We will be CLOSED December 30th-January 5th

Initially Yours.....

I just put these intially yours mugs out today! We have almost every letter of the alphabet. You can personalize these even more by having us pour your favorite scent in them. Without a candle these are $15.75 and with a candle they are $22.25. We do guarantee that it will be ready by December 24th if you choose to fill with a candle. Hurry in, we have 2 of each letter and these are already going quickly!

Sawyers Christmas Concert

Last week we attended the High School Band Christmas Concert and it was sooo good! Every year they invite the third graders to be special guest performers. This concert was totally geared toward the kids! They were loving every minute, sometimes singing along from their seats and sometimes jumping up out of them! I am not sure who puts this whole thing together, but they did an amazing job! One final thing, dosent my little guy look handsome?

Christmas Traditions

Every year my boys love to make a gingerbread house. This year we all did it together as a family. I think it turned out to be the best one to date. They were very proud of their work! Afterwords we watched one of our favorite Christmas movies, National Lampoons Christmas Vacation. It doesnt matter how many times we have watched it, we all still laugh so hard! Next movie on our list, A Christmas Story! The finished product! Wouldnt it be fun to live in that little candy cottage?

Great Gift Idea.....

Just in today, a new shipment of knobstoppers. These are so unique and make a great gift paired with a bottle of wine! We have many different colors to choose from and the faucet stoppers come in hot and cold. Hot for red wine and cold for white wine. These can also be used on other bottles if not used for wine.

As always, if you would like to purchase one of these, just contact me via e-mail and I would gladly ship one to you! www.backyardtricia@hotmail.com

What a whirlwind!

I am sorry I havent posted for a few days. Last weekend was just a whirlwind! We had the craft show ( which wasnt great cause the weather was bad, but I had fun with my cousin Shannon) and then when that was over I headed to Riverside were my husband and I attended my husbands work Christmas party. We spent the night at the beautiful hotel and just had a really relaxing night! The next morning we headed home to pick up the boys ( they stayed the night with my friend Lori) and then I was off to the store as we are now open on Sundays 12-4 through Christmas. Needless to say I was ready for Monday so that I could just be at home and get things done, but I was in bed pretty much all day cause I was under the weather.
I am feeling better now and things have slowed down just a bit. Anyway, I think Im just rambling now. I just wanted to let you know that I didnt fall off the face of the earth!!!! Have a GREAT day!

Craft Show...

My sister and I are off to Mt. Pleasant this weekend to attend a craft and gift show at the Mt. Pleasant Christian School. It is scheduled for Saturday Dec. 6 from 7-3p.m. Our friend Bonnie from Outside In will also be going and we are having our booth together. If your in the area, stop by and say hi! Of course we cant bring the whole store with us, but we picked out some of the best sellers to bring along! Thanks to my awesome cousin Shannon who is letting us spend the night at her house! Im looking forward to seeing and spending time with her as well! Have a great weekend and I will talk to you next week!!

More of the store....

Love these mistletoe scented candles! This scent is by far our most popular at Christmas! It is sooooo fragrant. It will literally smell up your entire home.

These little glitter reindeer can be set around your house or used as an ornament. I love anything with glitter!

Again with the glitter! These peace signs are my absolute favorite decoration this season! These come in two sizes and are selling VERY quickly, but never fear, I have more on the way!

These red tealight holders with the jewel are so beautiful even without the candle light. I think there needs to be a little red thrown in everywhere at Christmas!

Here are our "gift buckets." Each one comes with a decorative box of matches, a 5oz candle, a glitter snowflake ornament, a mercury glass tealight holder and a tealight. I can think of tons of cute things to do with the bucket! Did I mention that they have glitter on them too!

Lighted Christmas Parade

Last Friday night was the kick off of all things Christmas in downtown Washington. It was the Lighted Christmas parade and Santa making his grand entrance into town. The Uptown Girls had a float this year made by my very talented friend and owner of Outside In gift shop, Bonnie Lins pictured below with me! For those of you who dont know who the uptown girls are... we are a group of speciality shop owners who have come together as one group to try to bring people to Washington. We coordinate all of our open houses together so that people can literally make a day of it shopping in Washington. We have 10+ shops as members! Making the trip to Washington is totally worth it! Our downtown is being revitalized and there are some really great places to dine as well! You will have to make the trip to see for yourself!

Didnt Bonnie do an AMAZING job! It is an exact replica of our uptown girls shopping bag that we all sell in our stores for $5! If you own one you can bring it to all the uptown girls shops for all of the open houses and recieve our exclusive specials! Our next open house event is DECEMBER 11-13! Our special for those three days at Backyard Candle Co. is everything you can stuff in your uptown girl bag is 20% off! (1 candle at 20% off )

We continue to get in new merchandise so you will want to keep checking in!

Thanksgiving at our house!!!

We hosted Thanksgiving at our house this year! It was so much fun, exhausting, but lots of fun! My parents came out the night before and spent the night and we all cooked together in the morning! I love when everyone is gathered in the kitchen, laughing, and having a good time!
This is my friend Lori and her son Oliver and my sister Janelle. I seriously cant thank them enough for all they do for me at the store, cause they are like candle making machines! I am sooooooo thankful for them! Look at my clown of a husband peeking up behind them!

This is my oldest son Clay holding Oliver. I couldnt resist this picture, look at Olivers eyes! This kid is such a ham!!! Behind them is my dad! He does all of my books for the store! It truly is a family business!

My sister! I love her lots!

My mom and I! She does not like her picture taken, especially since she lost her hair, but I think shes just beautiful, dont you?

This is My youngest son Sawyer and Lori's oldest son Cale. No this is not cake or frosting they are licking out of the pan, its mashed potatoes!!!!! They have been best buds since preschool!
I love Thanksgiving and I cant wait to do it again next year!!!!

Give Thanks

I feel so blessed and have so many things to be thankful for- my mom is cancer free, my boys are healthy, happy and growing, my husband i doing really well at his new job and the shop is better than ever, just to name a few!

I am also very thankful for all of my new blog friends and readers! I had mentioned to my new friend Jeanne that it is really cool how you can make really great friendships even when you havent actually met! I have lots of blogs that I love to read and they are listed at the bottom of my blog under "To be inspired" You should check them out, you never know, you might just form a new friendship! I hope you have a great Thanksgiving and dont forget to "give thanks!"

Girls "weekend" out!!!!!

I am so excited to be going to Des Moines for a weekend with the girls filled with shopping, good food, girl talk and margaritas! These are two of my best friends-Tracy on the left and Lori in the middle. This picture is from last summers weekend get-away! Unfortunatley, I just found out last night that Tracy has to cancel!! I am so bummed but we will have lots more of these in the future! I dont know about you all, but I come home from these outings a better mother and wife! Have a great weekend and I will talk to you next week!

Our home

If you are anything like me, you find inspiration in other peoples homes. I love to get ideas and just see how they do things that might be different from me. So I took a few photos of our home to share with you hoping maybe you can be inspired.... These shelves are in our living room. As I said in an earlier post, I am becoming a fan of black so I have been adding black accents throughout the house.

This is our den. I really like sitting in here because there isnt a t.v. and it can be very quiet! I just purchased the & pillow from the fabulous Teresa Sheeley! She has so many cool things in her shop! Go to www.teresasheeley.etsy.com to check it out!

This is our dining room looking in from the kitchen. It is very open between the two.

This is looking into our living room. As you can see, our rooms are small and cozy. It is a VERY old farmhouse that has been in my husbands family for generations. Six years ago we completely remodeled it. This was not an easy task, as it was down to the studs! Prior to us deciding to take on this big job, it had been sitting empty for many years!

This is another view of our dining room looking from the living room. My husband bought me the pie safe for Christmas one year and I LOVE it! I will have more pictures in another post of my kitchen, bedrooms, etc....

Hope you enjoyed this little tour!

Thanks for an AMAZING open house

We had the most amazing Uptown Girls open house last weekend! Thank you to all who attended! We hope you had fun browsing the goods and hopefully you found just what you were looking for! I love these chocolate molds! We have them in ornaments also and they come in several different styles.

Dont you just love the wine stoppers! They would make such a unique gift with your favorite bottle of wine!

This is our petite boutique. We have tees, necklaces, rings, cuffs, and bags. If you havent yet seen the new necklaces, you need to. They are so beautiful!

These vintage looking white trees with the little bird ornaments have been a best seller so far! The trees come in 3 sizes.

We have new merchandise on its way and we have re-ordered some of the sold out items! So dont forget to check back with us often throughout the season!

Mixed Chicks Leave-in Conditioner

This is a totally random post, but I am so excited that I have to share the news! Ok, where do I start! If you have naturally curly hair, as I do, you will be just as excited as I am. If you dont have curly hair and you know someone who does, pass this info. on to them, they will LOVE you for it.

For YEARS I used ONLY Aveda hair products, specifically, the leave in conditioner Elixir. It was the only thing I could find that would define my curls without making them even curlier. Then last year, to my devastation, they stopped making elixir!!!!! I seriously didnt know what I was going to do. My husband, God bless him bought me six big bottles of it one day and I was sooooooo excited, until recently when I ran out of my last bottle. I frantically began to search the internet for something that would work ,when I came across www.mixedchicks.net and decided to take a chance on it! I ordered myself a bottle and it came this week! You wont believe how AMAZING this leave in conditioner is! It is the BEST hair product I have ever used for curly hair! My husband even said, " This is the best your hair has ever looked!" My curls have never been more defined and touchable! The best part is I dont even have to use gel anymore. Its just this one product, thats all you need!!!

I will suggest however, that before you use this product, that you watch the short video of how to use it. Its not hard at all, just specific on doing and not doing certain things. Tell ALL your curly hair friends! God bless the two amazing women who came up with product! I hope they make it forever!

Uptown Girl Holiday Open House...

I want to remind everyone of our holiday open house coming up November 13-15th. We will be open: Thursday 10-7, Friday 10-5 and extended Saturday hours of 10-5. Remember to bring in you Uptown Girl Bag to receive your free gift! If you dont already have a bag, there are still some available for $5 or if you spend $50 you can receive one free! We hope to see you there!!!

Mercury Glass

Here is a glimpse of some the mercury glass we have. I really like the wine decanter shown here.
This is one of the mercury glass ornaments! I love this tree!

A grouping of mercury glass trees

I think these little tealight holders are my favorite! The jewel on the front looks sooo pretty and when these are light up with a candle, they just sparkle!

My Family

I thought it would be fun to show some pictures of my family. My mom always takes our family picture each year for our Christmas card and these are some of them. She didnt actually take these two, my dad did. As my mom was taking them with her good camera, my dad took these with the digital camera. My boys are Clay (my first born who is 13) and Sawyer (my baby who is 8). They are both in this phase where they want the longer hair. Its naturally curly like mine so It's harder to deal with, but if they like it, I can deal with it. My husbands name is Tork and I love him lots! We will be celebrating our 15th year anniversary next week! I cant even belive its been that long! We are going out to dinner this weekend cause our Holiday open house is on our actual anniversary. I hope we go to the Tuscan Moon! It has amazing food and the best atmosphere! Its our favorite place to go on date night!

Black and White

I am really beginning to love black and white! These pics are one of the many Christmas displays in the store and is probably one of my favorites. I love the simplicity of it. We have these Keep Calm and Carry On pictures in black, red, wedding mint, and aqua!

Special Sneak Peek...

You are invited to an exclusive, candle lit, sneak peek of "Christmas in the Backyard" on Monday evening, November 3rd, from 4:30-8:00p.m.! Enjoy wine and cheese as you shop our beautiful selection of holiday decor and sniff our amazing Christmas scents! Get a head start on your shopping and be inspired to "Deck your halls!"
If your looking for the perfect gift, all of our jewlery and t-shirts will be 20% off, one night only! So grab your friends and head to the Backyard and enjoy a relaxing evening of holiday shopping!
Hope to see you there!!!!!!

Website Coming Soon!!!

I just wanted to let you all know that in the very near future my website will be up and running! You can check it out now if you want to but it is still a work in progress and when its finished, you will be able to purchase candles and other goodies online!!!! Just go to backyardcandleco.com. I will let you know when its complete! This is very exciting for me cause this time last year, I didnt even know how to e-mail!