Things To Do In Playa Del Carmen

by The Pike's Place

The Rivera Maya is one of the most beautiful places in the world. We took our honeymoon six months after our wedding. This gave us time to research destinations and find an affordable and gorgeous beach destination. After we settled on Playa Del Carmen, I immediately began researching activities and quickly found that there are more activities than you can do in one 7 day honeymoon. For the majority of our vacation, we focused on relaxing and spending time at our all-inclusive resort, but that does not mean there isn’t plenty to do outside the resort walls.

Snorkeling

This first activity we did on our vacation, besides lounge by the beach and pool, was snorkeling. The Rivera Maya has one of the largest coral reefs in the world, The Great Maya Reef, and the snorkeling is fantastic. I have been snorkeling before, but this was my husband’s first experience and it did not disappoint. We swam along the coral reef with hundreds of fish, sea turtles and sting rays. Two bucket list items, swimming with turtles and sting rays, were crossed off my list in one day!

We did the Luxury Sail & Snorkel with Cancun Adventures. It is a half day experience including snorkeling, paddle boarding, lunch, and drinks all while sailing along the coast one a luxury catamaran. I highly recommend using (more…)

10 Ways To Organize Your Bathroom

by The Pike's Place

Magazines and makeup blogs sure make bathrooms and makeup stations look effortlessly amazing. While there is nothing I hate more than a messy unorganized house, in the real world it can be hard to work, keep a house clean, stay fit, cook all the meals, chase around those kiddos (or pups in our case) and do everything else that comes along with being an adult. Bathroom organization may me my least favorite of adult thing of them all, but yet I’m always envious of the immaculate bathroom and dressings areas that I see on other sites. How do they keep that clean, beautiful and organized all the time?! My husband is amazing, but bathroom organization was clearly not either of our fortes and after a few months in our new house being newly married it was time to make a change and get on the makeup blogger and professional home designers level, or at least somewhere close. I stalked every website I could find and here are my 10 favorite bathroom organization ideas and my own bathroom organization overhaul.

1: Acrylic Storage Containers

The amazing acrylic containers from The Container Store were my personal lifesaver. They give our bathroom easy access counter top storage with a high end look. Store makeup, and go to every day items in these easy to clean sectional storage bins. Plus, look how pretty they look! While ours aren’t on this level of perfection, I still absolutely love them.

2: Drawer Dividers

Take the clutter off the counter with these drawer dividers! I love the bamboo look if you are going for a spa theme. You can find these at most stores in the (more…)

Turkey Meatloaf with Roasted Vegetables

by The Pike's Place

Everyone has a favorite classic dish. As a child meatloaf was certainly far from my favorite, but for most American’s, including my husband, meatloaf is an absolute favorite. Meatloaf is a classic here in the states, but really it isn’t an American dish. There is a version of meatloaf made in a number of different cultures and it is thought to date back to as early as 5th century Rome. It’s no wonder most people love meatloaf, because clearly it’s stood the test of time. In the US, meatloaf became a family staple during the depression. During that time a family could really stretch a dollar by making the now “classic” version meatloaf with leftover ground meat, grains, bread or crackers to bind the dish and some sauce to top it off.

Like I stated before meatloaf certainly isn’t my favorite dish, but since my husband really loves it I figured I like to make a healthier alternative that I really enjoy as well. Meatloaf is a meal I really don’t think of during mid summer, but once fall starts (more…)

DIY Welcome Sign – Cricut Project

by The Pike's Place

Our dogs are family and when figuring out a way to fix a DIY Welcome Sign for our entryway that was a total fail, I couldn’t leave the pooches out! I got the idea to add silhouettes that looked like our three dogs and make this adorable welcome sign. A custom welcome sign was the perfect way to complete our entry and is such a cute way to greet guests. I’m a huge fan of contrast, so our entry has a mixture of gold and silver. The sign I made has a gray background with metallic silver and navy vinyl and silver foil. **This post contains affiliate links if you make a purchase after clicking one of these links, we will be compensated. All opinions are our own.

Items needed for this project:

Cricut Die Cut Machine
2 – 12 x12 Pieces of Vinyl – Expressions Vinyl
1 – 12 x12 Piece of Metallic Silver Foil
Cricut Design Space
Cricut Tools
Cricut Cutting Mats
Small Sign
Paint
Paint Brush

You can find all of these items at JoAnne’s, Michaels or your nearby craft store or online!

The Sign Before:

Here was the hideous sign before. I purchased the blank sign on sale from Michael’s and wanted to use it in our wedding for a drink menu. I wound up framing a typed up drink menu since that fit our wedding decor better, but I still wanted to use this sign for something. When we moved I needed some decor in our entry and thought a welcome sign would be perfect. A bad paint pen experience later and the sign was not what I intended it to be. (more…)

Month: September 2016

Snorkeling

1: Acrylic Storage Containers

2: Drawer Dividers

Items needed for this project:

The Sign Before: