A Beautiful Mess

25 Cookies & Bars You Should Bake

Mon, 21 Sep 2020 19:00:40 GMT

It’s dessert season!! Just kidding … it’s always dessert season in my brain. Today, I’m rounding up our favorite cookie and bar recipes from our blog archives. This is a good post to sip your morning coffee to while deciding which recipe to bake today. Maybe I should have made “recipe” plural, because there are some pretty good ones on this list. ????

First on the list? Banana bread muffin cookies. Everything you know and love about banana bread in a soft, chewy cookie.

If you If you haven’t made flourless chocolate chip cookies before, give this recipe a try. Don’t be freaked out about the flourless option. I make these alllll the time when I’m craving a cookie and need one ASAP. We also have recipes for whole wheat chocolate chip cookies and cherry chocolate chip cookies … so now it’s decision time!

These red velvet cookies are thin and crispy with lots of white chocolate chips in them, but you could use regular chocolate chips instead if you’re feeling extra that day.

Cosmic brownie COOKIES.

Emma made pumpkin swirl slab pie for Friendsgiving last year, and this has been Elsie’s go-to fall dessert ever sense. Pumpkin recipes foreverrrrr.

Confession time. I absolutely love peanut butter (the natural kind, OK?). So much that I had to stop buying it because I was going through a jar a week. That said, I will 100% take the risk and buy some to make these peanut butter and jelly cookies.

These These are similar to magic cookie bars except they have toffee and toasted coconut in them. Hello, and yes, please.

Laura’s chocolate chip pumpkin cookies are gluten-free and vegan. Oh, and they taste incredible! If you don’t have any dietary restrictions, you have to try this version made with pumpkin, tahini, and chocolate chunks. Trust me.

These no-bake cherry cheesecake bars have a secret ingredient in the crust. Can you guess what it is?

The ultimate peanut butter-lovers cookie. Adding sea salt flakes to the tops of these is strongly encouraged for maximum effect. ????

The best vegan sugar cookie recipe.

I had to include a Halloween treat since spooky season is upon us—spider web chocolate bars (the bars are homemade!).

Emma’s peanut butter bars are both indulgent and addictive. You’ve been warned!

These lemon burst crinkle cookies are a game changer. SO good. I made batches of these to give to friends a few months ago and saved plenty for myself. Haha.

It was hard work, but someone had to do it. Emma tried and tested brownie recipe after brownie recipe to find the best ones on the internet.

What’s not to love about thumbprint cookies? They’re super easy to make and you can add so many different fillings like jelly, preserves, and even a chocolate version with homemade red wine raspberry jam.

You You can make your own Kit Kat bars—and they taste better than the store bought version!

Classic shortbread cookies (#classic). I love how Emma made these extra cute using cookie cutters and little fork marks.

Another Friendsgiving dessert we won’t forget? Cranberry and vanilla bean pie bars. The buttery crumble top mixed with the tart cranberry is heavenly.Remember those chocolate “oranges” you could buy that had segments of chocolatey goodness? These madeleine cookies are similar to those.

I’ve included a couple bonus posts that aren’t technically recipes, but I love these baking tips. The first post is three ways to add lettering to sugar cookies.

Did you know you can add fresh herbs and edible flowers to cookies and other desserts? This is especially fun for a party or special birthday dessert.

Now, wake and bake some cookies! xo, Jacki

Episode #53: A Listener AMA (Ask Me Anything)

Mon, 21 Sep 2020 12:52:40 GMT

Hiiii! This week’s episode is an old school AMA (ask me anything) and we answer a big variety of listener questions!

You can stream the episode here on the blog or on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, and Stitcher. You can find the podcast posts archive here.

Show Notes:
-In this episode, we answer 10 random questions. Topics we cover include remodeling, pivoting in business, our Airbnbs during COVID, $, celebrity ghosts and more.

-Elsie mentions her favorite painter, Lulie Wallace.

-Links to our airbnbs that are currently booking (or still running for the future) … Elsie’s Nashville bnb, Emma’s Nashville bnb, and Emma’s Florida (Harry Potter) bnb. We’ll share news on how we’re pivoting for the holiday house in Springfield, Missouri soon.

–Lovers’ butter costume

-Here’s a link to the ABM Print Shop.

-Here’s a link to our ABM e-courses. Use code PODCAST for 25% off your purchase!

-This episode is sponsored by Grove Collaborative. As you know we’re big fans of Grove, so if you haven’t yet be sure to check out our offer! First time shoppers can receive a free cleaning set and a free VIP Trial. Visit grove.co/ABM for more info.

Episode 53 Transcript

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Emma: You’re listening to the A Beautiful Mess podcast today, we’re doing a listener AMA, which means ask me anything and we have some good ones. This episode is sponsored by Grove Collaborative and we’ll talk more about them later in the episode.

Elsie: Nice.

Emma: Nice.

Elsie: I am excited about an AMA episode. We’ve never done this before and I’m not sure how.

Emma: Yeah, it feels like a Q&A on Instagram, but it’s different.

Elsie: But we get to talk.

Emma: Mm hmm.

Elsie: So we have, what, ten questions that we got from Instagram and it is a big variety. So should we just jump in. Should we just go for it.

Emma: Yes. First up, listener says I think this is for when you’re moving. So what are the most important things to fix up when you buy a new home?

Elsie: OK, I love this question.

Emma: It’s very good.

Elsie: Very passionate about it. So I think first, every home has, like, the one thing you hate that you can’t wait to change. And I think that one thing deserves to just be at the top of the list just for your own emotional…

Emma: For yourself.

Elsie: Yeah, like just so that you can feel like you’re settling in and you’re putting your touch on it. Like don’t leave something that you just, like, absolutely hate just because it’s not practical, you know? And then after that, I would really say living spaces. And if you want to do a big remodel, the most important thing by a lot is the kitchen. What do you think?

Emma: Yeah, I think kitchens like that’s a big one. As far as like resale, I think floors is never a bad one. And I actually completely…I’m more practical than Elsie. I don’t know if you’ve picked up on that so far, but I actually really agree. If there’s something that just you hate, just change it. Don’t live with it forever just because it’s not the most resell important thing. But my only caveat is if you notice that you have like ten of those, maybe pick only the top one or two and then work on some other things and then get back to that list, because that might be a little too many. So.

Elsie: Right. I think that when you first move into a space, you see it the most clearly. And then over time, like we talked one time about how Emma had…

Emma: Blindspots.

Elsie: …her, she had no curtains on windows in her bedroom for like two years or so.

Emma: Years. Yeah.

Elsie: Like if you live with something for long enough, like your toilet is just a hole in the floor, you will it will become normal to you. And then people will, you know, come over and you’ll be like, oh yeah, that was I meant to do something about that hole in the floor. So I think addressing the things that really bug you first, you know, it kind of like. I don’t know, maybe they would have bugged anyone.

Emma: Yeah, and I think to it’s also like maybe that’s the next question that should be being asked if you’re moving into a new home is not only like what do I do first, but like, what’s my three-year plan here? And really, try to stick to it.

Elsie: Oh I love a three-year plan.

Emma: Because maybe you can’t afford to fix the toilet hole in the floor the first month, but put it on the list because don’t forget about it. Don’t let it become your curtains that I never put up, you know.

Elsie: Yes, I’m on a three year plan right now, and I highly recommend it because then if you’re like me, Enneagram seven, where you just look around and you’re anxious to fix everything all at once, it helps you realize that, you know, in the blink of an eye, it’ll be here like the time will come when it’s time for me to redo my kitchen. But that time is not right now. Right now, I’m doing this space and this space and yeah, that feels really good to me. Anyway, next question.

Emma: Next question. OK, this one’s really hard. Do you put a time limit on risky entrepreneur ventures or go for it until it works? So this is kind of about pivoting and failing like there’s really a lot to unpack in this question. It could be a whole episode.

Elsie: I agree. We love this subject, I think on a short answer. I think it’s good to put a time limit on it.

Emma: Yeah.

Elsie: I think that for yourself, for your project, for everyone involved, you know, like one of my very, very favorite painters, Lulie Wallace, she told me that she had just gotten out of college and she was like, I’m going to give myself I don’t know if it was like a summer or a year, but I’m going to give myself this time to be a painter full time. And if I can start, you know, to make something happen, great. And if not, I’ll look for a job. And she ended up being a painter. And I think that, you know, it’s always, always a good idea to have both to keep both options open ahead of you, if you can.

Emma: Yeah. And the only other like…I completely agree, but the only thing I would say is I feel like the reason sometimes people hold on to their thing long past when they should have is because they’ve wrapped up their personal identity in this thing working out. And so that’s another thing I would say is like just because you have some kind of entrepreneur business or creative venture that doesn’t work out, that doesn’t mean that you’re not good at business or you’re not a creative person. It means that one thing didn’t work and it’s probably taught you a lot. And you can now move on to the next thing. And you don’t have to view it as I’m a forever failure. Like I would hope if she hadn’t made money at painting in that summer or year, she wouldn’t have just quit painting. I would hope that she would know. Like, this isn’t necessarily a reflection on just me as a human. This is just a setback.

Elsie: There are options between all and nothing.

Emma: Yes, a lot.

Elsie: Yeah, I agree. And I think that something that we always like to say as an encouragement to our younger listeners is that you will never even remember all the things that we’ve tried and failed at and stopped doing. Everyone just sees our career as successful for the things that worked, but they don’t see all the things that didn’t work that fell by the wayside through the years. You know that we’re still good learning experiences, some of them really good learning experiences that helped us get to the next level. So I don’t think that failure is a bad thing. I think it’s something that should never define you. But you have to teach yourself to learn from it. And I do think that that’s a skill that you develop.

Emma: Mm hmm. Amen. Hallelujah. (laughs) All right, next question. How are your AirBnBs during covid. Regrets? Just regrets question.

Elsie: Do we ever have some regrets. OK, so I will say, first of all, though, we’re so grateful, first of all, that we even have jobs during covid. And I just want to recognize…

Emma: We haven’t laid off anyone at our staff. Yeah, we’ve had we’ve been very lucky.

Elsie: We recognize how lucky we are. And yeah, our AirBNBs have not been doing well during this time, but it hasn’t sunk us, which is something to be really grateful for because we have a pretty diverse income, which is definitely another thing that we always recommend. But yeah, there was a time a few years ago when I was like, man, if I could just have ten AirBnBs, my life would be cooking. I would be so rich. And now I look at that person who has ten AirBnBs and I feel so sorry for them. So I think it’s been an extremely helpful perspective maker for a lifetime, like how fast things can change that you never thought would change.

Emma: And do you want to share about our Florida house?

Elsie: Yes. Yes. OK, so this is sad news, bringing some sadness to the podcast. So I decided to sell my Florida house because in March, in March, ironically, Collin and I had booked a two-week stay to go there and make it our little Disney fantasy.

Emma: Give it it’s makeover.

Elsie: Yeah, give it the full makeover, because before that we had only been I’ve only ever been to the house one time anyway, March came, covid came. We realized that it didn’t feel safe to go, that we deleted a month and another month and another month and another month. And then, you know, I was thinking for a while, OK, well, we’ll do it this fall. And then eventually I had to just come to a place where I was like, we’re not going to Florida in 2020. Collin is one of my dear friends and he’s the father of two. I’m just not going to do that right now. And so we put it up for sale and currently it’s under contract and we’re probably going to close before this podcast comes out.

Emma: Yeah, yeah. And I, my Florida house is the one that’s Harry Potter themed.

Elsie: Yes.

Emma: And you might remember me talking about it from previous episodes where I had last year in November. I had gone for over two weeks, almost three weeks, and did a big makeover to it. Not like everything I ever wanted to do with it, but just get it set and set up and start the theme and all that. And we’re keeping our Florida house. It’s done okay, I don’t think it’s quite broken even, but it’s gotten close. And, like financially…

Elsie: It’s doing it’s best!

Emma: Oh yeah. She’s doing her best. She’s all right. So we’re keeping it. And that’s what we’ve decided for ours. But it definitely has not been a great year. So, yeah.

Elsie: So on the show notes, we’ll link to we have our two Nashville BnBs running and then we have the one in Florida, the Harry Potter one, and we’ll link to all of those. And then the one in Springfield we’re not currently renting. And I think we’ll save that maybe for another episode because things are kind of up in the air. And then…

Emma: Oh this is a teaser now.

Elsie: Oh! And then, yeah, my house in Florida is definitely never, ever, ever getting back together.

Emma: (Sings) We are never ever ever! (laughs)

Elsie: (laughs) Alright.

Emma: Ok, next question, fun one. Have you picked out your Halloween costumes yet?

Elsie: Whoo!

Emma: Yes. Let’s talk about Halloween costumes, waiting for someone to ask me this. Yes, you can go first.

Elsie: Ok, so our five-year-old Nova picked our family costume, which is based around her. The heroine.

Emma: Of course. (laughs).

Elsie: And it’s the…her favorite thing in the world right now is Vampirina. And so we’re going to be Vampirina’s family and she’s going to be Vampirina and it’s going to be wonderful. And my husband’s pretty much agreed to be painted blue. We’ll see how it goes.

Emma: They have blue skin if you haven’t seen Vampirina.

Elsie: It’s an adorable little Disney Junior show and it’s been a bright spot in kind of not the best year. So …

Emma: She loves it. She’s always singing the songs…

Elsie: It’s a joyful thing. The songs are so cute.

Emma: They’re like, positive little songs with positive messages. It’s great. So it’s really cute she wants to do that.

Elsie: Yes, I’m excited and I haven’t decided yet if I want to do like just for fun, like an Instagram photo costume, you know, or something for the blog. I think my brain is just not there yet. What about you?

Emma: Right. Well so ours, so last year I kind of picked our family costume and it was themed around the protagonist of my family last year, which was my dog lovers who recently passed away. But last year I wanted him to be a stick of butter. I was just really amped on the idea and I made his little costume and he was just a little stick of butter.

Elsie: His last Halloween was a good one!

Emma: He went out with a bang! Yeah, yeah. And he looked so cute as this little stick of butter. And so the rest of the family was just themed around him. So our other dog, Steve was a lobster. And then Trey and I were chefs. So it was like chefs with a stick of butter and lobster. And I thought it was really cute and Trey liked it too. He was into it. He wore the chef’s outfit. We got some photos that were just kind of for fun. And they’re in my annual album for our family. And now they mean a lot to me since my dog did pass away since then. So I’m really happy we did that. And so anyway, so I knew, though, it wasn’t really like Trey’s top choice to be a chef for Halloween. So I told him then I was like, OK, well, you pick the costume next year. So he has he decided like a year ago and I keep kind of bringing it up and he’s still into it. So what we’re going to be is two different David Bowie’s so we’re both Trey is David Bowie. I’m David Bowie. But just like different eras.

Elsie: That’s like my dream costume, I think I’m going to be like a third David Bowie just appearing. (laughs).

Emma: Yeah. (laughs) And then I want our dog to be in it again just because it meant so much last year. And now I’m just thinking about all that and being very sentimental with my dogs. So I’m going to make Steve our dog a spider so it can be like Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, you know, so that’s what we’re going to be and we’re not going anywhere. So I feel like I’m just going to make someone take photos of us just so I can have them for our album. And that’s basically the whole reason we’re doing a costume.

Elsie: Same.

Emma: But I don’t care. I don’t care. I don’t care if that’s stupid. I love it it makes me happy.

Elsie: We’re actually going to do trick or treating for our kids ourselves, which anyone can do. So if you’re worried about Halloween being canceled, just remember that you can still…you still have a front door, you still have candy. You know what I’m saying?

Emma: Yeah, just have them walk around the house and ring the bell again. (laughs).

Elsie: Yeah, our kids are young enough for that. Totally works. They will love it. It’s all good.

Emma: All right. Next question.

Elsie: The next question is, what’s your biggest revenue streams for A Beautiful Mess? We love a money question. And you know we’re not, like, too private about this kind of stuff. So, OK, so I think I put them in order and you can tell me if I got them right or not, because I don’t exactly look at our bank account. (laughs)

Emma: Right. I’m aware. (laugh)

Elsie: And Emma does. (laughs)So the biggest revenue stream for A Beautiful Mess is sponsored content.

Emma: Yep.

Elsie: Yes. So that’s like when we do a post partnered with a brand. The second biggest revenue stream is CPM based ads.

Emma: Yup.

Elsie: So that is like on the page when there’s like a little ad in between the post as you’re scrolling down or like in the sidebar or popping up from the bottom. They’re very sneaky. They make a lot of money and they are easy. So easy.

Emma: Yes.

Elsie: So that’s cool.

Emma: Yes. And we’re with Ad Thrive, also known as Cafe Media. But there’s lots of other options and I only bring that up in case other bloggers are listening and they’re looking at options for themselves. That’s who we use and we’re very happy with them. So just, you know, Ad Thrive.

Elsie: Yes, OK, the third biggest revenue stream. Affiliate income?

Emma: Yes. Yep.

Elsie: OK, affiliate income means that…

Emma: These last two streams are probably tied, but yeah.

Elsie: OK, but yeah, affiliate income is pretty good. We have worked really hard at it and Laura and Jackie who work with us have worked really hard at it. Affiliate income means, for example, if I buy a couch from West Elm and there’s a picture of it in my room tour and then I put a link to West Elm on the site and it could be attached, it could be an affiliate link where when people click through if they buy something, either that same thing or maybe something else from the site, then we get a tiny little commission and those all add up over time.

Emma: Mmhmm. Yep.

Elsie: Yes, I think affiliate money or affiliate links are a great thing. I know some people find them like annoying.

Emma: People find all of these things annoying. (laughs)

Elsie: Actually you’re right! (laughs) But I, I think affiliate I’m proud to always buy an affiliate thing from my friends like swipe ups and things like that, because it is hard work. It actually is. All right. So I want to continue this conversation, but let’s have a quick word from our sponsor.We’re so excited to share an offer from Grove Collaborative this week because in 2020 we like things that ship to our homes. No extra trips. Grove delivers healthy plant-based cleaning products. They have products that are non-toxic and sustainably sourced for your home. Personal care and even stuff for kiddo’s. Grove carries everything from dish soap to toothpaste and more. Do you want to know my favorite Grove items? I always grab a bunch of their walnut scrubbers. I really like them because honestly they’re really pretty compared to the brightly colored ones that you see in the stores. And I love their refillable glass bottles. They’re reducing my plastic waste and also super pretty as well. Ok, here’s the offer for a limited time, when our listeners go to Grove.co/abm, you’ll get a free cleaning gift set. Plus free shipping for your first order, go to Grove.com/abm to get this exclusive offer. That’s Grove.co/abm.

Elsie: The next one is our own products. So occasionally we do our own products. We just launched the ABM printshop this year. We will put a link to that in the show notes, maybe a code, even we do what other kinds of products? (laughs)

Emma: We do lots of things. We’ve done a million things over the years. Talk about pivoting, but right now it’s mostly the print shop and then our courses program, which actually I wanted to bring up because all the things we’re talking about right now, revenue streams, this is a whole section in the I’m working on a new blogger course. And my hope is, basically we just needed to update our courses. And I wanted to create one that’s a little bit more shorter, more digestible, but with a big punch. That’s my goal. That’s what I’m working on.

Elsie: Get to the point, right?

Emma: Yeah. Get to the point, make it super helpful. Get people the information they need to really get going. That’s the point. So we’re doing that and there’s a huge section that’s about monetizing. And so all the things we’re talking about right here, if they’re kind of going over your head but you are a blogger or you’re wanting to get into blogging, we are going to have a course pretty soon that really dives into a lot of this. It’s a subject that I love to talk about. I love the thrill of business. I mean, I love blogging.

Elsie: Yeah. Emma is an excellent teacher. She, really out of both of us, she’s the person that loves to go to the conferences,

Emma: I do…I did. (laughs)

Elsie: Kind of like I did talk shop with our blogger friends and that’s how we know all these secrets.

Emma: I just love learning about business. It’s really fun and I love to share if it’s helpful for someone, it means a lot to me if I can help in any way. So anyway, I think that’s going to be fun and I’m excited for the course to come out. It probably will be sometime next month. But trust me, you will hear me talk about it more on this podcast.

Elsie: Yes.

Emma: So, yeah.

Elsie: OK, one last revenue stream is the podcast, which is the smallest one, but also it is almost our, we’re getting kind of close to our one year anniversary, like our first year birthday of the podcast. So we still feel like we’re very much in the establishing zone. And I think that that also goes to show how much work you have to be willing to put in before you start making money on things.

Emma: Yeah.

Elsie: A lot of times our friends will start a blog or whatever, and they want to start making money right away. And it’s not realistic. Like even for us, we have an established audience. We didn’t start making a lot of cash on our podcast, well we definitely haven’t yet. But hopefully in the future we will. And that’s what we’re working towards. And thank you for the support you’ve given it, because we feel like our podcast audience is kind of our mst lovely part of our audience.

Emma: Yeah, they really are. I feel like we’ve said that before us. I don’t want to be a broken record, but…

Elsie: We say it every episode.

Emma: We get so many nice emails at the podcast at abeautifulmess.com and so many nice reviews, like it’s. Yeah, we haven’t made a ton of money from this yet, but I’m hopeful and it has meant a lot just to see the support.

Elsie: Right.

Emma: Because it’s been a year!

Elsie: And it’s always an investment up front. We’ve put a ton of time into it. So…

Emma: And not just us. You don’t see the people who have to record us and edit us. And, you know, it’s a ton of work for them, too.

Elsie: So, yes, it’s…anyway. Still growing, but exciting. All right. The next question is, what is your favorite part of the business to work on? So maybe we could both pick two or should we both pick one?

Emma: I mean, if you have two.

Elsie: I have two.

Emma: OK, well, what are your two?

Elsie: Ok, so I want to say the apps, because I do think that the apps are a very exciting part of our business that we don’t talk about as much because I mean, it’s not really a part of this podcast at all, but we have four apps. We’ll link to them all in the shownotes. Working on the apps, both creating them and launching them. And then now, you know, any time I get to make a new pack or we, you know, work on new features all the time, it’s just very exciting. And it’s kind of we should do another episode sometime.

Emma: Well, there’s a whole new part of the app company that’s starting up in November… or it’s already started up. We’re building it, but it’s going to come out probably in November. And I’m really excited for it. And we’re definitely going to talk about that more. But it’s really cool.

Elsie: Ok, so yes, obviously. OK, my other part, my other favorite part, forever and ever is blogging. I love blogging. I always get happy every week when I have when it’s time for me to write a ten things I love Sunday Post, when it’s time for me especially to write a personal post, a room tour. I truly love blogging and I don’t know, it’s weird how even after like seven thousand blog posts, it’s just not getting old at all.

Emma: I thought you would say that one because that one is like my main one too. Is blogging.

Elsie: (laughs)

Emma: Well, no, I just mean, I think that’s why we’re bloggers and why we put in all the years of work and why we keep going with it is it’s not just because, oh, it’s a job. So we get paid. It’s like, no, we actually really love blogging. It’s so fun. I feel like I have, like, enough ideas that I will never get them all done. I’ll never get all the blog posts that I want to write done because I just have so many and I’m so excited about it. I feel more into blogging than even when…like years before. Like, it’s a love that keeps going.

Elsie: I agree. I think that’s how, you know, that you’re doing the right job, is that you feel like you would do it even for free, even if, you know, your career was kind of over or whatever, that it would still be something that was interesting to you and exciting. And it definitely would be, yeah.

Emma: Mm hmm.

Elsie: All right. Oh, this next question is a little bit related to this, too.

Emma: Oh OK.

Elsie: After ten plus years of professional content creating, how hard is it to view everyday life without thinking about how to make it into content? Is it hard for you to live in the moment? All right. So I will just say this is probably something that people assume about us. You know, when people do the like, ‘what do you assume about me’. Yeah, the same about me.

Emma: I think this is yeah. I’m always like this is the biggest misconception.

Elsie: Yes.

Emma: I feel like people don’t understand. Yeah.

Elsie: It’s not hard for us to keep parts of our lives private at all. I actually love to have a private life. I feel like I do share little bits from a lot of different areas of my life, but I don’t feel like I owe the Internet anything. And I don’t feel like it’s hard to spend a fun day with my family and not take pictures of it…

Emma: To post.

Elsie: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It just it doesn’t feel difficult anymore. And I think that that’s maybe just years of creating boundaries and it’s kind of just settled by now. And also just realizing that you can take too many pictures on a vacation and kind of mess up your vacation like you can try to, you know, get too much out of a family moment for the blog and kind of like be a downer for everyone. So I think we kind of got that out of the way maybe earlier. And I know I did earlier in my relationship with my husband. And nowadays we’re kind of just chill to the max.

Emma: Yeah. Yeah. And I just don’t really view, like, we definitely do share our lives on the blog. And like, when I write posts, I definitely try to talk about my life and like why I came up with this recipe or when I make it or you know what this — where this craft lives in my home or whatever. It is definitely very personal, but it does not at all to me feel like my entire life, like you will get a 100 percent full picture of who Emma Chapman is if you read A Beautiful Mess, it’s like, no, I mean, this part of her is the real me. But there’s just a lot more like humans are very complex. We have lots of different things. I mean, there’s 24 hours a day and you only see my crafts and cooking like I do other things, too, you know? So it never really feels like my whole life is about content. It doesn’t feel that way to me at all. I can totally understand why someone thinks that, I don’t find it offensive or anything, but it just that it’s not at all what my life feels like to me.

Elsie: Agree. So, OK, one last thing I want to say about this question is like in case you haven’t met a lot of influencers because we have.

Emma: Yeah.

Elsie: And it’s kind of like most of our friends. And while many of our friends are influencers…

Emma: It’s our industry we work in.

Elsie: Yeah, it’s what we do. So never, ever look at someone’s life on the Internet and assume that you really know them. You know, people can be really surprising. People can be really different than how you think they’re going to be. And I think that we’re surprising. I think most people I’ve ever met are surprising. And I think most people have a lot more privately that you’d never see.

Emma: Yeah. And that’s for the most part, like how it should be. Like, it’s good. It’s all good. You know, like we don’t none of us are living with, like, a camera filming us 24/7, you know, that like weird first reality show. It’s like just not what any of us are doing. So, yeah. There you go. There you go. Moving on, next question. OK, you can say the next one.

Emma: OK, what is an average workday like for you? I feel like it’s probably a little different this year, but let’s just.

Elsie: Yes, an average covid workday for me. So I definitely see a lot less people do a lot more online meetings, which I love. I love the zoom culture and I hope it stays forever. I think zoom culture simplified things a lot.

Emma: Yeah.

Elsie: And yeah, I’ve been really great, but I kind of try to speed work because my children are home quite a bit and we do have a part-time nanny right now, but it’s, it’s not full time and our hours are still limited and I’m still splitting a lot of time with my husband. So yeah, we’re pretty much just speed working batch working. I work with Collin quite a bit. We have our mask’s protocol with each other and that’s been great. Actually, not not a big deal at all. And I do tons of meetings and stuff. I feel like I spend a lot of my day texting with the behind the scenes part of our team, you know, and, you know, it’s always fun days when we get to shoot a shoot day is exciting. A podcast recording day is exciting. That’s the stuff that you see. But a lot of it is behind the scenes, filling out forms and papers and helping people complete things that they need to complete.

Emma: Yeah, lots of emails and communication. Yeah, I’m pretty much the same. I like start work around eight or nine and before that I usually try to work out like I’ll go for a run or I’ll even spend like twenty minutes stretching or I’ll do a little modified body pump at my house by myself which if you don’t know is a class at my gym that I used to go to a lot. So I usually try to do that in the morning and yeah, I start working around eight or nine and I usually work till five or six and I’m kind of a homebody, so I stay home a lot. And those are most of my average days really. So and yeah, I work alone, but we have so many meetings and texts and calls that it really doesn’t…it feels like I have a lot of communication with my team. I don’t feel like I sometimes feel like they’re waiting on me to like finish something or be more available or like get to their email, you know. But but I definitely do feel like we have a lot of communication. Luckily, it was all like that before this year. So it hasn’t changed that much, which is really nice. So yeah, yes, I work on a computer most of the day. It’s really not that riveting, but I love my job. So there you go.

Elsie: Yeah.

Emma: OK, next question.

Elsie: Ok, what is the good and bad about working with your sister. Oh I love this question because it’s probably like one of our most asked questions, like a lot of people, like they have a sister, but they’re like I could never work with my sister as a business partner…

Emma: I hear ya. No just kidding (laughs)

Elsie: Yeah, OK. So the good I think is like we truly are, like if you’ve heard the term work wife, I feel like our relationship is so deep. And so what’s the word like time tested.

Emma: Yeah, we definitely have each other’s backs and like the trust and loyalty…

Elsie: Endurance…

Emma: We never question…

Elsie: Yes.

Emma: From one another.

Elsie: So I feel like in that way, like if you work with people where you don’t know if you’ll be. Working together in five or 10 years or, you know, you work with someone you don’t really like that much, but you still have to get along like we don’t have those problems, which is awesome. The problems we do have are we have had some of the most sad fights that and I mean, a lot of it was a while ago in our establishing years, which is good.

Emma: Yeah.

Elsie: But when I think back on them and like recently in my therapy, I was telling my counselor about one of them because she was like, why do you think you have this problem? And I realized it was it was directly from a fight we had once where we said some weird stuff, really mean shit. Yeah. So I think that those like Kardashian type of fights that you, it’s it’s a drama that you never forget. I think that’s the sad part because.

Emma: Yeah.

Elsie: You know, it’s like…

Emma: It cuts you deep because you love them so much.

Elsie: Sometimes you so when someone says something or you say something that you can’t ever take back and that is. Yeah. Horrible.

Emma: Someone had recommended that we do an episode about our biggest fights. And I think it’s an interesting idea.

Elsie: Mm hmm.

Emma: And I’m sure people would love to hear it because who doesn’t love a little drama? But I also was like, will it be too sad? Because that’s what a fight is. It’s like one of the low points.

Elsie: Yeah.

Emma: And so I was like, I don’t know. I mean, it’s not like I think everything has to be happy butterflies all the time. But I just was like, oh, I don’t know. Part of me is like unsure if that’s a good idea.

Elsie: Now I feel like I don’t have to do it because they’re going to want to hear it. You know, they’re going to like that idea.

Emma: This is kind of a tease. I’m teasing. I’m seeing if people are going to be like, no, we’re already sad. Don’t do it, or…

Elsie: Tell us if you think…maybe we should wait till 2020 is over? Yeah.

Emma: I don’t know.

Elsie: No more sadness in twenty twenty.

Emma: I’m not against t at all. I just was kind of like, I guess I will show like the trajectory though because we’ve clearly made it through.

Elsie: It’s true.

Emma: Anyway. Well I don’t know. We’re still thinking on it.

Elsie: It’s always easier for me to talk about something really hard after a few years has gone by. I don’t have a struggle anymore. But at the time, it’s so hard.

Emma: Especially when, you know, you were the person who said some mean shit, you know, which I’m pointing my finger at myself right now. I’m like, well, it feels a little better to have some time from it. So I can be like, yeah, I, I have enough time now where I feel like I’ve shown that I truly was sorry about that. I’ve taken action to move forward, you know what I mean. Like, it’s just hard, it’s hard to love people because we’re all flawed.

Elsie: Yeah.

Emma: Surprise!

Elsie: Well clearly our fights are horrible and now you know that. So…

Emma: You did say Kardashian level, so.

Elsie: I’ve never even seen the Kardashians. I’m just assuming there’s good fights on there.

Emma: There must be. I haven’t seen it either. Laura would know. Laura’s into it.

Elsie: Please advise. All right. How has your beauty routine changed since covid? (laughs) This is funny. I feel like I don’t even have a beauty routine anymore.

Emma: Did you have one before?

Elsie: Yes.

Emma: Okay (laughs).

Elsie: I had a lot more of a routine than I have now, and I do think I’ll pick it up again at some point. Hopefully maybe next year, soon. But for this year I feel like I’ve been surviving. Like I mentioned a little bit ago, we have had our kids home a lot this year and a lot. Yeah, there’s a lot of things I just let go and wearing makeup on my face, if you like, see a picture where I’m wearing makeup that was like one in a million.

Emma: It was a special day.

Elsie: It’s just not a thing I care about right now, which I think is fine. Yeah. And what about you?

Emma: My answer is opposite, mine is exactly the same…

Elsie: (laughs)

Emma: Because oddly enough, my like life like I just kind of described my work day. It didn’t…like for me it just didn’t change that much because I don’t have children and I already worked from home. So, you know, I had like we had like a couple of months where Trey also worked from home, which was different. Like, he doesn’t usually…they have a very small office.

Elsie: He was always in the background every time I called.

Emma: I know.

Elsie: He was always back there. (laughs).

Emma: I was like, try not to talk bad about Trey. He’s here. No, I’m just kidding. She doesn’t do that. (laughs) Well, yeah. So that was different. But not like my life’s really similar this year, which is weird because so many other peoples have been turned upside down. But mine’s relatively the same, it turns out have been quarantined for five years. So my beauty routine is the same. Like I have days, I wear makeup, I have days I don’t. I’m really more like pretty, pretty up on my skin care routine. I don’t deviate too much from that. But my makeup, I sometimes wear it, sometimes don’t. Whatever.

Elsie: I need a facial more than I need anything except for maybe a massage.

Emma: I really want a massage.

Elsie: I really, really need that in the future. But I just haven’t felt ready yet. I haven’t been doing appointments. I don’t think I’ve done any almost any appointments this year. So. Yeah. All right. The next question, which dead celebrity would you choose to haunt your house?

Emma: Yes, I love this question. It’s so weird.

Elsie: It’s so silly. I know I was talking to Jeremy about it and he had like the strangest ideas, and then we both were like, it’s I don’t know, it’s like a cool celebrity. A lot of times would be too sad, and they might be scary.

Emma: Right. That’s what I thought I’m like “hmm?”

Elsie: And then a funny celebrity, that might be annoying.

Emma: Might be annoying. Yeah.

Elsie: A child celebrity.

Emma: That’s too creepy.

Elsie: Yeah. No I like it. I kind of I think that where I landed besides David Bowie, I would always pick him to be my ghost. Of course. And I hope the ghost can still change costumes because that’s a big part of why I want him.

Emma: Right. I’m sure they can.

Elsie: I think I would rather have a regular person ghost. I don’t think I want a celebrity ghost. That’s my answer.

Emma: Too much pressure.

Elsie: Too much. Too weird.

Emma: Well David Bowie would be rad, of course he’s up there. I think though what I landed on, I felt the same. I was like, some people are too dramatic, or might be funny, but it might be like like there’s days I’m like, dude, don’t even like I don’t really want your routine right now. So I want to kind of landed on was I think it would be cool to have Mister Rogers haunt my house (laughs). I feel like it would just be the right amount of of like simple quiet pep talk you need every once in a while. I feel like Mr. Rogers is my speed.

Elsie: It’s true. Every once in a while you would just feel a creepy pat on the back.

Emma: Yeah. Or just a little puppet pop up slowly and be like “you’re doing a good job”, you know or something (laughs), and it’s like that’s what I needed. Thank you.

Elsie: Good choice, Emma. Ok, we are to our last question and it’s a good one. If A Beautiful Mess was done and you could start fresh, what career would you choose…

Emma: So like a second career?

Elsie: Like your second second life, which I love. You know, I love thinking about this.

Emma: Oh yes.

Elsie: You go first because I still have to think mine’s so obvious, but maybe someone doesn’t know. I would definitely want to be a writer of fiction. I’m trying to write fiction right now and I need to do what we need to do an episode where I update people and where I’m at with my book because I’m finished. I’ve been submitting it and I do have some news. So we need to do a little update at some point, maybe the next one or whatever. We’ll figure it out. But yeah, I love reading and I just yeah, it really makes me excited to escape into another world. This is going to sound so cheesy. And so I just I love the idea and I also really love being alone. Like, I really enjoy working alone and just like being in a quiet space, like I was one of those kids in high school who often would eat her lunch in the library because it was quiet. I didn’t, like, get picked on or anything. I feel like you say that people think…

Elsie: Emma loves the quiet.

Emma: Yeah, I love people. I really do. I’m very social, but I need a lot of time alone. And so I think writing would really suit me as far as the lifestyle of it. And I also I love reading and I would love the thought of people reading things that I wrote, stories that, you know, entertain them or make them feel something would be so cool. I would love it. So I really hope that will be part of my life. I’m not really planning to change my career because I love my job, but I would love that to be like a little part of my life. And we’ll see if it happens. Yeah. What’s your start fresh job?

Elsie: OK, so I’m just such a blogger. All my first ideas are like I would start this kind of a blog or this kind of a website or this kind of a, you know, definitely have more app ideas, more site ideas. But I’m trying to pick something that really is different because I feel like that’s what the person wanted to hear who asked this question?

Emma: Probably. Yeah.

Elsie: So I think that I would enjoy and I don’t think I’ll be able to do this. And in my own life, I think I would enjoy being a designer and designing, you know, like my bucket list is to design a hotel. I would love to design a restaurant. I would love to design like one of my friends in Nashville, you know, Katie, who started Porter Flea, she’s a designer and she’s designed some of our favorite restaurants in Nashville. And I do always get a little FOMO from that.

Emma: That would be fun.

Elsie: So I think that’s really cool. I don’t think I would be good at it, honestly. I think I’m much better at what I do now. But I think it sounds exciting and fun.

Emma: I think it’d be fun to do a little motel someday. You know.

Elsie: Whatever I did in life, I like jobs that go from project to project. That’s definitely a thing that I love.

Emma: Yeah, you like to kind of start finish something and then start, finish the next one and. Yeah, yes. Yeah I see that.

Elsie: Thank you so much for listening to A Beautiful Mess podcast. We are still collecting ghost stories, but your time is running very short. You can send them to a podcast at A Beautiful Mess dot com and we’ll talk to you guys next week!

Emma: Bye!

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10 Things I Love Sunday

Sun, 20 Sep 2020 13:00:34 GMT

Hi everyone! We are officially living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania now instead of Nashville, Tennessee. We are kind of in that limbo area where we are out of our old house but not quite into our new place yet so we are staying with my parents until we can get all our stuff settled in. Definitely feels like we are a little all over the place right now but here are some other things that have brought a smile to my face this week …

1. This blanket!!

2. Elsie tuned me into this clean shampoo and conditioner set and I am in love!! I don’t think I’ve ever used product that’s made my hair feel so amazing and when I added in their hair oil it took my hair to the next level. Like, it was so silky that I couldn’t get it to stay in a satin scrunchie at night because my hair was so smooth and shiny it just fell right out!

3. This wooden tea set is just too sweet!

4. If I was a boot I think I’d be this pair … (it’s not too early to shop for boots, right?!)

5. While we are waiting to move into our new house, we are staying with my parents in their small cottage-style home (with our two cats as well!) and I’ve been loving all the time that Lola is getting to spend with her grandparents and the special things we are getting to do together already. We actually got into town the night before my mom’s birthday so it felt really special to be together on a birthday rather than making a phone call from several states away. I’ll definitely be feeling a little unsettled and out of place for a while as one always does with a big transition, but it’s great to already feel the benefits of such a big move.

6. Can’t wait to find a spot for this weaving from the ABM + Etsy collection in our new house—so pretty!!

7. I don’t know if this is officially a fall snack, but it’s always the time of year that I crave it most!

8. Ordered this bed for Lola’s new room—so excited to decorate that and make it a special place for her! Her room isn’t very big so I also got her this thinner bookcase for some books as well.

9. This speckled dinner plate set.

10. Snagged these affordable matching Halloween pjs for Lola and me! I thought a Halloween craft kit would be fun and I also love these cutie hanging spiders for her room (and they are only $4!).

Here I am in our new living room above! We bought another mid-century house and are so excited to see it come to life and fill it with lots of love and new memories. We have a lot of issues in the house that we have to fix (some you can easily see and some you can’t), but I’ve already started thinking about Christmas in our new space, so trying to focus on the positive while we live in a bit of reno zone for a while. Moving cross country with little ones is so stressful but hoping to feel a bit more settled soon! xo. Laura

Caramel Apple Moscow Mule

Sat, 19 Sep 2020 13:00:40 GMT

I love a seasonal cocktail. A crisp fall-themed drink is the perfect way to welcome in the season around a campfire or with a cozy sweater on a front porch. We are big fans of the classic moscow mule cocktail (you can try it as a jello shot too!) but did you know that with just a few more ingredients you can make a caramel apple moscow mule as well?! Sign me up!

Caramel Apple Moscow Mule, serves one

1.5 ounces caramel vodka
2 ounces ginger beer
4 ounces apple cider
1/2 a lime
green apple slice for garnish

Add your caramel vodka, ginger beer, and apple cider into your copper cup (I love these copper mugs!) over ice.
Squeeze half a lime into your cup and give it all a little stir.
Slice your apple horizontally to get an apple circle and slice halfway into the middle to create a garnish for your cup.
Now your perfect fall drink is ready to serve!

Yum! My husband, Todd, is a classic mule aficionado but he was very happy when I handed him one of these this week. Like all cocktails, feel free to tweak the ingredient amount if you like yours to be more apple or more ginger beer tasting (I liked mine a little heavier on the cider). And if I had really been on my toes, I would have added a skewer with caramel cubes on it as well for a little treat. Hope this makes your fall a little more delicious!! xo. Laura

Credits//Author and Photography: Laura Gummerman. Photos edited with A Color Story Desktop.

Elsie’s Fall Capsule Wardrobe

Fri, 18 Sep 2020 12:50:18 GMT

Hello hello!!!! 2020 hasn’t exactly been a great outfit year for me … (typed with yoga pants lol), but I still felt inspired to create a capsule for fall and do a bit of shopping. I think I have finally settled into somewhat of a “new normal” and I’m realizing that not having a “place to wear something” is really not that big of a deal. I mean, I miss restaurants and vacations as much as anyone. But I’m still enjoying the occasional dress up just to impress myself (and my husband too, I suppose—my kids definitely do not notice, haha). Mainly, I am the only one who cares, and guess what? That’s enough!!!

My theme for the remainder of 2020: comfy items that bring joy!

OK … get in loser, we’re going shopping!

Tops

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 / 11

Dresses + Jumpsuits

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9

Pants + Skirts

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 / 11

Shoes

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8

Coats + Jackets

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6

Pajamas (just for 2020 they get their own category)

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8

2020 Themed Bonus Items

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 / 11

xo! Elsie

Make Your Own Vinyl Decal (For a Mirror)

Thu, 17 Sep 2020 13:24:14 GMT

Hello friends! I wanted to share a few tips around making your own vinyl decal for a mirror (or window). This is one of those little projects that absolutely anyone can do and it can add so much personalty and joy to a space.

I worked with Canon USA to create this post, printing with my trusty PIXMA TS9521C. I know you’ve heard me talk about this printer before because I’ve had it a long time and I use it for EVERYTHING. I print small little projects like this, personal photos, and also work-related documents and things. I love this printer for its function, but I also love the sleek look and the fact that it comes in white. It sits right beside my home office desk as I use it nearly every day (especially this year!).

It’s a little tricky to photograph text on a mirror (as there is always something reflecting in the background, since, well, it’s a mirror). It looks great in our bedroom, but if you can’t make out all the words it’s a quote from RuPaul that says, “If you can’t love yourself, how the hell are you gonna love somebody else?” Which I love! It’s such a simple and powerful statement. Plus, it doesn’t hurt to have a little reminder to love yourself when looking at yourself in the mirror. Like most people, I struggle with some self doubt and negative self talk now and again, so I love having RuPaul telling me to knock that off. Ha. I for sure want to live a life full of love for others and so I think he’s right, it has to start with ourselves first.

As I mentioned above, this project is super simple. Here’s what you need:
–Canon PIXMA TS9521C
–inkjet compatible vinyl paper
-scissors or X-Acto knife
-masking or painter’s tape
-ruler

And of course you’ll also want to know what mirror or window you plan to add your design to. You could also add this to the inside of a window or other glass or non-porous surfaces. Anyway, slick where you feel you need to add a little pep talk. ????

Step One: Plan your design. You may want to print a few of the words or a portion of the design on plain copy paper first to make sure it’s the size you want for your mirror/surface.

Step Two: Once you have your design ready, print to your vinyl paper.

Step Three: Cut out your design. This is where you may want scissors or even an X-Acto knife if you want to get super precise so only your printed design will show. Up to you.

Step Four: Add the design to the mirror. To make sure the words were straight, I measured from the side of my mirror and added painter’s tape so I could use that as a guide while I adhered the vinyl pieces. Then peel the tape away once you’re done and clean the glass gently to remove any fingerprints or smudges from working.

That’s it—simple! You could do any quote or phrase you want. You could also print a design or a mixture of the two. With my leftover vinyl papers, I was thinking about making a moaning Myrtle decal for my bathroom mirror for Halloween next month (all you Potter fans will get that reference). Lots of ways to change this up. Enjoy and remember to love yourself, friends! -Emma

Credit // Author: Emma Chapman. Photography: Janae Hardy and Emma Chapman. Photos edited with A Color Story Desktop.

Halloween Countdown Calendar (ready)

Wed, 16 Sep 2020 12:56:30 GMT

Aunt Emma (as she is known in my house) came up with the idea to make our girls a Halloween countdown calendar this year. I immediately said “YES, YOU’RE BRILLIANT.” We thought 2020 would be a great time to begin a tradition like this since many of us probably will not be trick-or-treating this year or able to partake in other special traditions like big parties. So why not start this fun (and very spooky!) tradition to enjoy a little bit of Halloween magic allllll month long in October? I pretty much set out to make a Halloween version of our Christmas advent calendar since we love that one so much.

Keely helped me design this amazing printable. My suggestion is to use a mix of activities and then in some of the days, just put a candy. And use a calendar to strategically place the movies on the weekends (if you’re like us and mainly just watch movies on weekends). Feel free to add your own activities and traditions. The printable we made is mainly just stuff my little kids would enjoy and nostalgia from my childhood. Other ideas you can include are stickers or coloring pages. Customize it to fit your kiddos!

As far as the DIY goes, this is a pretty simple project. I completed it over a two-day period. I probably spent about 4-5 hours on it. It would take half the time if you just eliminated the embroidery stitching, but I really enjoy doing that and like the look of it.

Supplies:
–dowel rod
-large piece of felt for banner (I got a half yard at the craft store).
–colored felt for pockets
-embellishments for pockets (I used a lot of buttons, some embroidery, some stamps with permanent ink, a bit of paint and some wood stars).

My complete banner is 18 inches wide and 32 inches long. Each pocket is 3×3 inches.

The first step is to cut out your banner and the 31 pockets. I embellished all the pockets before gluing them down (you can also sew them down, but I just moved and I don’t even know where my sewing machine is at the moment). I like to lay them all out and embellish until it feels done. I did a lot of stamped buttons and stars. The buttons are sewn on and the wood stars are glued on. After all the embellishments were done and dry, I used glue on three sides of each piece of felt to create a pocket.

Next, use glue to create a loop that holds your dowel rod in. Then tie a string to each side of the rod to hang it on the wall. As you can see in my photos below, I also used a garland to make mine a little more spooky. I found my garland, and actually all these supplies at JOANN. This pumpkin button is so cute.

Here’s the completed garland! I can NOT wait for October to start using it with our girls, but I wanted to post it here early enough for you to have time to get all the supplies and make yours before October begins! Wishing you a magical spooky season. Soak it in! xx. Elsie

Halloween Advent Calendar

Author Elsie Larson

Ingredients

dowel rod
large piece of felt for banner (I got a half yard at the craft store)
colored felt for pockets
embellishments for pockets (I used a lot of buttons, some embroidery, some stamps with permanent ink, a bit of paint and some wood stars).

Instructions

The first step is to cut out your banner and the 31 pockets. I embellished all the pockets before gluing them down (you can also sew them down, but I just moved and I don’t even know where my sewing machine is at the moment). I like to lay them all out and embellish until it feels done. I did a lot of stamped buttons and stars. The buttons are sewn on and the wood stars are glued on. After all the embellishments were done and dry, I used glue on three sides of each piece of felt to create a pocket.
Next, use glue to create a loop that holds your dowel rod in. Then tie a string to each side of the rod to hang it on the wall. As you can see in my photos below, I also used a garland to make mine a little more spooky. I found my garland, and actually all these supplies at JOANN. This pumpkin button is so cute.

Credits// Author: Elsie Larson. Photography: Amber Kelly. Photos edited with A Color Story Desktop.

Rocky Road Caramel Popcorn!

Tue, 15 Sep 2020 12:55:28 GMT

Yep, you read that right. Rocky road caramel popcorn. You’re all welcome!! My little toddler loves herself something sweet and all things popcorn, so I was trying to think of a fun twist on a caramel corn to make at home for her. Since rocky road is one of my favorite ice cream flavors, well, combining the two seemed a like a good way to please everyone! If you haven’t made caramel popcorn at home before, it’s surprisingly easy and I’ll show you how!
Rocky Road Caramel Popcorn, makes 7 cups
Recipe adapted from Two Sisters Crafting’s Easy Homemade Caramel Corn

6 cups freshly popped popcorn
1/2 cup vegan butter (if you don’t need non-dairy you can do regular butter)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup chocolate chips (I like this vegan option)
1/2 cup toasted almonds (roughly chopped)
1/2 cup mini marshmallows

First, you are going to start with 6 cups of freshly popped popcorn (you’ll use a little less than 1/4 cup of kernels to get 6 cups). Set popcorn aside.

Add your butter to a pot and let it melt over medium heat. Once melted, add in your brown sugar and mix them to combine.

Let your butter and sugar melt come to a boil over medium heat while stirring and then and let it boil for 4 minutes without stirring. After 4 minutes, add your vanilla and stir. Wait one more minute and then add in your baking soda and stir.

While your caramel is cooking you can take your roughly chopped almonds and put them in a dry pan over medium heat for a few minutes, making sure to check and stir them often, until you get a nice toasted color and delicious smell. Set them aside to cool.

Pour the caramel over the popcorn while you gently mix the popcorn around (you want to kind of fold it in) and let it cool slightly. I like to do a few shakes of salt at this point as well to get that salty/sweet combo.

Now, here’s a part where you can decide what you want to do. If you want some melted chocolate and malted marshmallows in your popcorn, you’ll want to add half of each in now while the popcorn is still warm so they will melt and coat some of the pieces.

Then, once the popcorn is totally cool, you can add in the rest of your ingredients so those won’t be melted. If you do the melty method, depending on the chocolate chips you use, they may remain a little melty once the popcorn has cooled. But you can pop the popcorn into the fridge for a few minutes to let it set.

Don’t I have such a cute helper?!

If you aren’t doing the melty method, just allow the popcorn to cool and then mix in your marshmallows, toasted nuts, and chocolate chips. Eat within a day or two and store in an airtight container (mine actually kept pretty well in a metal tin in the fridge for a few days).

Let’s just say that one phrase came to mind when I was eating this—it’s dangerously good. Like, I had to slow my pace of eating it because I was basically shoveling it into my mouth at one point. YUM! Lola loved to help add in all the mix-ins at the end and her face lit up like a Christmas tree when she tasted it—yay! Hope this treat helps bring a bright spot into your week as well! xo. Laura

Rocky Road Caramel Popcorn

Servings 7 cups

Ingredients

6 cups freshly popped popcorn
1/2 cup vegan butter if you don’t need non-dairy you can do regular butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup chocolate chips I like this vegan option
1/2 cup toasted almonds roughly chopped
1/2 cup mini marshmallows

Instructions

First, you are going to start with 6 cups of freshly popped popcorn (you’ll use a little less than 1/4 cup of kernels to get 6 cups). Set popcorn aside.
Add your butter to a pot and let it melt over medium heat. Once melted, add in your brown sugar and mix them to combine.
Let your butter and sugar melt come to a boil over medium heat while stirring and then and let it boil for 4 minutes without stirring. After 4 minutes, add your vanilla and stir. Wait one more minute and then add in your baking soda and stir.
Let your butter and sugar melt come to a boil over medium heat while stirring and then and let it boil for 4 minutes without stirring. After 4 minutes, add your vanilla and stir. Wait one more minute and then add in your baking soda and stir.
Pour the caramel over the popcorn while you gently mix the popcorn around (you want to kind of fold it in) and let it cool slightly. I like to do a few shakes of salt at this point as well to get that salty/sweet combo.
Now, here’s a part where you can decide what you want to do. If you want some melted chocolate and malted marshmallows in your popcorn, you’ll want to add half of each in now while the popcorn is still warm so they will melt and coat some of the pieces.
Then, once the popcorn is totally cool, you can add in the rest of your ingredients so those won’t be melted. If you do the melty method, depending on the chocolate chips you use, they may remain a little melty once the popcorn has cooled. But you can pop the popcorn into the fridge for a few minutes to let it set.
If you aren’t doing the melty method, just allow the popcorn to cool and then mix in your marshmallows, toasted nuts, and chocolate chips. Eat within a day or two and store in an airtight container (mine actually kept pretty well in a metal tin in the fridge for a few days).

Credits // Author and Photography: Laura Gummerman. Photos edited with A Color Story Desktop.

Candy Corn Jello Shots!

Mon, 14 Sep 2020 19:00:58 GMT

First of all, if this post title made your eyes bug out and your mouth silently whispered, “OMG,” then you’re welcome. Second of all, you may have thought, “Hmm, what is the actual flavor of candy corn?” Well, if you look up the ingredients and nutritional information, you’ll notice that the main flavor profile is pretty much just straight up sugar. There are also a few different versions of this shot floating around the Internet, and nobody else seems to feel that candy corn has a distinct flavor either. So, I didn’t worry too much about replicating the flavor so much as the sugar content. But good news! I think I succeeded.

OK. This first step will make both your first and last layer, so once it’s mixed together, we will save half of this mixture for the end. Pour 1 cup of water into a small saucepan and pour 2 packets of the unflavored gelatin into the water.

Also, I used disposable tall shot glasses (I used these).

Warm the water and gelatin over a low heat, stirring occasionally, until all the gelatin has dissolved (about 5 minutes). Remove pan from the heat and add 1/2 your can of condensed milk to the mixture. Stir until the ingredients combine. Add 2/3 cup vanilla vodka. Cover and set aside half of your milk mixture (you’ll add food coloring to it and use it as your last layer later). Evenly distribute the first half of your mixture throughout your 20 shots (just don’t fill them more than 1/3 of the way full). Refrigerate your shots until firm (30-40 minutes).

When the first layer is firm, pour another 1 cup of water into your saucepan and add 1 packet of gelatin to make your middle layer. Warm the water until the gelatin dissolves, remove from heat, and stir in the box of orange Jell-O until that dissolves as well. Add 1/3 cup vanilla vodka. Evenly distribute orange layer on top of white layer and refrigerate until chilled.

When your orange layer is solid, retrieve the second half of your milk mixture that you set aside in the first step and add in a few drops of yellow food coloring. If the mixture has already started to set, put it in the microwave until warm and still until the lumps dissolve. Distribute your yellow layer on top of the orange and put it back into the fridge until it sets.

Whoa!! These guys are looking authentic! Once all your layers are set, you are ready to serve your candy corn creations.

Serve these on a spooky black tray and the color will really pop! Obviously it goes without saying (but I will anyways) that these would be perfect for any fall gathering or Halloween party. The flavor ends up a yummy orange cream concoction, and you can even make these the night before your party, which is always a plus in my book. I also hope you appreciate that, in a rare move, I restrained myself from using puns in this post. I didn’t want it to become too candy corny…heh heh. xo. Laura

Credits // Author: Laura Gummerman, Photography: Laura Gummerman & Sarah Rhodes.

Candy Corn Jello Shots

Servings 20

Ingredients

1 small box orange-flavored Jell-O 3 oz
3 envelopes Knox unflavored gelatin
7 oz. sweetened condensed milk 1/2 of a 14 oz. can
2 cups water
1 cup vanilla or cake vodka add more if you like strong shots
yellow food coloring
tall shot glasses

Instructions

Ok. This first step will make both your first and last layer, so once it's mixed together, we will save half of this mixture for the end. Pour 1 cup of water into a small saucepan and pour 2 packets of the unflavored gelatin into the water. Warm the water and gelatin over a low heat, stirring occasionally, until all the gelatin has dissolved (about 5 minutes). Remove pan from the heat and add 1/2 your can of condensed milk to the mixture. Stir until the ingredients combine. Add 2/3 cup vanilla vodka. Cover and set aside half of your milk mixture (you'll add food coloring to it and use it as your last layer later). Evenly distribute the first half of your mixture throughout your 20 shots (just don't fill them more than 1/3 of the way full). Refrigerate your shots until firm (30-40 minutes).
When the first layer is firm, pour another 1 cup of water into your saucepan and add 1 packet of gelatin to make your middle layer. Warm the water until the gelatin dissolves, remove from heat, and stir in the box of orange Jell-O until that dissolves as well. Add 1/3 cup vanilla vodka. Evenly distribute orange layer on top of white layer and refrigerate until chilled.
When your orange layer is solid, retrieve the second half of your milk mixture that you set aside in the first step and add in a few drops of yellow food coloring. If the mixture has already started to set, put it in the microwave until warm and still until the lumps dissolve. Distribute your yellow layer on top of the orange and put it back into the fridge until set.

Episode #52: It’s Spooky Season + The Home Edit Joins Us!

Mon, 14 Sep 2020 12:54:45 GMT

Hello, hello. It’s officially spooky season (our podcast, our rules) and this week we’re chatting about all the fall things. We’re also joined by Clea and Joanna of The Home Edit! They’ve got a new Netflix show streaming as well as a book that’s about to launch … so we have a lot of chat about.

You can stream the episode here on the blog or on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, and Stitcher. You can find the podcast posts archive here.

Show Notes:

-Link to David’s Tea Forever Nuts and Harney + Son’s Hot Cinnamon Tea.

-Here’s a link to our Pumpkin Spice Recipe (vegan friendly!)

-The garland and the Halloween advent Elsie mentions will be up soon as full DIYs!

-Here’s a peek at Emma’s space decorated for autumn:

-Emma mentions Julie Blanner.

-Here’s a link to Emma’s coffee mug rack.

-Here’s a link to Elsie’s spooky village—a fun tradition with kiddos.

-Here’s some links to Elsie’s Etsy sweaters … Sanderson, Beetlejuice and I got these for our girls. Also Camp Walden.

-Here’s a link to Emma’s favorite chili recipes and favorite soup recipes.

-Here are links to our past Friendsgiving celebrations and favorite recipes.

-Send your ghost stories to podcast AT abeautifulmess DOT com They don’t have to be long or scary … they can be anything. But we want the full details and we’re so excited to read your stories! We only want real stories from personal experiences (not a friend of a friend told you once at a party).

-If you are here JUST for The Home Edit their segment starts at 23:28 (you’re welcome!)

-Here’s a link to Get Organized With The Home Edit on Netflix!

-Here’s a link to the new book, The Home Edit Life. It launches this week!

–Here’s a link to The Home Edit Container Store Collection.

–Elfa over the door storage shelves for the back of your door.

–Cart link.

-Go-to options for avoiding plastic containers.

–Hyacinth

–Montauk basket with linen liner (better for clothing)

–Bamboo

–Rattan

-So, the super secret cleaning products Rume by The Home Edit … I wish everyone could have seen it. It’s very stylish and cool! You’re going to love them!

-If you’re not already following The Home Edit, be sure and follow them on IG here.

OK … it’s election season. REGISTER TO VOTE please, please, please. If you’ve moved or you aren’t 100% sure you are registered, stop everything and take five minutes to register!

Episode 52 Transcript

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Elsie: You’re listening to A Beautiful Mess podcast, we decided to kick off this first episode of September by officially declaring it spooky season. I have to say the online debate that happens every year about how soon is too soon to decorate for Halloween kind of amuses me. But spoiler, I already ordered a Christmas tree this week, so I am ahead of all of you. We’re also going to be sharing an interview with the Home Edit, they have a brand new Netflix show that just launched this past week, as well as a book coming out. So big month for them and we are so excited to have them on the show. So Emma, have you ordered your first pumpkin spice latte yet?

Emma: No…

Elsie: Still no?!

Emma: Still no. So we are rerecording this episode because I had a technical difficulty last time and she asked me last time and I was like, no. And the today, seriously, I had to go to the bank for some reason and there’s a Starbucks right by our bank. But the line was so long for the drive thru, and I was like, well…

Elsie: Oh yeah, it always is.

Emma: But I am drinking some David’s Tea Forever Nuts right now.

Elsie: Ooh, nice.

Emma: Which is kind of full time.

Elsie: It is. I really love that tea and the cinnamon one. The Harney and Sons cinnamon…what is it called? Cinnamon…

Emma: Hot cinnamon.

Elsie: Hot cinnamon!

Emma: I don’t know if it’s called that. (Laughs).

Elsie: That’s so good. Ok, yeah. So I wish you wouldn’t have told them that this is a rerecord because now it’s making it more embarrassing. But yeah, we did this last week and the sound on Emma’s side was like, (whisper sounds, high pitched voice) hey guys Hey, guys.

Emma: It was like a ghost.

Elsie: We couldn’t use it, you would have hated us. So we threw it in our virtual trash can and we’re redoing it again. But I don’t know, we usually don’t have to do this. So it’s kind of weird because we were just having the same conversation deja vu.

Emma: Well, bad news for you, sister. I’m going to do the exact same jokes. (laughs)

Elsie: Yeah! Oh, not me. Because I like I don’t know. I think that that’s why I would be the worst actor, because it would be like a completely different take every time they would be like, just do what you did. (laughs) I think I have too much energy.

Emma: OK. So, did you have a pumpkin spice latte?

Elsie: Yes, I did. I had a bunch of pumpkin spice lattes. (laughs) I’ll tell you all about it. So our beloved ad manager, Claire, just came back from her maternity card…

Emma: Very beloved.

Elsie: Maternity card? Her maternity leave! (laughs) And she sent me a Starbucks gift card. And I have been making use of that all on pumpkin spice. So I got the pumpkin spice latte and it kind of gave me a headache. And I didn’t like it that much. But, you know, it’s still like a, it’s still a festive rite of passage. And then I had the pumpkin cold brew and I actually liked that one better. I feel like it was more it. Maybe it’s also because it’s still very hot where we live. So maybe that’s why they put it on the menu for those people who go on August twenty eighth to order a pumpkin spice, something, you know.

Emma: Yeah.

Elsie: So yeah, I probably won’t get the frappuccino one. I’ll just stay with the cold brew.

Emma: Really?

Elsie: It’s ok. Yeah I do like frappuccinos but I don’t know. Uh yeah the pumpkin spice is good. So we have a pumpkin spice recipe on our blog and we’ll link it in the show notes. It is years old. We link it every year and the thing that’s cool about it is it’s vegan and the I guess that the pumpkin spice syrup from Starbucks is not vegan. So it’s vegan friendly and it’s very delicious. I mean, you could just put it in regular coffee.

Emma: Here’s a behind the scenes on the pumpkin spice latte syrup. So I made that recipe years ago, like Elsie said, and it’s really good. I make it every year. It’s delicious. And one year Elsie trolled me for my photos. She was like, these photos are disgusting. And so I redid the photos like a year or two ago and they have updated photos. So if anyone out there is like, you know, Emma, you just troll Elsie the entire podcast. That is true. But also we troll each other. (laughs)

Elsie: No we both troll each other. And I wasn’t trolling you. I mean, the early days of food photography, I think for anyone are kind of a shit show. Right?

Emma: Like I yeah, it’s cool to grow.

Elsie: Now Emma’s photography is just like so stunning. But I don’t know, I think that’s just how you look back on old blog posts. I don’t think my photography is better. Mine’s way worse, but I feel now I just take a phone photo if I can get away with it, you know, but…

Emma: Yeah, I’ve noticed that lately. (laughs)

Elsie: I don’t even know where my camera is from moving, OK, I have problems, but let’s move on. Let’s talk about decorating our homes for autumn because I did start a little bit. I thought I wasn’t going to because this week we’re getting wood floors put in our house like everywhere there’s carpet is getting ripped out and wood floors. And it’s a big deal because it’s very hard to move everything around. And so everything’s going to get like a coat of dust on it. And then we have to get like the post-construction cleaning and then re-set everything up. So I figured I would just wait until after all of that. But I had to do a couple of pictures for the blog. So I made this garland and I made a Halloween advent calendar for this year. The thirty-one days in October. So those are up in our living space and they’re giving me a lot of feels. And yeah, I’m so happy. I’m so happy. I did just like a tiny little bit.

Emma: Yeah. The garland is…

Elsie: What about you?

Emma: … I think pretty high impact.

Elsie: Thank you!

Emma: It feels like that corner of your, your house and it’s not really a corner but that living room feels like fall to me. I thought when I saw it.

Elsie: I’m proud of it. It’s a feel good craft. I made it in one naptime. I feel like our old school blog readers really want those crafts that you can just do really fast and they’re really easy and that’s the only thing I know how to do. So I’m really good at writing them.

Emma: Yeah, it’s like a party craft. It’s like you if you had friends over and you made a craft in an hour or two, that’s the type of thing you know.

Elsie: Yes, I love that stuff.

Emma: Well, I have gone HAM with the autumn decorations so far (laughs), so I swapped out my, I have these green like living wall looking panels and I swap them out every year at autumn time for this autumn leaves look. So I did that right away on September 1st and I have a garland up on our piano. I have pumpkins everywhere, just everywhere. I didn’t put up all my foam bats yet. I’m going to wait till a little closer to October, but not much. And one thing I’m working on for the blog is I wanted to do the thing where I fill my fireplace with pumpkins, which I think of this as like a very classic Pinterest thing to do. But my one of my favorite ones, my friend Julie Blanner, you should check out her site, JulieBlanner.com, she has one. And it’s kind of like I think she calls it antique pumpkin fireplace or something. She has this very, like, traditional style. But it’s really cool. Like, if you like traditional style Julie’s your person, she’s amazing. But anyway, so she has that on her site. I’ve always wanted to do it. I’m trying to figure, I got all the pumpkins, though. There was a major sale at Joanne. So I bought all the pumpkins because I knew I wanted to do this and they all came in and my fireplace is pretty deep, so I’m trying to figure out how to get them so they stay in there, but they look the way I’m wanting. I’m probably going to end up doing a blog post about it because I feel like I’m going to have to have a few, like, tips and tricks, because I can already tell, like, oh, I thought this would be super simple. And now I’m like, wait a second, these don’t stay put. They kind of roll out…

Elsie: That’s how it always is.

Emma: And I also am like, I don’t want to have to buy a million pumpkins, but I want to buy enough that it looks full. So is there a way I could kind of fill in the back part. Anyway, So I think I’m going to have a blog post about that. So I have that going and then the last…

Elsie: I would stuff like a big duvet stuffer for in the back probably. (laughs)

Emma: Yeah. Do that or use like some scrap wood that I have? You could also use a cardboard box. I’m going to do that with like fabric like because my the inside of my fireplace is black. So black fabric. That’s kind of what I’m thinking. I haven’t done it yet. So I don’t know if that’s going to work, but I’m going to try.

Elsie: You essentially need a beanbag chair to shove in there.

Emma: Yes. Yeah. And I just have it all year round and I’m like, that’s just the fireplace beanbag chair for when I do my pumpkins (laughs). But yeah. Yeah. Oh. And so I think we were going to talk about this maybe later, but I’ll bring it up now. So I am putting up a coffee mug rack in my kitchen so that I could display my mug collection and I’m so into these mugs.

Elsie: Ten out of ten. She is proud of her holiday mugs and she’s going to do tours of them.

Emma: Yes.

Elsie: On our Instagram. She promised.

Emma: I won’t stop talking about my stupid holiday mug collection.

Elsie: Don’t say stupid!

Emma: That’s just where I’m at. I mean, they’re stupid awesome. (laugh).

Elsie: So anyway, I needed a way to display them. So the…I have a Halloween mug collection. They’re the mugs I use all October. I don’t use any other mugs.

Emma: Yeah.

Elsie: And that’s my thing. And then I have a Christmas mug collection, which is mostly Santa mugs. I really need to get different types of mugs. I need to diversify this year. But I have a big collection of Santa mugs and those are the only mugs I use, coffee mugs for coffee or tea in December. So it’s almost time to get my Halloween mugs out and I wanted them to be displayed this year. Normally, I keep all my coffee mugs up in a cabinet. So I have this rack. I will say it came in the mail and I was putting it together last night and it’s a little bit bigger than I thought it would be I had measured, so the spot that it’s supposed to go, I’m like, I’m going to put it up and see. But I’m not sure that this is the forever coffee mug rack. We’ll see.

Elsie: Don’t settle till you find the perfect coffee mug rack. That is my advice to you.

Emma: Yeah, I yeah. So anyway, we’ll see. It’s definitely good for this year, but I may not…we’ll see. I have to put it up.

Elsie: I am very inspired by this. I want to have a holiday mug collection but I definitely do not. But we are making, so what we do is a spooky village so it’s little wooden birdhouses from the craft store. And then the first year we made quite a few like four or five. And then every year since we add maybe one, maybe two, I don’t know. I don’t think…we’ll see about how this year goes, because now I have two little painters. Yes. That are very into it. But yeah, it’s so much fun to just have these little traditions that you add to every year. I love it now.

Emma: By the time you’re in your 60s, you’re going to have like a million spooky houses.

Elsie: Well, it’s kind of a kid thing, but yeah, I’ll probably if I have a lot of grandkids.

Emma: Yeah. Or like, I don’t know, friends or maybe I don’t know, get Penny in on it.

Elsie: It’s worth it. It’s magical. I’ll take all the spooky houses, I’ll fill up my whole living room with them. I don’t care. Yeah. Yeah.

Emma: What about clothing. Have you bought anything for fall clothing? It could be spooky. It could just be fall.

Elsie: Have I ever. I know. I have been shopping kind of a lot and honestly it’s one of the…

Emma: Nice.

Elsie: Yeah. It’s one of the like quarantine covid-era treats in my life and you know, there are very few. So yeah, I’ve definitely bought some fall clothes, mostly a lot of a lot of pajamas. Lot of stuff for the kids. I did get those pink Doc Martens, I mentioned them a couple of episodes ago that were true joy and you know, a few like cute things, but I know that I’m not going anywhere, but it just is still kind of just for fun and it makes me happy. What about you?

Emma: Well, pajamas, you don’t have to go anywhere. That’s to justify pajamas.

Elsie: I’m still wearing all the clothes. Yeah, don’t worry. Nothing’s being wasted. It’s just bringing me joy and happiness. I got a bunch of spooky sweaters from Etsy. Got a Sanderson one.

Emma: Ok, please put those in the show notes because that’s what I was going to say is…

Elsie: I got a Beetlejuice one.

Emma: Beetlejuice!

Elsie: Yeah.

Emma: Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice.

Elsie: It’s fun. Yeah. Sweaters I mean sweaters and yoga pants is basically like my covid look so. Yeah.

Emma: Yeah. All I’ve done, I haven’t bought anything yet but I’m getting out this so I put all my sweaters away because we have all four seasons. So I put them away for spring and summer because I don’t need them. So I’m about to pull them back out. My sweater collection, which I probably have like I don’t know, eight to ten, including cardigans. So it’s not like massive, but it’s it feels like a lot. I feel sometimes like my closet doubles whenever I pull these out and like put them on hangers. I’m like, oh wow, I have a lot of clothes now, so I’m excited to pull those out. Even though they’re not new. It does feel like, oh, my old friends, there you are again, you know, so but I would really like a Halloween or like spooky sweatshirt or sweater. I don’t feel like I really have too much of that. So I really want to check out your Etsy…

Elsie: Shop the show notes this week, sister, I have your back on that.

Emma: Give me that affiliant link! (laughs)

Elsie: I’m have a bunch of really cute stuff. Yeah, I’ve really been enjoying shopping on Etsy lately for just kind of like silly stuff. Like I got a camp Walden sweater, which is from the Parent Trap, the Lindsay Lohan Parent Trap. You know, it’s that summer camp and I wear it all the time. It makes me so happy. OK, so what recipes are you excited to try out this year? Cause I know you’re looking forward to cooking.

Emma: Always. Yes. So number one on the list is chili. I don’t usually make a lot of chili…

Elsie: Yay!

Emma: …yeah in the summer, so I’m excited to make it here soon. Probably this week, maybe this weekend. And I’ve mentioned this in our food episode. But for me, Chili must be served with Fritos chips.

Elsie: Yeah.

Emma: No exceptions.A.

Elsie: Absolutely. I totally agree.

Emma: But other than chili, just generally soup season, I am so excited for I live for soup, I really do. I know that’s so basic, but I don’t care. I love soup and it’s hard, I’ll eat it all year round, but I don’t enjoy it as much in the summer because it is so hot, it’s so hot and humid where I live. And so it’s not as fun to eat soup. So now I’m like, finally it’s getting kind of chilly, drinking all my tea in my Halloween mugs and making soup every night.

Elsie: For sure. I’m excited to make soup as well. OK, I am so excited to make homemade Chex Mix. You know, I love… I love doing it. It just makes me so happy to put it in a giant jar on the counter and then just like, eat it way too much. I love it.

Emma: Yup. That’s what it’s for.

Elsie: Yes. Yeah. That’s that’s happiness. OK, so I was thinking about Friendsgiving and I looked it up actually in our blog archives. If you don’t know or if you’re whatever new inexperienced of A Beautiful Mess then I will just tell you Friendsgiving, it’s more than just a friend’s Thanksgiving to us. It’s our way of we have a big party. It is usually with our friends. Sometimes some family members come like, you know, our brother and stuff comes a lot and we’ve done it ten times or would have been ten times this year. But, you know, stupid covid, anyway. So what we do is we try all new recipes and photograph a whole bunch of delicious recipes for the blog, and then we blog them all month in preparation for real Thanksgiving. And it’s one of our favorite traditions because, you know, we do all the pictures and it’s fun. And then we actually have, you know, like a fun meal together. And, you know, there’s kids, a part of it. Our niece is ten now. So anyway, we’re definitely a little sad because this year we realized we can’t do Friendsgiving the way we normally do in person together because of travel and other reasons. So we’re thinking of a way we’re trying to think of a way to do sort of like a virtual version of it. So we’re bloggers, we can figure this out. So we’re thinking maybe like we could do an Instagram live week or we could do a series of stories or I’m not really sure what we would love to hear your suggestions if you have a great idea, but we still want to celebrate it. And this year I’ll be staying home for Thanksgiving in Tennessee and not being with family. It’s our second year to do that. And I will say that the recipes on the blog are a great comfort to me. We make Emma’s stuffing meatballs and marble slab pumpkin pie and my amazing Chex Mix.

Emma: Sounds like a feast.

Elsie: Yes. (laughs)

Emma: Yeah, we’ll figure it out. We’ll do something. And on a more minor note, I started this thing last year where I do a haunted house at Elsie’s and I’m not doing that this year either because it doesn’t feel like, you know, it doesn’t seem appropriate.

Elsie: Let me talk so about it a little bit, because I feel like last year I don’t remember what month we started the podcast, but I feel like we didn’t really get to talk about the haunted house. Maybe we did. I don’t think we did.

Emma: I don’t remember.

Elsie: But we OK, so Emma created a…so we have this little historic home. I think we might be selling it. We’re not sure. In the cutest neighborhood in our hometown. And it’s kind of an AirBnB mostly just I stay there, but technically it’s an AirBnB. And so she set up all the rooms like a haunted house that you could walk through, people would walk through. It was kid friendly. It had like the giant opening and closing eyeball projection on the wall. It had a giant full size like life-size, witch in the kitchen that was actually scary to some little kids more than we thought it would be. And then it had a room where there was a couple of rooms where there were skeletons everywhere. Some like…

Emma: We had a spider web room.

Elsie: Spider webs coming off the ceiling.

Emma: And then there was a werewolf and a full moon photo backdrop in the backyard where you would exit and people could get a photo.

Elsie: Oh, yes, Jeremy’s dad was manning that photo booth! It was really, really a wonderful…

Emma: And my theme was goosebumps, it was kind of based off, loosely based off, lots of different Goosebumps books. And we also had fifty used copies of various Goosebumps books that we gave away in addition to candy at the end of the haunted house to kids who would enjoy it. Who are that age.

Elsie: See, this is why she’s the best aunt in the world.

Emma: It was fun and I was like, this is my thing. I found my thing in life. I make a haunted house every year for my small town, Springfield, Missouri, because we had like hundreds of people go through it last year. It was fun.

Elsie: It was so fun.

Emma: And I learned some things like I need more signs. So I was excited to do it this year and I already had my theme picked out, I was going to do old school Jumanji, remember the old Jumanji movie, not the new ones. So which is very spooky, but also kind of a kid’s thing, anyway. It’s not appropriate for this year with covid. So because people would all be in a house and, you know, that’s just not we’re not going to do that, obviously. So so I’m really sad about that. And I’m really sad about Friendsiving. And I’m not trying to be a downer. I know there’s so many these are kind of trivial compared to so many things that other people are. But I also it’s kind of like people…

Elsie: It’s okay to be sad about your haunted house.

Emma: I just it’s I think sometimes it’s nice to let people see you no matter how trivial, like it’s real, you know, so that this is it. And it’s like I’m really sad. I can’t do my haunted house this year and I’m really sad I can’t really do Friendsgiving in the way I’ve done it before. But we will find something else and that will be very fun too. And I’m looking forward to that.

Elsie: Yes, and there’s always next year.

Emma: It’s just been a trying year.

Elsie: Yeah. Yeah, for sure has been a challenging hell of a year. We wanted to give a reminder it’s getting down to the wire. If you want to send a ghost story for our ghost story episodes that are coming out in late October, then you need to send it now to podcast@abeautifulmess.com. And I will tell you specifically what we’re looking for. We’re looking for specific ghost stories. They don’t have to be long. They don’t have to be scary. They just have to be a story that really happened to you or a firsthand account that you heard from someone else. We don’t want like ten people down the line, and give us all the details. We’re so excited to do the episode. So we’re going to do either one or two. We’re not sure yet. Depends on how good your stories are, no pressure.

Emma: And send them to. Did you say to send them to a podcast@abeautifulmess.com? That’s the email.

Elsie: Yes. Yes, we are. We have a person on staff full time. All she does is collect ghost stories and save them for that episode.

Emma: That’s her only job all year round.

Elsie: Right. (laughs) Ok, so last week I recorded an interview over Zoom with Clea and Joanna from The Home Edit. They have a Netflix show that just came out this past week and a book coming out later on this month. It was slightly weird doing this interview with Clea and Joanna because they’re both my real life friends and I haven’t seen either one of them since covid. In fact, I last saw Clea at this kind of infamous now baby shower that was like two days before everyone started coming, or coming, staying home and never saw each other again. So we all remember it as our last time to be normal in March. So anyway, it was so fun catching up with them. And here is the interview without further ado.

Elsie: So I’m very excited to binge your new show. So tell us where we can watch it. What was your favorite episode and any personal favorites?

Clea: Ok, so our new show Get Organized with the Home Edit will be on Netflix September 9th. Everywhere, I mean, I guess not everywhere, but like what? A hundred ninety three countries?

Joanna: Yeah, which just wild.

Clea: It’s so wild.

Joanna: Like Elsie, like how is this real.

Clea: No it’s not real. It’s not real. But…

Elsie: I can’t wait. Is going to be one of the shows where you can watch it all at once or you have to wait.

Clea: All eight episodes are going to be at once. Each episode has two projects in it. So it’s a celebrity project and then a non-celebrity project, just a regular client of ours. And it’s really exciting. We get to see inside some of our all-time favorite celebrity clients, our new celebrity clients that we had never met before the show, which was, of course, nerve-wracking.

Joanna: Totally.

Clea: And then these amazing other clients that we meet through, New York, Los Angeles, Nashville, we kind of, you know, trot all over the country.

Joanna: Yeah.

Clea: And I think that those projects are honestly just as great.

Joanna: And the families were so wonderful and welcoming and we just were so excited to be in their homes.

Clea: And they’re all full of so much joy watching. I mean…

Joanna: Each of the storylines of those families is really special.

Clea: It’s really special. And I really love it because I feel like it’s all very happy, like it’s all very joyful. Like you don’t you know, there are a couple of tears here and there, but it’s it’s happy tears you know…

Joanna: Yeah.

Clea: Like it’s everything feels really good.

Joanna: That’s because it was filmed in twenty nineteen. (laughs)

Clea: Because it was twenty-nineteen production.

Elsie: That makes so much sense. Yeah.

Clea: There are a lot of hugs and handshakes so I don’t want to…

Joanna: Yeah a lot of hugs, A LOT of hugs.

Clea: Hugs are scary now.

Joanna: Yeah I know. So yeah. Yeah it’s, it’s really exciting.

Joanna: I can’t believe it’s real and it’s here.

Clea: I know. The celebrities in the show are Reese Witherspoon, Khloe Kardashian, Eva Longoria, Retta, Neil Patrick Harris and David Burka.

Joanna: Rachel Zoe and Kane brown

Clea: Kane Brown and Kaitlyn Brown and Jordana Brewster and it’s just it’s so fun. It’s a fun show.

Elsie: I can’t wait to watch it. I have been inside both your homes in person, and I want to let everyone know that the magic is real and it really is organized, it’s beautiful and even like a closet, you know, every little detail is organized. So what advice do you have for those of us who still have a junk drawers in our lives and just like junk, junk stuff, stuff, stuff.

Clea: Stuff stuff stuff is a no, no, no. And, you guys, you’ve had six months. (laughs)

Joanna: You have to be to be cognizant about what you bring into your house. Like, if you can’t figure out a space that you’re going to put it, probably don’t bring it in.

Clea: Right. And if you have already brought it in, like in a junk drawer, you know, set aside a drawer is such an easy to tackle project, set aside literally 30 minutes of your day, edit out the things that don’t belong there. You probably have business cards from people you don’t remember, like gift cards that you’ve already used that have expired. Just random stuff, pens that have leaked. I mean, ther’re just so many things that probably don’t need to be there, that could be edited out. And then you just do a quick assessment of the different categories, group them into their own little sections, get some containment, get some little drawer organizers. You’re done. You’re good to go and use that knowledge and then start to tackle other spaces.

Joanna: `Right. Tackle a small space first.

Clea: And you know what, I now I just said we had six months, but I also haven’t read one word of one book in six months. So I also think I had goals too. But I was like, I’m going to learn a new language, I’m going to learn how to play the guitar.

Elsie: It’s two different universes for people quarantining with children and people quarantining without children. We’re all in the same camp for that one. (laughs) OK, so also you have a new book. So this is a big season for you. So I love the theme of it’s OK to own things because I love things that give me permission, especially like guilt…it’s like guilt is not a very 2020 thing anymore. I don’t need any more of that. So I love the rainbow cover and I just wanted to know what more can we expect from the new book?

Clea: I love our new book and I don’t — it’s not that I love it more or less. I don’t pick children. I love our first book too. But the second book, we got a little bit looser and more free with writing it because again, the first book is very…

Elsie: Nice.

Clea: It’s very room by room in the house.

Joanna: Right. You have to give the tutorials of how the nuts and bolts of it all work.

Clea: Right. And this book, we just took a deeper dive. We have a whole section on the enneagram. We have a whole…

Elsie: (gasp) Wow! What are both your enneagrams? I want to know.

Clea: Three, achiever with a two helper. And Joanna is a four.

Joanna: Yeah I don’t remember what I am. But I know you know what I am. (all laugh)

Clea: Joanna’s a four with a wing three. So basically I’m an overachiever who needs to achieve my goals at all times. But I also feel compelled to help people. And Joanna is like an individualist who is like, her feelings are very weird to her, but also really needs to achieve her goals. So we’re a good pair Enneagram-wise.

Joanna: Yeah, enneagram told us so.

Clea: But we, we also the reason for the enneagram, we really try and talk people through, like understand yourself. It will make you a better organizer and it’ll tell you your motivations and your goals for your process because every person is so different. So if you’re looking for like the one size fits all approach to organizing, it just doesn’t exist. You really need to organize for the way you live in the household that you run and operate.

Joanna: And you need to know whether it’s a you issue or it’s like a family issue. Like are you being reasonable with your request for your family? Like maybe not. If it’s so micro and detailed, it might be too hard for your children to line up all of the cereal bars. But if you’re just saying, can you just put them in a bin? That’s really reasonable.

Clea: You need to…like we try and coach people through like. All right, first, let’s understand yourself.

Joanna: Yeah.

Clea: Then let’s try and work through not the rooms in your house, but the contents of our life and like the things that we end up kind of incorporating into our homes that need to be there. Like right now, like you have podcast equipment, right? Like this, is…

Elsie: Mmm, not really.

Clea: You look pretty professional.

Joanna: You look professional.

Elsie: I have a pair of headphones.

Clea: Like you might start to accumulate…or you have a lot of spooky craft items.

Elsie: True!

Clea: You start to accumulate things based on the way you live your life and you have to not have it because that is part of your job, part of what you do. It’s part of A Beautiful Mess. And so we want to create storage and organizing tips for containing those items, but not necessarily getting rid of them. So our…

Elsie: I love that! I have an enormous collection of holiday stuff and also Halloween stuff. And it’s so important to me. It’s so special to me. So I love — I can’t wait to read the book and I hope it does, just like give me permission to keep it all and also organize it better.

Joanna: I mean like, I can’t think of anybody with the amount of craft stuff that you have and baking stuff and cookies. I mean, you I mean, like you’re good at it all.

Clea: And you need it.

Joanna: Yes. And it’s part your work.

Clea: And those are rules: you need to use it, love it, or at least have it be special and like make you happy. Like those are just the core rules. If it doesn’t check those boxes, then you probably shouldn’t own it in the first place. And again, the need it is important. It’s like you need a toilet plunger in your tax return. So like you can’t get rid of it. So there are those kind of philosophies in the book. But again, like we just want to show people how to organize for the things that they have. And I think…

Joanna: And not feel guilty about them.

Clea: Yeah. And it’s a fun book. It also has beautiful rainbow edges to the paper.

Elsie: Ooh!

Clea: Just like, it’s a fun book.

Joanna: Yeah.

Clea: There are a lot of quizzes and little tidbits and anecdotes.

Joanna: Yeah it is. It’s really fun. Yeah.

Elsie: I can’t wait. I’m so excited. OK, so I have a few listener questions I’ve collected.

Clea: Okay.

Elsie: So the first one is, I got a lot of questions in this same vein. Basically people saying is it even possible to organize when I have children or is it even possible to keep it organized, which I am sure you hear this question all the time. So do you have a little pep talk ready to go in your back pocket for moms who are afraid that it’s just not worth it?

Joanna: No it’s always worth it!

Clea: Always worth it.

Joanna: What you need is a smart, sustainable system. So something that is very child friendly and easy to put back. You don’t want to get too fussy. You don’t want it to get too micro in the categories. You need large groupings and you will succeed in putting things away and keeping the system in place.

Clea: If you have one bin that’s for Magna Tiles, the kids are going to put it back. They know where it goes.

Joanna: And it’s fun it’s a game. You have to think about it as a game to put things away.

Clea: But I also think that people need to remember that kids know how to operate in the classroom and like the classroom is full of bins of toys.

Joanna: Guess what, the home is now the classroom.

Clea: I know, but that’s the thing. There’s no pass for the kids.

Joanna: Right.

Clea: They have to put it back and the teachers are not going to give them a pass and the teacher’s not going to clean it up. Kids are expected to do these things. And I think that they come home and they think that they can pull one over on you. And it’s like, no, you know how to do this.

Joanna: Yeah, you do it all day at school, and guess where your school is now. Right here.

Elsie: Ha! That’s a good pep talk. I love it.

Clea: I’ll say this. There’s also when it becomes potentially a bridge too far for a child. And you also have to recognize that. And I will throw myself under the bus for this. My daughter, Stella, who is nine years old, must literally take like a shovel inside of her t-shirt drawer every day and, like, tear it up. And I have folded them so beautifully over and over again and taught her how to fold them over and over again. And truly, it’s all folded so neatly and upright. I don’t even know how she doesn’t know what she’s looking for, like it’s all right there. So she must just enjoy making a t-shirt solid for me every single day. And you know what? I’ve stopped because I’m like, I’m closing the drawer. If you want to live that way, then that’s the way you’re going to live. I’m not going to refold your drawer over and over and over again. And maybe at nine years old, having a perfectly folded drawer is just too much of an expectation for her. I don’t know. So I’ve started hanging more of her clothes because that there’s no excuse for. It’s like maybe you’re not going to get the perfect folding mechanism down, but you can certainly put something on a hanger. And so, again, it’s kind of just…

Joanna: I have another example.

Elsie: That’s really good advice.

Joanna: Both like on principle, we both make both of our children make the beds in the morning. However, because it’s our issue that they need to be made perfectly. We both independently of knowing from each other, go back and remake all two beds in each of our own houses for both of the kids.

Elsie: Funny!

Clea: And again, that’s an us problem.

Joanna: Right, like I’m sorry you can’t make it like a grown woman who does this for a job. I won’t expect my six-year-old daughter to be able to do that, but you do have to make it.

Clea: So again, it’s understanding what is reasonable and what’s maybe your own issue. And like for me, maybe I want Stella to keep her drawers perfectly folded, like I would fold in a client’s house. But that’s probably not realistic for her. Certainly not at seven o’clock in the morning when she’s getting dressed. So maybe I just need to reform my system and reduce my expectations for that. But can she put things away?

Joanna: Yeah.

Clea: Yes. They’re not going to be on the floor.

Joanna: Right.

Elsie: That’s really good advice. I think it’s always a mix of both for sure. Reducing expectations and continuing to try. Ok, so what are your best tips for adding more storage when the storage is not great in your home? So an old home, an apartment.

Joanna: Ywo magic tricks for you. One is an over the door storage unit you can buy at the Container Store. They’re by Elfa, and tool free!

Clea: Tool free! They hook on, you kind of clamp it and…

Joanna: And they’re like little shelves that go on the back of the door and it is magic, you can store so many things. I’m so obsessed with them that I have them throughout my entire house just because I think they’re so smart and I want to see them.

Elsie: Nice!

Clea: She literally have them in closets and I’ll open the closet and the closet’s empty because it’s all on the back of the door. And I’m like, you could have just used the shelves. And she’s like, I just really like it like that.

Joanna: Yeah! And it gives you lower space if you don’t have that much, like if your kids are short or small.

Clea: If you’re under tall like Joanna is.

Joanna: And all of the top shelves, it’s so annoying to get up there all the time. So it does maximize your lower shelf opportunities. Especially for kids to give them that any more things that they can put away themselves.

Clea: We do use over the door storage a lot.

Joanna: It’s a magic trick for me.

Clea: It is. And if you don’t have great over the door storage, meaning like maybe you have a sliding door, accordion doors, things like that. I see like the door behind you has like a arch to it. So that would not be a good candidate for an over the door hanger. We use a lot of carts. Love a cart.

Joanna: We love a cart.

Elsie: Ooh.

Clea: Coffee cart, bar cart, laundry cart, bathroom cart, art cart, home school cart…

Joanna: It’s so fun. A cart is so fun.

Clea: Carts are endless. We love them. There are so many different options for them. Most of them have divisions, you know, whether it’s three tiers or two tiers until you can really separate your categories.

Joanna: We just, we just started using our own and it goes perfectly with the bins that we create. So it is granular.

Clea: It is a full system.

Joanna: It is. It’s so cute and happy.

Clea: And it just it’s great. And the thing that’s so great about it, especially in these pandemic times, is if you’re creating a home school set up or a work from home set up or whatever it is, you can have your cart or even a layer of the cart if you want to be kind and share it with your family and you can roll it up to the table you’re using during the day and then roll it away when you’re done. So you’re really kind of like separating out those spaces and not…

Elsie: That is such a good trick for homeschooling. Ok, I’m going to link all of these products in the show notes. That is great. OK, so I love your Container Store line. We were just chatting about that a bit. I just bought a bunch of it and I’m so excited because, yeah, we moved recently and so everything is changing and it’s so exciting. So the question is actually, what are you go-tos when you’re avoiding plastic, though?

Clea: There are a lot of great options. I think that it depends on what you’re putting in it. First of all, like we love Hyacinth, which is like a sea grass. But it’s not great if you’re thinking like clothing because it kind of can shed because it’s a natural fiber. So there’s another basket called the Montauk basket that comes in like a ivory white and a gray, and it has a linen liner. So that’s much better for clothing. Sometimes we even Take out the liner, but like, it’s a material that doesn’t, it’s coated so like it doesn’t actually get fibers on clothing and things like that.

Joanna: And in drawers, you can use bamboo organizers, like bamboo wood organizers. Those are excellent.

Clea: Or rattan. We love rattan for things. I mean, honestly, we go through I mean…

Joanna: Baskets are great.

Clea: Baskets are the mainstay for us like we and some people also. It’s not even that they want to avoid plastic. Some people just don’t want to physically see items. They really want that concealment. And again, we always ask them, are you sure you want the concealment? Like, is it going to become a graveyard? Or we work through everyone’s preferences and needs and try to come up with a solution.

Elsie: That’s that sounds awesome. Yeah. I saw your Kim Kardashian fridge that was plastic free and thought it was so inspiring.

Joanna: Oh, yes. Yes, it was.

Clea: That house, we really de-plastic-ed everything.

Elsie: Nice. That is so cool. The next question is celebrity related as well. This is one of the listener questions. Are celebrity homes different, really different from average person homes.

Joanna: No, I mean, some of them are bigger or they’re design. They have a beautiful aesthetic.

Clea: When you open their pantry, their drawers, bathroom doors, it’s I mean…

Joanna: Stuff is stuff. But unless you organize it, it’s it’s still stuff that’s not organized.

Clea: Unless you’ve organized it, unless we’ve organized it, it’s not organized. It’s not to say it’s a mess, it’s just not organized. There aren’t systems in place. So I think that that’s kind of the most fun thing about our job, is that truly, when it comes to organization, again, like interior designers probably would not be able to have the same answer as us, because, you know, I’m sure a lot of high profile people have big design budgets and all sorts of stuff. But when it comes to organizing, it’s not — it’s not the same thing. It’s not drapery or like a custom couch. It’s still it’s the same products. It’s generally even similar size spaces. Like sometimes a closet is bigger or even a pantry might be bigger, but not like twelve times the space. You know, it’s like, a kitchen drawer is a kitchen drawer.

Joanna: That’s right, and you still have the same kitchen foods or pantry items that any other family would have.

Clea: I don’t care if it’s a celebrity bathroom or not a celebrity bathroom. It’s like we’re still honestly dealing with the same thing…

Joanna: There’s still toothpaste!

Clea: I mean, it’s kind of a it’s a nice unifying situation that that’s why people always ask us, do we get nervous in celebrities homes? And it’s kind of like the answer is really no, because every single…

Elsie: They should be nervous. Right? I was so nervous when you came to my home. It is like a very vulnerable feeling for someone to go through your pantry.

Joanna: We were most nervous to go to your house out of any person ever. Truly. And not because you’re so intimidating, but because you’re so creative and so talented.

Clea: And I said to Joanna, when we first left your house before we actually did the job, you were just looking at the space. I was like, we better get some talent by tomorrow. Like, this is not going to, like Elsie is.

Elsie: No, you changed my life. It was so wonderful. I was so sad when we had to leave some of the stuff behind, you know, because when you move, it’s like everything has to be reconfigured. So it was magical.

Joanna: Yeah. No, I’ve never seen Clea. So nervous. Honestly, she was like, Elsie is so talented. We better get this figured out.

Clea: I honestly…

Elsie: I love you guys.

Clea: I was starstruck by your blue floor, literally star struck by your rainbow glasses collection. And like the pink remember the pink floral wallpaper in your dining room, I was like, I can’t I can’t handle this. I can handle whatever…Gwenyth Paltrow. But I was so nervous in your house because I was like it just…

Joanna: I know. Well creativity is like your jam and you’re so good at it and it’s so inspiring for us. Yeah.

Elsie: Thank you. You guys are so creative too.

Joanna: No, we’re good organizers. (laughs)

Clea: We don’t make a spooky craft.

Joanna: No definitely not. (laughs)

Elsie: I want to have a craft day. I miss people!

Clea and Joanna: I know.

Elsie: So sad. OK, so we will link on Instagram, your new TV show, the new book and the Container Store line. Is there anything else you want links to?

Clea: We do have one other thing. You’re not able to link to it yet, but we do have one other thing. We have a home and personal care cleaning products line coming.

Elsie: Oh!

Clea: Rume by the Home Edit. R-U-M-E. And we’re…the first drop is going to be hand sanitizer, Hand wash or hand soap, hand lotion.

Joanna: Oh, let’s show her! I hope you approve of the…

Clea: It’s really it’s very pretty. It’s a matte white…

Elsie: It’s so pretty!

Clea: And the sanitizer. Yeah. And so and we’re…

Joanna: We have a wooden little tray that it’s going to go into.

Clea: Yeah. It’s going into…

Elsie: They’re gorgeous. OK, everyone is going to love these. Oh I can’t wait.

Joanna: You’re like the first person we showed it to that hasn’t been on the inside.

Elsie: Well I have a couple of questions. I like to always end with a flash question that is just so random. All right. The first one is, since it’s spooky season. Have either of you ever seen a ghost?

Clea: I believe I have.

Joanna: I have not seen one, but I fully believe in it.

Clea: I fully believe I have like, maybe…

Joanna: Don’t tell me it’s when I’ve been with you.

Elsie: Can you tell us your ghost story?

Joanna: Oh, God, I don’t want to hear it. La la la la la la.

Clea: It was in my first house growing up, like the two to three times I think that I’ve actually seen one and the house is like over 100 hundred years old. So I fully believe that it’s…

Joanna: I’m sure I fully believe it.

Clea: And I definitely think it was a man. It was like wearing a cowboy hat that was in my hallway. And I don’t know what he would be doing in this house, but I fully believe it. And then there was another time that it was like this, like white wisp of a thing that I saw out of the corner of my eye and it came up to my bedroom window, like on the outside. And sure. Could it have been like a helicopter floodlight or something? Maybe. But it didn’t look like it. It was like a milky white like almost like smoke or something. Anyway, I just I believe that I have OK…

Elsie: Yeah, that’s exciting. I love a good ghost story. OK, my other question is, what is each of your favorite nineties nostalgic movie, the one that gives you all the feelings?

Clea: Nineties nostalgic movie. Was when was Almost Famous?

Joanna: That was 2000.

Clea: I’m like, how old are we?

Joanna: That might have been like nineteen ninety nine. No, it was 2000.

Clea: What about…probably Forrest Gump.

Elsie: Do you have one?

Joanna: When was Legally Blonde?

Elsie: Oh yes. But I think that was in the 2000s. Maybe, wasn’t it?

Clea: But I still think that, like two thousand one was like three years ago, so I’m like, I’m having a hard time.

Joanna: I feel like it was in the 90s, Legally Blonde.

Elsie: It was 2001.

Joanna: 2001. Yeah, I was I kind of think I was in high school.

Elsie: It still counts.

Clea: I know for Forrest Gump, I was…

Elsie: I got so excited about the Legally Blonde sequel.

Joanna: Oh I know.

Clea: Wait until you see we organized Reese Witherspoon’s Legally Blonde wardrobe in the show.

Elsie: Oh my God. It’s in the show?! Oh, that’s so exciting. Ok, well we can’t wait to watch and congratulations for everything and hopefully we’ll get to see you soon.

Clea and Joanna: Love you, bye!

Emma: Thank you so much for listening to the A Beautiful Mess podcast. We’ll be linking all of the cozy, spooky and organizational things in our show notes, which you can find at abeautifulmess.com/podcast. And if you have a chance to pop over to the show notes, then please let us know anyone else you’d like us to interview. We’re hoping to do more of these and we’d love to know who you want to hear from.

Elsie: We’re also going to provide a link in our show notes this week to register to vote. If you haven’t registered yet or maybe you just recently moved or maybe you’re just not totally sure where or how to vote. It only takes about five minutes to do and you will get your registration in the mail. Then you can know that you’re good to go vote in November. So be sure to do that if you haven’t done it yet or if you’re not sure if this is just we’re just begging you, please, please, please, please register to vote.

Emma: Vote! What do you hate democracy? Come on! (laughs)

Elsie: Voting time, woo! Most important thing ever. OK, talk to you guys next week.

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