Riss Home Design | Home Decor, Design and DIY Blog

We Wish You a Merry Christmas!

Rissa — Mon, 23 Dec 2013 21:14:07 +0000

We wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and we hope you all have a great day with family and friends. Remember to eat, drink and be merry!

Want to see our Christmas tree this year? It’s our first tree together and we got a huge one

What’s my favorite ornament on the tree this year you ask? Well my birthday was last week, and my mom knows I have an obsession with seahorses so she got me this adorable seahorse ornament. Love. It.

Now go finish wrapping all your presents if you’re like me and wait until the last second! As you can see from the Christmas tree picture above, I wrapped about 6 gifts and called it quits the other night.

Happy Holidays!!

Crock-pot Santa Fe Chicken

Rissa — Wed, 18 Dec 2013 21:35:04 +0000

I’ve seen different variations of this recipe on Pinterest, so I finally decided to try it out. We’re obsessed with crock-pot food over here and this had amazing reviews so I was hooked on this one. After making it though, I would change a couple things. I used 4 chicken breasts, 2 cans of cream of mushroom soup, 2 packets of taco seasoning, 1 jar of salsa and half a container of sour cream. Yeah. Let’s just say it made a ton of sauce. A ton of extra sauce that is now sitting in my fridge because we didn’t want to throw it out.

So I would recommend: If you’re making this meal for 4-6 people, use at least 6 chicken breasts. If you’re making this meal for 2-4 people, use 4 chicken breasts but use 1 can of mushroom soup, 1 packet of seasoning, half a jar of salsa and half the sour cream. For real people, you’ll get a ton of extra sauce if you do what I did, so I fixed it to what I think it should be in the recipe box below. Other than the extra sauce though, let. me. tell. you. DELICIOUS. SO GOOD. We loved this.

Check out the recipe here:

[yumprint-recipe id=’12’]Here’s some pictures of how we made it:

1 – Add chicken to bottom of crock-pot

2 – Add in soup and salsa

Yes, yes, I know how disgusting this pic above looks and sounds. Trust me, I’m a picky eater and when I added these together I was telling myself there’s no way this could possibly taste good. I was dead wrong, obvi.

3 – Sprinkle seasoning over the top

After cooking on low for 6 hours it will look something like this. Aka heaven on a plate.

Sprinkle it with shredded cheese of course, served over rice and enjoy!

Giveaway! Win printables from my Etsy store

Rissa — Mon, 09 Dec 2013 05:46:44 +0000

I thought it would be fun to have my very first giveaway! Enter below for your chance to win two FREE printables from my Etsy store! Visit my store here to see what I have available so far. The printables range from $5 to $10, you choose whichever TWO you want! Please note that this giveaway includes printables only, not watercolors. Some of the printables are exactly what you see, and some are customizable! Prints, invitations, nursery prints and more! Take a look to see if you like anything! Also note: since these are printables, they will be delivered via email, nothing is sent through the mail. You can print from your home, or local CVS, Walgreens, Rite Aid, etc…

Update: Thank you all SO much for entering this giveaway! I promised on Twitter if the entries got above 150 I would have a second winner! So there will now be 2 winners chosen, the first still gets two free printables and the 2nd winner will get one free printable!

Enter now! Just in time for Christmas – give a print as a gift and keep one for yourself! The Christmas printables are also great to hang in your home for the holidays!

Once again, look here to see what’s available: etsy.com/shop/rissdesign

There will be ONE winner for this giveaway! The winner will be found using Random.org

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Dining Room & Living Room Progress

Rissa — Wed, 04 Dec 2013 02:42:31 +0000

I feel like I’ve been neglecting the blog lately. Life has been so non-stop crazy I don’t think we ever get any time to just relax these days! I guess that’s not a bad thing, but I do enjoy those days where a nap fits in

I haven’t done a house update in a while! That’s another part of our lives that have been non-stop. We’ve been painting. A lot. The dining room one week then the living room. No biggie right? Wrong.

The dining room was no sweat. Took me 2 nights in a row to do, about 4 hours total. The. Living. Room. Aka the nightmare to paint. Our rooms downstairs all have higher ceilings since the house is about 100 years old. So 2 days before Thanksgiving I thought it would be a good idea to start painting the living room. Thanksgiving was at my Mom’s house so it’s not like anyone would see the mess that day. So off I went painting the room, moving a ladder every 5 feet so I could reach the trim. So fun. Then…not so fun. After 7 hours of non-stop painting I made Charlie come help me finish. I was exhausted. The first night of painting I did some trim for 2 hours, and the next night took us 8 hours to finish the room. A total of 10 HOURS. I’m not lying.

But – it was totally worth it. I’m so happy with the color choices we made and how warm and inviting the house looks when you first walk in. It’s so crazy how a little paint can instantly change a room’s environment. Also, these pictures were taken mostly as night with my iPhone so sorry for the quality. Better ones will be uploaded.

Ok, enough blabbing, check out what we did:

Dining Room Before

Dining Room After

Living Room Before

Living Room After

I am officially obsessed with these colors and white trim. The trim seriously pops out now. No more ugly white walls! Someone remind me why I waited so long to paint these rooms? Anyone?

Once everything is put back into place and we have all the Christmas decorations out (and our first TREE!) I’ll post more progress photos of how the rooms look

Thanks so much for stopping by!