10 Budget Friendly & Trendy Home Bar Essentials

You can have a functional, yet stylish home bar without spending a fortune with these 10 Budget Friendly & Trendy Home Bar Essentials...

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I definitely think there is a misplaced belief out there that to have a well equipped home bar, you have to be willing to drop some cash. I am here to tell you all that notion is totally & utterly false. You can have a functional, yet trendy home bar without spending a fortune. In fact, you can purchase everything I have listed in this collection of 10 Budget Friendly & Trendy Home Bar Essentials for less than $100 with your Amazon Prime account! :)

Don't have 100 bucks to spend all at once right now? No problem! Start with the area of your home bar that will initially get the most use. If you are a cocktail lover, start with first five items I have listed below giving priority to the compact bar set with the cocktail shaker. Are you more of a wine drinker? Then skip the cocktail essentials for now and get started with the wine tool set. You can always build your home bar from there, adding on as you can afford it. 

I chose each of the bar tools & accessories I have listed below because they are A. under $20. B. available via Amazon Prime (hello, free shipping!), & C. stylish & trendy. I went with a lot of stainless steel in this collection of home bar essentials because it is always in style & holds up well to years of use. 

Now let's get your home bar equipped the budget friendly way, shall we? ;)

Why You Need to Make the Food & Wine Conference Happen in 2016

As a brand ambassador for the 2015 Food & Wine Conference, I was provided a conference ticket at a discounted rate. All opinions (and occasional droolings) stated below are my own.

When it comes to which food blogger conferences I chose to attend, I would like to say that I am pretty picky. I really have to justify the expense of the conference and the traveling involved as well as the time that I will be spending away from my family. That is probably why in my over 3 years of blogging I have only attended 3 food blogger conferences so far. Would I like to attend more of them and travel more and learn more? Well, yes! :) But like I said above, they cost money and have to be worth the stress of finding child care for my youngest while I am away and my husband is at work. So far, I can say unequivocally that all 3 blogger conferences I have attended have been 100% worth it. 

After hearing so many good things about the Food & Wine Conference from many of my food blogger friends online, I decided to apply for a brand ambassadorship with the conference. I had no idea if I would make the cut, but I decided that if I did I would find a way to make this conference happen this year. And let me tell you all something- I am so glad that I landed a spot as a brand ambassador! Not only did I get to attend an amazing food blogger conference, but I also was able to be a brand ambassador representing Wisconsin Cheese. I mean, you all know me by now. I love my cheese, so it was a match made in heaven.

WineforaWedding- A Unique Wedding Gift for Wine Lovers

Looking for a unique wedding or anniversary present for the wine loving couple in your life? Create a personalized, handcrafted WineforaWedding box for them!

While I was provided with a wine box to review, all opinions expressed below are my own.

Summertime is definitely king of the wedding season, but did you know that 15% of all weddings in the United States last year happened in September? (Source: The Knot) That ties it with June as one of the two most popular months of the year for couples to get married! So that means that quite a few of us have upcoming weddings we are planning on attending in the next couple of months, myself included.

My sister is getting married next month to her soul mate that took her one marriage and many years to find. The problem is that in this day and age the traditional wedding gifts just don't make sense. More and more people are getting married later... or many cases, getting remarried. The need for stand mixers, and dish sets, and pots and pans, and linens just isn't there anymore. Many couples getting married now have already formed established households (whether separately or together) and already own all the household necessities. So what is a wedding guest to do when it comes to a gift? Well, if the happy couple happens to be wine lovers, then WineforaWedding just might be the perfect solution for your gift giving needs... ;)

Consider Yourself Invited- The Food & Wine Conference July 2015 #FWCon

Love food, wine, good company, and learning more about growing your food blog? Then join me at this year's Food & Wine Conference July 17-19th in Orlando, Florida...

A blogger conference that brings together talented food & wine bloggers, small businesses, winemakers, amazing chefs, and professionals in public relations and media? Yes, folks! It does exist. ;)  Come learn, network, form friendships, have fun, and enjoy the best in food and wine at this year's Food & Wine Conference in beautiful Orlando, Florida... 

Two Reasons You Need to Plan a Visit to Weston, West Virginia

If you ever needed a reason to plan a road trip to Weston, West Virginia, then I have two for you- the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum & Lambert's Vintage Wines...

I know when most people think "road trip", the small town of Weston, West Virginia probably doesn't even cross their minds. Unless you happen to be into ghost hunting and paranormal activity, you may have never even heard of the infamous now closed mental hospital there. 

And you may be hard pressed to find the handcrafted wines that the quaint Lambert's Vintage Wines produces at a wine shop or liquor store near you. But scores of weddings, events, and celebrations are booked at that local owned winery tucked away at the end of a gravel road from visitors across the country each year. So much so that Lambert's is already booking weddings and events into 2016!

On a rare all day date with my husband and my sister and her fiance, we decided to head 45 minutes south down I-79 to Weston for the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum's opening day of the year. Ghost hunts and tours are offered all year round per reservation, but the asylum opens to the general public for tours in April of each year. 

The asylum offers two types of tours to the general public- historic/heritage tours and paranormal tours/ghost hunts.  Since this was our first time visiting the asylum and my husband and I happen to be history buffs, we all decided on the 90 minute historic tour.  Plus, we wanted to take advantage of the special deal being offered only to West Virginia residents with a photo ID just during the month of April- $10 off the the 4 floor historic tour. ;)