What Are You Doing On New Years Eve?

Miss me?  I've been hibernating with family and it's been great.  Eating great food...drinking coffee...wine...doing a little shopping, but mostly relaxing.

We're not sure what we're doing on New Years Eve - but one thing is for sure - we'll be spending it with family.

I love Zoey Deschanel and when I saw this video - it put a smile on my face.



HAPPY NEW YEAR!

{holiday inspiration} a little hello

I'm sure many of you have been heading out to holiday parties during this festive season.  And with that comes the hostess gift.  That sweet little something - maybe wine, maybe cookies...well this year, I decided to do something a little bit different.

This gift was so easy and inexpensive, but was tied with an amazingly thoughtful bow.

First I purchased this darling "hello" stamp from Besottled.  I'm so in love with their stamps and their calligraphy.



Then, I purchased some notecards and envelopes, as well as a gold stamp pad from my local craft store.  If my very favorite paper store - Paper Source was a bit closer, I would have gone there.

Then, I stamped away.  I wanted something a bit unexpected on the envelope so I decided to stamp the back of the envelopes.

After the ink dried - I packaged them up with a thin red silky ribbon.

Voila - a sweet little "hello" hostess gift that is thoughtful, unexpected, and doesn't break the bank.

{holiday} DIY Ornament

For the past week, I've been talking about this ornament that I was going to have the little mister's class create.

Being a mama - I always LOVED the ornaments that the class would do that had their photos on them or something that they made.  I still have my little guys hand ornament that he made in daycare when he was 2 years old.  Each year it comes out - he always puts his hand up to it to see how much he has grown.

So this year - I created an ornament that had all the children's picture on it.  Here is the little misters.

These were so easy to make.

Materials Needed: 

2.5" circle punch

glue stick

doublesided tape

favorite holiday scrapbook paper

fishing line

{holiday inspiration} Globetrotting

So many of us travel over the holidays.  I first saw these globe snowmen and thought this would be a fun non-traditional holiday theme.  Blues remind me of the ocean, Greens remind me of green grass (something there isn't a whole lot of during the winter) and gold reminds me of the warm sun on a chilly day.  Our holiday decor this year is "whimsy traditional," what is yours?

row 1:: snowman, confetti ribbon, flowers
row 2:: map gift tags, terranium, cake
row 3:: dessert table, place setting, notebook

{holidays} pom-poms

I made a pom pom!  I made a pom pom!  OK, actually I've now made tons of poms over the past couple of days.

I don't know why I'm so excited by this...but I hadn't made one before.  Thanks to the Creature Comforts blog it was so easy.



So you might ask...what will I be doing with these poms?  I think I might make a garland and I will be using some for holiday presents this year.  Remember - this is the paper.

Here is a little sample of the poms that I made...

I decided instead of putting our holiday cards that we get from friends and family in a bowl, I wanted to put them on a bulletin board for all to see.  So now it will be a part of our holiday decor.  I attached the pom poms to the board to add a little splash of embelishment.  What do you think?

25 Days to Christmas & a Present for YOU!

The 25 Days of Christmas has officially begun in our house...well the advent calendar is up and the 1st little giftie will be opened tonight. *

We have an extremely long mantel - the entire wall.  So I decided to create the countdown to span a good portion of the wall.  With the TV as the focal point, I wanted to add different holiday elements.  I thought  it would be perfect to set all the presents on the mantel as well - to add some holiday spirit there.

I used the countdown tags as the gift tags so the little mister would know which present went for each day.

We've kept with traditional Christmas colors - red, green and silver.  To create the countdown, I used ribbon and tape to secure the paper to the ribbon.  I punched red, green, silver and holiday printables and put everything in random order.

I absolutely LOVE the way it turned out.  For the last 5 years, we've used our Pottery Barn Kids advent calendar (the one with the pockets and you put the present in the pocket).  I do like that one, but this year, I wanted it to be more of a festive feature in our home.

As a little holiday cheer for you...you can download the countdown here and as a special treat, you can download some matching to/from tags that match here.

Enjoy the pictures...

Oh and I thought it would be fun to make some homemade confetti for the mantel.

* Insert a little dose on honesty here...the tradition has always been that the little mister opens the present in the morning...BUT he pitched the biggest fit about having to wear pants today - he wanted to wear shorts (it was freezing this morning, the wind gusting and he could have blown over on his walk to school).  So...even though I was super excited about our countdown to Christmas - I had to put my mama hat on and let him know that it wasn't OK.  So tonight it is...