2012!!

Spending these last few days of the holiday break with family. I hope you have the absolute BEST New Year's ever. Peace!

Hair Clip/Pin Organizer

One of the fun things I made as Christmas gifts this year was hair clip/pin organizers.

I got white frames from Home Goods, and removed the glass.  (I set it aside in a closet, in case I ever want to re-purpose this in the future).  Next, I cut two pieces of chipboard the size of the glass, and I glued them together to form a sturdy, thick sheet of chipboard.  Then, I began to apply random, colorful ribbons vertically down the chipboard, gluing them only at the ends (which wrapped around to the back.)

After completing all the vertical strips of ribbon, I started to then go horizontally.  I weaved the ribbons in and out, forming a weave.  I only went about half way (a few, I went a bit higher because it looked better.)  Feel free to do what works for you!

Then I added a bunch of hair accessories.  Many of them were made by my daughter and me, but a few were store bought as well.  Isn't it pretty? 

Enjoy your day!

Celebrate New Year's Eve at Home

I don't know about you, but I've outgrown the desire to go out on New Year's Eve. The thought of driving on the roads with all those over-indulged party-goers scares me, so I prefer to celebrate at home or at a friend's or family member's house where we can spend the night.

Here are some fun ideas I gathered from past New Year's Eves and from around the net:

Get Musical: Have a karaoke party and sign the night away. If you have the Wii and Rock Band, that's the perfect way to rock out on New Year's Eve. Or how about being a dancing fool. Turn on some disco or hip hop and shake your groove thing. You still have time to buy a disco ball. If you have a Spencer's Gifts at your local mall, they carry them.

Get Your Game On: Spend the evening laughing and having fun and playing games--board games, video games, card games. Some of my family's favorite games are Bananagrams (a totally addictive anagram game), Apples to Apples (also addictive, hard to describe, but leads to hilarious and often deep discussions), and Cranium (this has you singing, sculpting, drawing, acting, just plain old using your noggin to have fun).

Dress up Your Home: Choose a special room to heavily decorate so to make it appear quite fancy. Shop for streamers, stars, confetti, hats, ceiling decorations and much more. You do not have to spend a fortune to do this. Just stop by your neighborhood dollar store and get your basket full of decorations. Don't forget the balloons! You may all want to pop them when midnight strikes!

Get Cooking: Plan a culinary evening and get the whole gang involved. Lots of ideas here. Have a cooking contest around a theme. Plan a meal where everyone can make their own tailored meal, like building your own pizza by setting out the ingredients. Have a potluck with an international theme where everyone contributes, say, an Italian component to the meal. Splurge on something very fancy, like lobster or expensive cuts of meat that you wouldn't normally buy. After all, you're saving money by staying at home.

 

Movie Night: Pop some popcorn and buy some Raisinettes and rent some of your favorite old movies or some new ones you've been dying to see, and have a movie night marathon.

Get Gussied Up: Even though you're staying at home make the evening a really special occasion (and photo-worthy) by getting all dolled up in your fanciest threads and wear some sparkly makeup and nail polish. Who says you can't wear sequins at home?

Remembering and Looking Ahead: Pull out your scrapbooks from this past year and spend time talking and reminiscing. Ask: What were everyone's favorite memories of the year? What were the funniest moments? What were your proudest moments? What did you learn and discover this past year? Then spend time making plans for the coming year. What do you want to see in those scrapbooks when you look at them next New Year's Eve?

We're going to our sister's house to celebrate this year. We're still tossing ideas around about how to spend the evening. I'd love to hear some of your celebrate-at-home traditions.

Whatever you do this New Year's Eve. Have a happy, safe, fun one! I will leave you with a few New Year's Eve images I found on Pinterest...

 

 



Free Printable Birthday Calendar

I found these over at Lemon Squeezy, and can't wait to print them out! You can download them both here.

Version 1

Version 2

Enjoy your day!

Get your mileage out of those Christmas Cards!

I saw this idea over here, and it was too wonderful to keep it to myself!!  Photograph those Christmas cards and use them as contact photos on your iPhone or Smartphone!! 

Can I have a round of applause for the person who thought of that one??

Enjoy your day!!

Merry Christmas

From our family to yours, Merry Christmas to you!! 

Enjoy every moment...

Mistletoe Ball

I have always wanted a kissing ball to hang in our home (mostly to embarrass my children.)  Mine didn't turn out nearly as cute as the one here (where I got the idea), but it will do!!

                                                          Time for some lip locking!

Enjoy your day!!

Tutorial: Glitter Ornaments

Every year after Christmas, I pick up a few boxes of empty glass ornaments at Michael's for the following year's holiday season's DIY craft project.  Here's a tutorial on how to make these glass glitter ornaments. 

1.  Gather supplies needed: empty glass ornaments, glitter (in this case, I used Doodlebug glitter), and embossing fluid refill.

2.  Pour 2 teaspoon of embossing fluid into the empty ornament. This was a little hard to photograph, but you can sort of see just how much I have poured into the little bulb.  You can actually dilute the embossing fluid with water to make it stretch.  I recommend diluting it first before pouring into the little glass bulb.

3.  Gently rotate the ornament so that the entire interior of the ornament is coated with embossing fluid. This could take a while if the embossing fluid is thick.  (Yes, some embossing fluid is thicker than others.)

4.  Add more embossing fluid if it is needed. Pour out the extra when it is completely coated.

5.  Pour in the glitter quickly and abundantly and gently but quickly swirl the ornament so the glitter coats the interior of the ornament.  It's important that a lot of glitter hits the wall of the glass ornament at once.  Otherwise, a little glitter hits the wall and the wall loses its stickiness, which means more glitter won't stick.  So to create the most consistent thickness of glitter around the glass wall, use a lot of glitter and work fast.

6.  Pour out any excess glitter.  At this point, the ornament is actually ready to go on your Christmas tree!There's no waiting for drying, it's immediately done.  You can tie some twine on it, put a ribbon on it and hang it up.

7.  Optionally, you can decorate the outside of the ornament if desired with glittered stickers and jewels like I have done here.

Other ideas on decorating the exterior of the ornament: white rubons, permanent markers, glitter pens... I have tied wide ribbons at the top of the ornament, they look really good that way.

I hope this is a helpful tutorial and that you will enjoy making your own glitter ornaments!

Our Annual Gingerbread House Party

This past weekend, our daughter Jami and I hosted our 9th annual Gingerbread House Party in our home. It truly is one of my favorite days of the year, because I get to hang out with a few of my favorite women (I'm beyond lucky to call these ladies my friends) and their daughters...
For great basic gingerbread house assembly instructions, here is a great blog post showing how we have made ours for the past 9 years. It totally works wonders, and they turn out spectacular!

Jami's friend Rachal, who has been to all but 2 of the yearly parties...

Jami.  She looks so grown up to me in this photo.  Ugh...

Amy and Molly.  They make me laugh and want to hug all the time.

Katie, Kaylee, Kendall and Molly.  Super Mom with Super Daughters...

Deanna and Sadie.  Dare I say it--they've been to every single one of our annual parties?  Love them to bits...

Jeanie and Molly.  Also our buddies on last week's NYC trip.  Love them.

Judy and Sydney.  Another Super Mom that amazes me.  I think she's cloned in fact...

Julia.  Her Mama had to work, so she brought her Gram.  LOVE.

Kris & Gillian.  Long time neighbors and friends that I wish I saw more often!

Isn't her smile infectious?  I could just squeeze her to bits!!

Reilley won dibs on the masterpiece of the day.  We affectionately called this the "Gaga House."

Thanks to all who came out to play!!  And to the 5 that I did get photographed--my fingers are crossed that Tina got pics of you!!

Enjoy your day!

Contain yourself

Finding a container for cookies is on my to do list every Christmas since my sister hosts an annual cookie exchange. Part of the exchange is about coming up with creative packaging, and this is another reason why I enjoy this time of the year so much, creative ideas are abundant!

With knowing that every year I am asked to make Russian tea balls, I can start looking for ideas early on in the season. That is when I found the clear paint can at Target and knew my snowballs would fit perfectly.

My girlfriend Brenda made these awesome cookies and the adorable container is adorned with an sprig of greens and a jar filled with snow

My sister wrapped her poppyseed bread in a washcloth!

and so many other tins and bags and ideas

that I decided to head over to pinterest and see if there were more ideas

and here's just a few of what I found!

All Things Reindeer

For some strange reason, this year I've been a bit geeked up about all things reindeer. For example...

Made these for a few men in our family, using the best beer in the world...Great Lakes Brewing Company Christmas Ale.  Fun, right?

The pooch is so cooperative.  I love this dog!!

Made these for both of our son's classrooms this year. They spoke to me. :) Jen even found me RED WHOPPERS. What a gal!!

I made 77 of these bad boys.  Giddy up, Santa.  Wrappers for Hershey's candy bars.  Do they get any cuter?

And last but certainly not least, these chocolate covered Nutter Butter cookies on a stick made me want to scream when I saw them.  I made my own version for a party I hosted over the weekend, and the kids loved them. 

Every single one of these ideas are located on my Pinterest Christmas board (minus the pooch!).

Enjoy your day!!