Quickies

Here are some quick and easy Holiday Decor ideas!

Place some command hooks on pictures and use them to coordinate which stocking belongs to whom!
Simple and super easy clean-up.

Toss some ornaments into a jar and your set!

Place holiday candy in apothecary jars! For an added touch, put an unpainted piece of wood
behind and hang snowflakes from it!

re-use an old wreath! Just wrap in fabric, and add some flowers! This one could work for the fourth of July too!

While you're at it make a second one and put out matching pillows on the patio. Here's how:

wrap the wreath with 4-6 inch wide strips of fabric of choice like so:

Grab so felt. Cut circles and fold them on top of each other. Once they are folded glue to another circle in an unorganized way. The more unorgnized the more it will appeal to the eye.

You can also fold into 1/2 inch strips and wrap into a circle.

Adding bells makes it that much more fun!

pretty.

Festive Festivities

Alright, this is my formal apology for lagging SO MUCH the past few weeks! I have been slightly busy with the Thanksgiving-ness at my house, not to mention that I got asked to throw a party for about 250 people last night for my church (the day after is the best feeling ever!) and I have a White Elephant party coming up in a few weeks that I'm working on. Not to mention decorating for the holidays, shopping for Christmas presents, getting ready for our family trip, being a mom, being a wife and cleaning the house! (notice how cleaning is last on my list?... come over and you will see why) Case in point:

So now let's get back into the swing of things with some photos of the Christmas party I did last night and some printables for you and yours! The party really was so much fun! There were a ton of people and we needed a way to keep the kids at the tables so we provided crayons and coloring books and had the tables covered in craft paper to keep them busy which worked...

until they noticed the balloons on the ceiling:

This was probably my favorite part of the decorations. Too bad this picture is after the kids and teenagers demolished them and started sucking out the helium and running around all over singing songs with very high pitched voices. So this is what was left. It was super easy to do! I had little kid help cutting out some snowflakes out of paper and we also used these which were awesome because they come in so many sizes.

It made the whole room look like a winter wonderland!

 Now on to the labels and printables for you to enjoy for the upcoming festivities!

We used labels on everything to keep it all organized. With the 250 people and others providing food it can get super hectic so these were a must and I think they turned out pretty well. They could be used at home for a fun Hot Chocolate night or a Christmas Eve party. Just right click, save and print! (or drag to your desktop on a Mac) Enjoy!

(mid candy cane grab)

here we come a wassailing

It's officially the week of Thanksgiving which means cinnamon, pumpkin spice and hot chocolate! I'm so happy! My house, however is an asbolute wreck as I prepare for our guests to arrive. So to make up for the scatter and the un-organizedness I decided to cheer myself up with a post on Christmas, Thanksgiving, Fall and Winter in a mug!

If you ever want your house to smell amazingly and taste great too, this is for sure the best recipe out there. Wassail is like a spiced cider that is quite rich and smells heavenly. Trust me. You. Will. Love. It. Most recipes I have found for Wassail have been chock full of sugar but my mother, my sister and I have tweaked and twisted this recipe into a more healthy delight. However you are more than welcome to twist and tweak it right back if you like!

Recipe
1/2-1 cup of sugar (I didn't say there was no sugar in it, just not the usual 4 cups)
4 cups of water
8 cinnamon sticks
(simmer for at least 15 minutes)

then add:

2 qts pure cranberry juice (the really sour stuff)

2 qts of water

4 cups of fresh squeezed orange juice

1 1/4 cup of fresh squeezed lemon juice (to taste)

(simmer for another 30 minutes)

*remove cinnamon sticks before serving*

believe me it tastes as good as it smells

Happy Thanksgiving!

a likeness

A while back, I found this pin and I knew... I just knew I had to do it. If you click on the link of the pin you can find the tutorial. It's pretty simple and easy to figure out. She drew a grid over the picture and drew the photo using a larger scale grid on the wood. I numbered each box so that it was easier for me to see the lines in as I drew in each box. I did the whole thing with ONE sharpie! I must say, I really love it!