Christmas Decorations

This is Jon and I's first Christmas together in our own place. Last year we celebrated at his parents house, and my parent's house. This year we're decorating the house a little bit. Next year we want to tackle hanging Christmas lights outside, and doing more decorating inside (no need to buy everything at once).

The first thing we did was set up the tree, though it took us a few days to get the decorations onto it.

Our tree is sitting by the front door because we had no idea where else to put it aside from in front of the TV, no one liked that idea. (Excuse the mess we had only been home a few minutes).

Here's a close up of the decorations. We went with red, green and gold this year (that was all our store had), and got the star garland from his mom. She bought it a few years ago at the Christmas Farmer's Market they host in town every year in December. She said it was handmade by the lady, and she had 5-6 of them. We managed to get two (they're not very long), to do our tree, and two went to work. They're beautiful and a huge hit with everyone.

We also have the Be Merry banner that I made. It hangs above our TV. I still feel like it needs something more. The wall seems so plain otherwise. Maybe I'll pick up a garland of some sort to string across the top.

We bought two of these garlands and strung one over the window in the kitchen, and one over the window in the living room. It's like having candles lit when we have just them on.

My love of owls has translated into our Christmas decorations (and the edge of our key rack). Here's one of a few owls that we put out for Christmas.

These three hang on the mirror by the front door. The one pictured above is in the bottom corner of the mirror.

These three are hanging on the window on our front door. They're frozen solid (normally they're rubbery and flexible). It's been extremely cold lately.

This is our adorable little own door hanger. He gets squished between the two front doors, but I smile when I come home and see him hanging there.

We even have owls on the table! At first I thought the table looked kind of plain, but I like it. It's cute and winter-y without necessarily being Christmas-y.

We ventured away from the owls and I bought this snowman. It has a space on the back for a tealight. I've been meaning to get a battery operated one because the cat is drawn to lit candles.

I also picked up this Santa one that sits opposite it on top of the cabinet that holds all of our movies (pictures of the house coming in the new year).

I can't wait to decorate the house more next year! I love Christmas.

Hopefully you all have your decorations up by now! Have a wonderful day!

-Alex

Michael's Haul #5 & Christmas Shopping

**NOTE** My apologies for the lack of post yesterday. I apparently scheduled this post for the wrong day without realizing it. Next time I'll double check!

Last week (Tuesday & Wednesday), Jon and I headed to the city to do all of our remaining Christmas shopping. I also had to get some things to hopefully finish my Christmas cards this week, and a birthday gift for my niece's birthday this Friday. We took his mom's Toyota Venza because it had the most space but was still enclosed. It was a wonderful idea because it was packed full.

Those of you who follow me on Instagram would have seen this picture posted yesterday on our way home from the city.

The majority of that was Christmas gifts, and also 19 bags of popcorn twists for Jon's aunt to make caramel popcorn twists with. They're super addicting by the way. There was also two packages of wrapping paper, and a bunch of things just for me from Michaels and Treasured Memories in Edmonton.

I tried to snap this so that even if a family member reads this, they won't know what they're getting for Christmas. Here's the Christmas gifts we have so far. A few are still coming in the mail, and some were too large to fit onto the table.

Like these. The yellow and black box is a saw stand and the bag has my niece's Christmas and birthday gifts in it.

The saw to go with the stand is in the other room sitting in front of the TV.  The cat took it upon himself to lay on top of the box last night while we watched a couple movies. The saw and the stand were giant boxes and they took up most of the space in the back of the car. We had things falling out when we opened doors, and at one point we just rolled down the windows to shove more stuff into the car. So glad we're finished our Christmas shopping. Even for each other. Jon bought mine online, and I bought his during this trip. He picked it out from Michaels.

Here's the majority of my personal purchases. The only things missing from this is the sweater I picked up from Addition Elle, some items from La Senza for myself and my sister, and the CD's I picked up in HMV (more about the CD's later though!).

Jon found this adorable Christmas photo box, and said I could put my Christmas cards or gift tags into it. He's a genius and that's why I love him so much. Or he's just the king of pointing out the obvious.

I also picked up some Kraft cardstock. I love this paper (though I have yet to use it).

I couldn't leave without some Christmas paper. I only had two stacks of Christmas paper, so I needed to add to my collection.

I love the papers in here, even though some of them are better suited for full page layouts, others will be perfect for my cards and other projects.

Another Christmas stack and a My Mind's Eye paper stack. In case you haven't noticed I have a slight paper addiction. Hopefully I have enough space for all of these.

Jon tried to order my a couple of PL albums online for Christmas. They were all sold out, so I picked up these two from Michaels. The left one goes with the Kraft edition and the Right one goes with 5th & Frolic edition. It says "Remember this the story of us". I plan to use that one starting in January to document the first year in the house. Maybe exciting things will happen.

I hate glitter, but when I want to use it, I can never find the colour I want in the stash I have, and since my options in town are limited, I picked up this Martha Stewart 24 Pack. 

Couldn't pass up some Christmas stamps that were on sale! The wooden ones came from the $1 bin.

I needed foam squares and the glitter letters are for a couple of door hangers Jon wants me to make for the nieces. We decided to make a couple for the nephews but assumed they wouldn't want glittery letters.

After debating the thin rolls of washitape for a few months now, I finally picked them up. I also snagged a couple rolls of Christmas tape (I thought I had a couple more, but I guess not).

Picked up silver and gold ink, and some smash book stamps. They fit nicely into my letters for penpals.

I was also looking for little things to make the house feel a little prettier for Christmas. I bought two of each vase at the top, and one of the owl candle holders. Now I just need to get some unscented candles.

I buy my white cardstock from Staples because its cheaper. I use a lot of white cardstock. I don't buy pre-made card bases, I make them myself from cardstock. I also bought ink and another hanging file folder for my stationery. I keep it in file folders in the deep drawers of my one desk.

I also bought a bunch of post it notes (you can never have too many right?) and adhesive chalkboard labels and chalk for a project in the kitchen.

We went to Treasured Memories in Edmonton (my favourite little scrapbook shop). They have $2.50 washitape (regular $5.00), couldn't pass it up so I got a few. I'm in love with  both of the cloud rolls!

I also bought a few stamp sets from her that I can use for my Project Life.

I mentioned a bunch of CD's earlier, and I have a couple that I recommend you at least listen to. The first is The Piano Guys. Either of their albums are amazing. They're a Cello/Piano group, and they do covers of popular songs. They're beautiful. I also recommend the new Katy Perry (Prism), the new Hedley (Wild Life) and the debut album from Lorde (Pure Heroine) I've been listening to them on repeat while I write this post.

That's it for today! Have a wonderful day!

-Alex

DIY Be Merry Banner

I was going through some of my craft stuff that I've barely used and stumbled across my Close To My Heart chipboard letters. I used a couple last year on a project that still isn't finished, but figured I should use more of them. I have limited letters since I bought them from a yardsale, but I used what I had to make a Christmas banner.

I originally wanted to go with "JOY" but didn't have all the letters for it, so I looked through the few I did and realized with some creativity I could do "BE MERRY".

I love our new carpet and I did a lot of my planning for this project on my floor. I went through the letters and chose to do it this way since I had one sheet of each letter but was lucky enough to have two E's that were the same! 

At first I wanted to cover them in patterned paper and hang them on a garland above the TV. That didn't work out the way I wanted it to, so instead I made this. Don't mind the TV, I was watching the M3 Top 20 Countdown. This is just Legacy by Fefe Dobson.

We hung it on the wall using white tacks, and I attached ribbon to each of the rosettes. I'm not tall enough to get a good picture of how we hung them, but if you squint and tilt your head you can see the tacks.

I had Jon take these down so I could get better pictures of them. I attached a scalloped circle in a similar colour to each rosette to keep it together, then put the letter on top of that. Most of our decorations are red or green, so I figured they were a safe colour choice.

The large rosettes were made using three 3" strips of patterned paper. This red one is probably my favourite.

When I cut the striped paper for the little ones I definitely wasn't thinking. The pattern doesn't match up where the strips were connected. I should have cut one strip from each sheet of paper and connected those. These ones were made using two 1 1/2" strips. I used a black scalloped circle so you could see the letter from a distance.

Here's a better look at the green chevron pattern on this one.

I love this red paper so much. The pattern is just perfect, and the colour is a reddish pink.

A closer view of my mismatched pattern. Oh, and I coloured the circles black. They were off white, because I wasn't thinking and it was late when I finished these ones. 

I love Christmas so much. I'm going to spend the next few days trying to wrap presents without using bows and using minimal ribbon. Our cats like to take the bows off the gifts and play with the ornaments on the tree. So far though they've left the tree alone, I'll share a photo of that next week!

Have a wonderful weekend!

-Alex

Christmas Gift Tags

I love Christmas. I've been working hard this year to make our first Christmas in the house special. I've made some decorations, we've bought a ton of things, and I'm trying to be more creative with my gift wrapping. Last year I made a bunch of gift tags, but only used one or two, this year I dug them out again and plan to share them with you!

These are the three tags that I made last year. They were all made using leftover pieces of Christmas cards last year.

This first two were made using the left over pieces of some trees I made. I used the Give a Hoot cartridge for my Cricut. I used the centre pieces to put snow onto trees I put on a Christmas card, and rather than waste these pieces I made them into tags.

This one was made using the Create a Critter cartridge for the Cricuit. I put Penguins onto some cards last year and had a bunch of extras, so I made them into adorable little tags!

Making your own gift tags is super simple! I've even used these on little outgoing card orders and put a little thank you on the back!

That's all for today, hope you're all getting into the Christmas spirit!
- Alex

Washitape Wednesday

It's Washitape Wednesday again loves! Of course I saved the best for last! This is my absolute favourite of the cards I made for my giveaway winners. It's so bright and fun. I'm absolutely pleased with how it turned out, to the point that I almost didn't want to give it away. But I'm sure someone will love it as much as I do.

I pulled colours from the floral tape for this one, and I'm so pleased with how well they all go together.

I kind of went with a split chevron / herringbone look for this card. It was so much fun to do. I made sure the tapes lined up on both panels, but I couldn't get the patterns to match up perfectly.

I used the same Congratulations stamp as I did for the first card, and adhered it with foam squares. I adhered the tape panels to the card using my tape gun. 

I added gems in corresponding colours down the side to add a touch of sparkle to the card, and make it even prettier. I placed them in the same order as they were on the card.

Hope you all have a wonderful Washitape Wednesday! I'd love to see all of your projects! Leave links in the comments below and I'll be sure to check out your blogs!

-Alex