Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Merry Christmas!

Photo by Carissa Christine Photography

Saturday, December 22, 2012

2012 Christmas Cards

Christmas cards might be my favorite part of Christmas. I think that out side of the house hold family, there should be no gifts, just awesome Christmas cards. I especially love the ones with photos from those people we don't get to see often. Therefore, I prefer to give photo Christmas cards as well. The only thing is... usually the people at least have a child. We just have Behr the Corgi... While he is cute and wonderful and everyone loves him, not everyone has met him still, so... Everyone gets a card with mine and Bill's cute faces. :) And this year, a small one of the three of us on the back.


This is the second year we've ordered our cards through My Publisher now. They have such fantastic designs that it's always hard to choose. AND they always have some sort of special/discount on Christmas cards, making one of the best priced places.


I always love the 'unveiling'...





This year, the front is a photo from Carissa Christine Photography. We did a "mini session" in mid November, mostly for the Christmas card and partially to hopefully start a yearly family photo tradition. All of our photos were great and it was *really* hard to pick... Check out the preview of our session.

On the back is a photo of Bill, Behr and I that my little sister took for one of her photography classes. She's currently going to school at the University of Minnesota for photography. We are often her test subjects/models and it's totally worth it because we've gotten some great photos out of it and she's constantly improving. I can't wait to see where she goes with it!


To wrap it all up... MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Monday, December 17, 2012

Glitter Everywhere.

Recently, Young House Love posted Forget Mini-Me, Check Out Mini Tree with a great idea on using Target's $1 (double 'pack') ornaments to create a garland type decoration. So, yesterday I just happened to be in Target's Christmas section when I remembered the post and thought that I could totally do something like that for the windows in our living room. We do not really have a ton of Christmas decorations and I try to go through the clearance every year, but we really just have lights, ornaments, and a couple random things to put out.

Target's Christmas section is starting to become picked through, so they did not have everything... but I found some snow flakes in gold and red that go great with our color scheme that we already have going on.


I bought 3 'sets' of red and 2 of the gold for two windows. My thought process was to do alternating red and gold, using mostly red so it stood out more.


Last year I bought this green ribbon for some other Christmas projects and there was more than enough left to use for both of the windows. I pretty much just guestimated the length, holding it up to the window, giving it some slack so it hung down some and then gave it a bunch more length just in case and to be able to tie it up on the ends.


Before I really even started, I had a giant glitter mess. We will be covered, or at least our feet, in glitter for awhile because I'm sure by now we have tracked it everywhere. 


To attach, I just used the string that the ornaments came with. But... because the red ones came with silver, I used the gold that came on the gold ones to attach all of the ornaments. I had to untie the strings and cut up those so there were enough for all 10 ornaments.

Then I found the center and tied on the first red ornament. I just tied on the ornaments normally, scrunching the ribbon. I knew that if I tried to make it nice and orderly or perfect, I would just go insane. After, I just sort of found a spot where the next ones would look good in terms of spacing. I then folded the ribbon in half at the center ornament to find the other side of the center. Finally, I did the same for the 4th & 5th ornaments.


For the second string, I just laid it over the first and matched up the spacing. I then 'melted' the ends of the ribbon for both. I trimmed the extra string from tying on the ornaments and thought it would be a good idea to melt those ends to. Not so much. Not knowing what the string was made of, it created a small fire, which was easily blown out. Let's just say I didn't melt the ends of any more



When they were both all done, I tied knots in the ends to hang from the weird curly ends of the curtain rod (they came with the house...). I had to untie and retie due to not enough length the first time. Once I got it figured out, I just matched up the second one to be similar, as both windows are the same size.

And... TA DA...



Super easy and quick. And I think they look great and are easy to use again.

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

December StitchFix

Last week I got my 2nd StitchFix! Awesome! I think that maybe adding comments to my previous items as to why I wasn't keeping them really helped them pick stuff out this time. Right out of the box, I LOVED everything! But... sadly, 'tis the season for giving, not buying lots of clothes for myself... In reality, if I didn't have to buy Christmas presents this month, I would have kept everything!

Here's what my box had...
  • Ya Sinead Drape Pockets Open Cardigan
  • Tulle Maurino 3/4 Sleeve V-Neck Blouse
  • Love Stitch Lisbon Pleat Placket Sheer Blouse
  • Hourglass Lilly Calafia Jersey Wrap Dress
  • Spun Scarves by Subtle Luxury - Batik Dot Scarf
On to the photos! (Which I even used a real camera for this time!)

Ya Sinead Drape Pockets Open Cardigan



This cardigan is great and it could really go with most anything. I really like the unique pockets and how it fell on my body. The only problem I had, was that the sleeves were a little short... I probably could have lived with it, because I usually have my sleeves pushed up some anyways. 

Tulle Maurino 3/4 Sleeve V-Neck Blouse

This was my absolute favorite straight out of the box!



I usually go for solid colored clothing, usually no patterns. For some reason, I am drawn to this pattern. It's fantastic. The colors are great and the style is great. It's the only thing I kept this month too (because Christmas...).

I even already wore this over the weekend to a birthday party!

Love Stitch Lisbon Pleat Placket Sheer Blouse



The color of this blouse and the material are fantastic. I really like the pleats in the front. The only thing I didn't like about this blouse was the elastic around the waist at the bottom. I find shirts with that to not be very flattering on me. And honestly I'm not sure if I should have it pulled down or kept up more so it's looser...

Hourglass Lilly Calafia Jersey Wrap Dress


This is a great basic little black dress. I really liked that the 'not sleeves' are capped just a little and the skirt has a great flare to it. The wrap style makes it very flattering and the tie hit at the best place on my body possible emphasizing curves. Great, soft, comfortable jersey material.

Spun Scarves by Subtle Luxury - Batik Dot Scarf

 My biggest regret.




 I also loved this one a lot. And I went back and forth a lot on whether to keep it or not. I have about 5 million scarves... And sadly, I stick to the same 3 most of the time. The pattern and colors of this scarf are great. At the very last minute, because my husband was on his way out the door to the post office, I decided not to keep it. I've been kicking myself for the past few days now because I really should of. StitchFix, if you're reading this, you can accidentally send this to me again next time...

If you're interested, you can sign up HERE!

Check out my other Stitch Fixes:  #1  |  #3  |  #4  |  #5

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Snow Day! Part 2

 

After we lounged around in the morning, I brought Behr outside to play... I'm not 100% if he likes it or not, but he's so obsessed with his ball that I don't think it bothers him too much. Plus it's so cute when he hops through all of it because it's too deep for him!

Where did my ball go?



FOUND IT!

He does his best to look everywhere but the camera...

Delicious snow we have here.

Pounce!

Throw it! PLEASE!

Rarr


Monday, December 10, 2012

Snow Day!

Minneapolis had its first real snow fall of the season... I believe there was a predicted 4-8" in the forecast and we definitely got over a foot of snow that fell in about an 18 hour period. We spent the first chunk of our day lounging around, enjoying Sunday morning without worries...







I have some more from Behr and I playing outside, but I haven't gone through those yet....