I'm signing off until the New Year, but I just wanted to wish you all a very Merry Christmas with your families. I hope it's a safe and happy day and that all your Christmas wishes come true!
Robin and I will be posting all next week on Hoopla, so come on over and say hi if you need a break from celebrating and eating :)
Be Merry!!
Xo
Are you behind in the decorating department? No worries!
Having a real (or fake) Christmas tree is great, but at this point, you may not want to splurge on one. Need some ideas for equally cool tree options?
The kraft paper tree. All you need is kraft paper, a marker and an imagination. Ta da!
The book tree. Are books gathering dust on yourshelf? Bring them out, arrange them in a tree shape and string some lights!
The wooden stick tree. Just glue or nail some pieces of spare wood together and you have yourself a very trendy tree!
Which one is your favourite?
I am officially on holidays for 2 weeks! My office shuts down completely until January 2nd, so I am living stress-free right now - no need to check my emails or my voicemail and no need to feel guilty for being at home! I'm loving it!
I have admired Rob Ryan's work for a while, but I saw a video on him and his artistic process the other day and knew I had to feature him.
Rob is a paper cut artist from London, England. His work is incredibly intricate. I can't imagine how long it takes for him to do one piece!
All of these pieces were cut out using an exacto knife and scissors! See what I mean by intricate????
He has an adorable little shop in London, but I'd you can't make it there, you can check out his Etsy shop.
Happy Monday!
I'm sure you've seen those painted antlers around. For me, they were love at first sight! And I put them at the very top of my Christmas list.
My Mom always gets me the best presents, so she said she'd get two for me, to replace my young-ish cardboard moose in my living room. I was ecstatic. We started emailing Cassandra Smith, the really talented artist who had the genius idea to paint designs on fallen antlers, about colours.
We decided on these:
A beautiful pair of antlers pour moi!
My Mom bought them on Cassandra's Etsy site and I was so pumped!
But no, the day after they were paid for, Cassandra received a call from the Wildlife Inspector in the U.S. and was told she was not allowed to ship antlers internationally and that, if she did, she would incur a very hefty fine! Cassandra told us she had sent tons of antlers to Canada, the UK, Australia, etc. in the past with no issues.
I was so close!
Needless to say, my Mom was refunded and I'm back to square one.
Bummer eh? Any idea on Canadian artists/retailers with a similar product???
What a busy weekend! I was the day-of coordinator for a friend's wedding on Saturday. It was both exciting and stressful! To find out what went wrong and see some pics, head over here.
Luckily, I had my house all finished last week, so after the wedding, I could just relax and enjoy the festive touches!
Christmas trees are hard to photograph! Anyways, here it is in all it's glory! Oh and you can see the advent calendar in the background. We are apparently on December 15th!! Keaton doesn't get the whole advent thing!
My mom gave me these beaded garlands last year and I think they give it a nice, festive touch. Oh and Keaton loves them too - he has torn them down a few times :)
I got this at the One of a Kind show this year. My family had one growing up, so I though I'd start the tradition too.
Remember my post about the felt balls? Well, they arrived! I had all the best intentions of stringing them to the stairs banister, but our tree takes up too much room, so you wouldn't be able to see them! I think they look just as nice as a centerpiece.
Mr. Moose has gone festive!!
And last, but not least, Aidan and my first tree. It's fake, it's tiny and kind of cheap, but it's ours :)
Are you finished your decorating yet?
I want to interrupt this regular blogging schedule to report that I bought a new camera!
Yes, this puppy is all mine!
But you know what makes this buy that much better? I got an insane deal! I just so happened to be going through my newspaper flyers and saw that Staples was selling the Canon Rebel XS for $349.99! I couldn't believe my eyes!
I did a quick check on Amazon to see what they were selling it for and they had it at $549!
I know!
Happy early Christmas to me!
Let's continue on with the Christmas posts, shall we?
On the weekend, we decorated the house, both inside and out. We went Christmas tree shopping, ornament shopping and wreath shopping. It's the first time we have gone all out with the decorating, so it was quite an event! I'm saving the inside decor for another day, so today's all about the outside.
These two pots have been outside my door since the end of the summer. My Mom tells me terra-cotta might crack over the winter, but I'm taking my chances. I originally wanted two little mini trees planted in those pots, but when I saw these "Charlie Brown Christmas" trees ($14.99) at Sheridan Nurseries, I couldn't resist!
No, it didn't snow at my house over the weekend - those are little hanging pinecones with fake snow attached! I bought a whole big box of them at Loblaws last week for $9.99. They were on sale for 50% off!
And now for the wreath. I wanted to go a little non-traditional with the colours because there's a lot of red and green inside my house. I bought the wreath and big box of ornaments at Wal-Mart for $9.99 each. I went through about a third of the box, so I'll have to think of somewhere else to use them. I bought the ribbon at the Dollar Store for $1 each roll. I just wrapped the ribbon around the wreath and attached the ornament and that's it! The whole project took all of 5 minutes. We still have yet to put up the lights, but we'll get around to it.
Have you decorated the outside of your house yet? What did you do?
