'Tis the Season!

It's here! The time of year I used to dread!  All the shopping, making, and planning for Christmas drove me nuts for years! I finally figured out that I was making the holidays a terrible time of year for myself and there was no one but me to blame(okay, maybe the merchants and media had a little something to do with it too). I love celebrating with my family so why do I dread this time of year? It hit me like a stack of hundred dollar bills falling off the table...it's the stress I have put on myself to get EVERYTHING done perfect. 

So I made a promise that I wouldn't make myself crazy anymore and that I was going to be realistic and reasonable with my plans for the holidays. I am going to enjoy them! Don't get me wrong, I still have days I'm overwhelmed and get cranky, but I've gotten better at being realistic about what I can actually get done and planning for help or changing my plans to keep me from GRINCHING out during this festive season!

Over the Thanksgiving weekend we put up our tree and decorated the hutch and foyer. Take a peek at what we pulled together! Chelsey is great at finding ideas(thanx Pinterest!) and making them work with what we have. Thank you Chelsey it was fun putting it all together!! Thanx Drew for driving us to Home Depot, Michael's and Staples for all our spur of the moment excursions!

We constructed the book page wings with sheet music, using foam core board as the base. 

The dining room is much less fussy than it's been.

There are a few more little vignettes throughout the house, but I've scaled back on decorating a lot. Mainly because I hate putting it all away after Christmas...I can leave most of the decor up throughout the winter, the Noel frame says Peace on the back, so I'll just turn that around! I am going to use the time saved to make gifts for friends and family. And those wings...I love them, they could stay up forever!!

How's your decorating going?

Go make something!

Nini~

Happy New Year! 2014 is Gonna Be Great!

Chelsey and I want to wish our friends a Happy New Year!  We are looking forward to a creative, fun 2014 with lots of laughs shared while creating, surfing and traveling. Here's a peek at our holiday celebrations, projects both edible and not!

Our crazy and fun family get togethers!

Homemade marshmallows, biscotti and macarons!

Gifts were made.

We hope you like what's in store for 2014...starting with our new look on the blog! Just a preview of fun things to come!

Go make something fun!!

Nini~

A Cute Little Gifty for Someone Nifty!

If you're looking for a gift for someone crafty and creative like I was, you'll be happy to know this cute little tree was really simple to do. I have many sewing and craft supplies, so I didn't need much to get started. The spools are from Michael's Crafts, I didn't want to give away my vintage wooden spools, so I distressed brand new ones with Tim Holtz's Distress Ink, but you could use watered down brown craft paint. I used christmas paper, baker's twine, buttons, glue stix, and Aleene's clear Tacky Glue I had on hand. Don't you think it would look as good with strips of fabric, wash tape or ribbon wrapped around them?

Big thanks to Steph at Silver Boxes blog for sharing her idea, you can see her post here.

Once I gathered my supplies I started with the distressing. I just wiped the spool edges on the ink pad, and then I used a small brush wiped on the ink pad, then on the spool to fill in any places that weren't reached and looked kinda stark.

All distressed out and drying! 

Then I cut paper strips to fit on the spools and hot glued them as I spun the paper around the spool. 

All glued together! I used the tacky glue for this part and let them dry a few hours. 

Hanging out to dry!!

I assembled them with hot glue, added some baker's twine to the trunk spool and star at the top and I was done!! I made all three in a short amount of time, I was doing lots of things in between so it's hard to say exactly how long it took, but it really was a no stress fun project. 

I think the lucky recipients will love them, don't you?!?!

I hope you're inspired to make a few to give away!

Nini~