Ten Projects-Project #5

I’m SO excited to share this project with you today!! This has been two years in the  making. It’s our advent calendar and I’m in love!

I made the envelopes two years ago (and displayed them in a apothecary jar) and decided last year that I wanted a wooden tree to hang them on, but we never got around to making it. We bought the wood, cut the trunk piece and I painted it white, but that’s as far as I got.

But it’s finally finished and in time for the holiday season no less!

It was actually really easy to make, so I’m not sure why it took so long. It’s my new favorite holiday decoration.

The photos don’t to it justice! The little envelopes are so cute. I made them with one piece of scrapbook paper that I got at Archiver’s. I cut it up and added some baker’s twine.

I think the tree idea is perfect. If, or should I say when I get tired of the envelopes, I can always add something different to the tree for the calendar such as small boxes, cute little bags, etc.

This was one of the big projects and boy am I glad to cross this off the list! Do you do an advent calendar? We have activities on all the inserts and the kids just love finding out what each day holds.

Tomorrow I’ll post a list of all our activities and show you how we made our cards this year.

Linked up here:

Tatertots and Jello

The Idea Room

Happening Now

Crossing my fingers that I’ll finish both of my big projects by Sunday.

Loving the Christmas tree and the glow of the lights.

Watching my kiddos playing nicely together. Ahhh.

Listening to John Mayer again after seeing him live last Friday. He’s great in concert.

Working on my December Daily foundation pages.

Ordering lots of Christmas gifts online this year so far.

Hosting Thanksgiving at our house. Yay!

Planning to hit the stores for some Black Friday shopping. It’s a tradition for my mom and I. I love a good deal, but like spending the time with my mom even more.

Needing to clean, bake and prep for the arrival of guests.

Looking forward to some delicious food on Thursday and the leftovers.

Going to see Catching Fire while we have babysitters in town! I. Can’t. Wait.

Reading lots of holiday magazine and finding awesome ideas.

Missing autumn a little, but glad the holiday season is in full swing.

Creating and doing lots and loving it.

 

 

 

 

Ten Projects-Project #4

This project was so simple. I made two ornaments for our tree. I’ll say it again. So. Simple.

 

I’ve been meaning to do this for at least three years! Ha! I’m right on top of things. But, now that I’ve made two, I think I’ll be making a few more. I love them.

The first one I made is simply a photo of Harper and some fake snow. Very easy, but really pretty. (I already had two ornaments with photos of Hudson and none of Harper, so now she finally has one!)

FYI, ornaments are very hard to photograph without there being a ton of glare. Sorry about that.

(P.S. Do you see my curtains hanging up in the background? We finally got them up and can I just say that I’m smitten! I’ll post an update soon.)

The second one I made is just tiny pinecones that I found on the ground at a park and some more fake snow. I don’t think it can get any easier.

 

Have you guys been making ornaments? I have a bunch pinned to my holiday Pinterest board that I’d like to make.

I’ll be finishing up one of my big projects this weekend and working on the other. I love this time of year and all the creativity that seems to come along with it!

Recipe Book-Pickle Wrap Dip

With the holiday party season rapidly approaching, I thought I would share one of my go-to party recipes. Every time I make this people ask for the recipe and they can’t stay away from the food table. It’s simple, cheap and delicious!

Pickle Wrap Dip

Ingredients
16 oz of cream cheese (whipped or softened)
16 oz of sour cream
2 packages of corned beef (Carl Budding) cut into small squares
1 jar of baby kosher dill pickles
1 tbsp water

Directions

Mix together sour cream and cream cheese. Add corned beef. Chop pickles in food processor and add to sour cream, cream cheese and beef. Add 1 tbsp of water to loosen. Mix all ingredients together with a hand mixer. Chill before serving and serve with tortilla chips or crackers.

I like it best served with tortilla chips. It makes a lot, so it’s great for a big party!

 

Ten Projects-Project #3

I really wanted to add more see-through elements to my December Daily this year and knew I wanted to incorporate some shiny sequins.

So, for project #3 I decided to make my own sequins pockets to insert into my pocket pages throughout my album. They were simple and very inexpensive to make.

Oh my do I love how they turned out! I’m super pumped to use them!

I picked up three packages of sequins at JoAnn yesterday along with a package of clear sentiment stickers that were 40% off. I used some overlays that I already had and a chipboard letter D from a set from Target. I cut up an old 9 pocket page that was damaged in one spot and used those pockets. Hudson helped me add the sequins and then I sewed the tops closed.

I ended up using this one and updating the first page of my December Daily. It originally just had the D slipped into the pocket, but I added the gold sequins and four silver stars to represent the four members of our family. Then to keep the D in place, I stitched it across the center. Much better!

Here is how it looks now.

I’m planning to use this one as part of our holiday party spread. Love, love, love it! I think this one is my favorite.

I decided to start with five pocket inserts, but have a feeling that I’ll like the look so much once they’re in my album that I’ll end up making more.

This was a fun little project.

Now on to the next! I’m hoping to make a holiday wreath this weekend and finish up a project that was started last December.

Have a great weekend!

**If you have any questions about the supplies I used, please leave them in the comments and I’ll be sure to answer them.**

Update: Fall Bucket List

We’ve had a ton of fun crossing activities off our Fall Bucket List this year! Our fall has seriously been magical. The weather has been perfect for getting out of the house and enjoying all the beauty of autumn.

As you can see, we’ve been very busy having fun. We’re still hoping to make it to an apple orchard this weekend even if we can’t pick our own apples anymore. There’s an orchard close to Omaha that makes apple donuts. That’s reason enough to visit!

And of course, there’s still time to make a couple of turkey crafts before Thanksgiving rolls around.

I’m just not sure we’ll get to have a fire to roast marshmallows though. Every time it’s been warm enough to sit outside it’s also been really windy. High winds and fires don’t mix. But this weekend may work. The kids love roasted marshmallows, so I hate to miss that one.

Autumn seems to be coming to a close here in Omaha. The trees have slowly been losing all their leaves and the beautiful colors are disappearing. I’m not ready to say goodbye just yet though, so I plan to relish in every last second of it before the dreaded snow comes along!

A couple of weeks ago we took the kids to the Wildlife Safari to see the animals one more time and to get in a hike (one of the activities on our list) to Frog Pond. It was a gorgeous day. One of my favorites of the season!

Please excuse our dirty dashboard and the crack in our windshield. We really need to get that fixed! 

I hope you all have been enjoying fall where you live!

**All the photos were taken with my iPhone 5 and are unedited.**

Where I’ve Been

I know I’ve been missing for a few days. Sorry about that! Last week Hudson came down with a pretty bad cold and a cough and then it spread to everyone else in our house. Blah. So, I’ve been taking care of sick kiddos (and trying to take care of myself) since last Thursday. Needless to say, I haven’t been accomplishing much around here. The hubby and I did manage to paint a little bit on Sunday, but that’s it.

I’m already behind on a few projects and now I have even more catching up to do! We’re trying to get our living room completed before we bust out the Christmas decorations, so that’s at the top of our list.

I’ve also been slowly editing photos, designing our Christmas card and designing our holiday party invitation on top of wrapping up some of the projects on my 10 Projects list. I’m still chugging along with that challenge. Anyone else working on projects?! I keep finding more and more things I want to make. There just aren’t enough hours in the day!

Oh, I got my new Midwest Living magazine in the mail last week. Oh man was I excited! I love to devour every little bit of that magazine and it’s even better with a nice glass of red wine!

I’ll be back tomorrow with an update about our Fall Bucket List and one of the recent activities we crossed off!

 

Happening Now

Feeling incredibly thankful this week.

Drinking pumpkin spice coffee with pumpkin spice creamer.

Prepping my December Daily for the upcoming season.

Working on some fun projects for the holidays.

Getting outside and enjoying the weather as much as we can before it’s gone.

Painting again. I ran out of paint and finally just got some more this weekend.

Reading Things We Set On Fire by Deborah Reed.

Planning our annual holiday party and getting very excited to put up the Christmas decorations.

Looking forward to Thanksgiving at home this year with my parents and then Black Friday shopping with my mom.

Needing to get the yard ready for winter.

Hoping to cross a few things off our home to-do list this weekend.

Loving that I get to meet the Pioneer Woman and see John Mayer in concert in two weeks! Awesome.

Sneaking way too much of the kids Halloween candy. Ugh.

Shopping for some new cold weather clothes. I am desperate for some new clothes.

Watching The Voice. It’s really good this season. James is my favorite. Go James! Oh and has anyone else noticed how much nicer Christina is this season?!

Texting back and forth with one of my oldest friends a lot lately and loving it. Keeping in touch is the best.

Enjoying this autumn so very much!

Have a great weekend everyone!!

December Daily Album and Cover Page

For the past two years I’ve followed along with Ali Edwards and created a December Daily album which celebrates the holiday season by documenting one story a day through the month of December. I only document until Christmas day though. These have turned out to be my favorite scrapbooks ever! They are pure magic.

In the past I’ve used WeRMemoryKeepers 8 1/2×11 albums and Ali’s digital overlays and it worked well, but this year I decided to change it up and work with a smaller album. I picked up a red Simple Stories 6×8 album at Archiver’s. I’m so excited to work with the smaller size. I think it will make completing the album that much easier and I’ll definitely be using less ink to print my photos since I print everything for the album at home.

Here is a look at my album and the cover page. I plan to use Ali’s daily overlays again too, but haven’t had the chance to print them out yet.

For my cover page, I used the Allison Kreft Designs star overlay. I’m obsessed. I bought two of them to use throughout my album. I also used a glittered star that I purchased from Etsy.com awhile back. I’m not sure of the store. The “merry & bright” is a Tis the Season sticker from Echo Park. I’ll be using a bunch of those throughout my album as well.

Here is a look at the back of the cover page. I simply cut out a star to hide the back of the glittered star because the back of it was really ugly. I think it was made with a cereal box or something of the sort, so it needed to be covered. Then I added another work sticker to back the other. You can see the stars of the overlay so much clearer in this photo.

Just behind the cover page I added a page that holds four, 3×4 photos and I put a D (which I attached to an extra piece of cut up pocket page) for our last name in the top pocket and then used some scrapbook paper and number stickers to add the year to the album. I plan to remove the other two pockets, as I do want it to hide the first day.

I’ve only added a few other pieces to the book so far. I still need to buy some buttons and other embellishments, so I don’t want to do too much until I get those.

I plan to blog my pages daily this year in hopes that it will keep me on track, so look for that to start December 1st.

I love this project and am so excited to be doing it again this year!

If you would like to learn more about December Daily click here.

13 Books in 2013-Book Seven

I just finished reading Me Before You by JoJo Moyes.

image source

I loved it.

It was a beautiful story about a friendship between a quadriplegic man and the young woman his parents hire to take care of him. I don’t want to give anything away, so I’m stopping at that, but you should definitely read it.

I laughed a few times and I cried pretty much the entire epilogue.

I highly recommend this one!

I don’t know that I’ll reach my goal of 13 books in 2013, but I’m certainly going to try yet. I’m off to figure out what to read next!