Our Christmas-filled home

Lots of red and green

Nativities

Candles and cards

Paper Snowflakes

Festive sweets

Our tree all decorated

Kisses for the baby Jesus in his manger

You can be sure that all of our Christmas goodness will stay up 'til my birthday at the end of January...it just makes my heart too happy to take it down any earlier :)

** Disclaimer: I wish I could say I made the caramel-chocolate apples...but they were sweet gifts from my friend Penny who made them! :) And just in case some are wondering, I got the idea for the cupcakes on Pinterest here, too cute to pass up!

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Spiritual Health:

I finished my reading of the Book of Mormon yesterday! Can't wait to share my thoughts on reading it this time around :) Today I watched this wonderful video:

"Wise Men Still Seek Him"

It's short and incredibly moving :)

Physical Health:

Doing some pilates that my sweet cousin in-law did with me last night after a family christmas party. Thanks Ali! My legs are going to be burnin' :)

Paper Snowflakes 101

POST EDIT: Thanks to Rebecca of LilSugar.com for contacting me about the incredible project for Sand Hook Elementary...turning their new facility into a winter wonderland full of paper snowflakes! Let's do our part and make some snowflakes for those sweet children and staff! Go HERE for information of where to send yours by January 12th. xo 

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After my blog friend Janette shared this fabulous link to Vintage Junky's easy snowflake tutorials, I couldn't resist. I've been a snowflake-making maniac and loving every minute of it. :) Michelle of Vintage Junky shares how to make 3 different snowflakes...which include folding instructions to turn an 8x11" piece of paper into a square, then into a 6-sided hexagon (very important for the base of the snowflake!) go HERE for those tutorials. Below I pass on her folding wisdom...and 3 more snowflake stencils.

I thought I'd share a few tips I came to learn...Paper Snowflakes 101:

-- You can't mess up. Some some of your snowflakes may be similar, but there's nothing exact about them and that's what makes them beautiful! Just like the real thing :) 
-- Un-crease as you unfold. After cutting, you'll unfold to open and reveal your snowflake, be sure to un-crease each fold as much as possible so that it's flat.
-- "The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear." Okay, that's not exactly something I learned from cutting these snowflakes, but I did learn that from Buddy the Elf. And he's a snowflake cutting pro. ;)

So far I've hung them in from our chandelier in our dining room. I love the festive winter feel it brings into the room! And I'm excited to string them in the windows of our kitchen, and hang some on our Christmas tree. You can never have too many paper snowflakes.

I shared this over at Whipperberry and Under The Table and Dreaming. Go see what others shared too! :)

DIY Paper Leaf Wreath

I was so excited when, last week, my sweet friend Kira was up for getting together for our kids to have a play-date and for us to have a craft-date :) I've needed to get my creative juices flowing thanks to Pinterest! And while this is not an orignal project (I found the idea here, along with other great wreath ideas) I really enjoyed creating it. Even if it took me a few minutes of being dumb-founded on how to exactly do it, right Kira? haha ;)

Supplies needed:

- wreath form -

- paper of choice -

(book pages or sheet music...I found my sheet music here)

- pencil -

- scissors -

- glue gun (& glue;) -

STEP 1:

Get a good amount of the paper you want to use. I loved the "Silent Night" sheet music I found here :)

STEP 2:

Trace out leaf shapes with a pencil and start cutting!

STEP 3:

Take your wreath form and use the hot glue to line it with the paper leaves.

STEP 4:

Fold remaining leaves in half long-ways, then unfold to get a nice crease.

STEP 5:

Make clusters of leaves (the more leaves, the thicker the wreath will be) with a small amount of hot glue.

STEP 6:

Glue the leaf clusters around the wreath. Putting glue at the joint of the clusters, and behind a few of the tips of the leaves so that they lay flat.

STEP 7:

Display!

And when Adam gets home from work (any minute now!) we'll be putting up our Christmas tree for Family Night! I've wanted to since last week :) You can bet we'll be enjoying Christmas music, sipping peppermint hot cocoa, and snacking on kettle corn in between stringing lights and hanging ornaments. Oh how I love this time of year!

And I'm sharing this over at Whipperberry and Under The Table and Dreaming.

Go see what others are sharing! :)

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Spiritual & Physical Health:

Refer to the post the from earlier today :)

a little luck & some soda bottle vases

I've gotta say, this year is the first that I've decorated for holidays other than Christmas...it's very minimal, but I love it :) It's fun to get my craft on and jazz up the mantel with colors and themes of whatever festivities may be coming up. St. Patty's Day is right around the corner and here is what I did with my mantel over the weekend...got the fun idea for the garland from here.

I used the glass soda bottles from Adam's 80's birthday bash for vases...and took apart a couple bouquets of dainty spring flowers I got on sale at Michaels. The picture of our little family is in the center because I feel that's what makes me LUCKY :)

And last week I was inspired by this lovely lady to spray paint some of the glass soda bottles....

I learned a little lesson:

Spray painting over the ink printed numbers causes some major smear/drippage. A few more layers of paint hid most of it, but I made sure to get the print off the other bottles with my handy-dandy Magic Eraser. (those things really are magic I tell ya)

What do you think? :)