More Holiday Spirit!

I'm trying to fit in more Christmas posts before the actual holiday because once it's gone, it's gone! I'll have to focus on the New Year as a theme after Thursday. I wanted to share more easy decoration ideas for your home. This mistletoe is the perfect small addition to a room (& apparently a good excuse as to why someone should kiss you). This was found in Michael's with my boyfriend for only $6!

 I made some paper ornaments (DIY link posted at the bottom) and added glitter to the front edge, as well as some curled ribbon at the top. 

Here they are hung up!

For being made of construction paper, cheap plastic ribbon, and craft glitter, these turned out pretty nice! 

And here's another poinsettia I made the other night! I realized that these look so beautiful that they could even be mounted in a formation on the wall as a decoration.

DIY for paper ornaments: 

http://www.curbly.com/users/chrisjob/posts/9452-how-to-make-modern-paper-ornaments 

Christmas Present Toppers DIY

I am about 80% done with my Christmas shopping. My next step is wrapping all of my goodies up and making them look beautiful. Today I spent some quality time crafting and creating cute little knicknacks as present toppers. This DIY isn't a product of my mind, rather it's a fun project I pulled from the internet. I'll provide the sources below as well as the pdf link for the gift tags!

This is a finished product from my craft- a poinsetta for presents instead of a bow! Admittedly it took some time and patience, but altogether creating it was simple. 

I found these printable gift tags and made myself a few sheets because they were far too adorable. To the right are my petal stencils and a measurement for the base. If you zoom up close enough you can see the measurements. Cut out the shapes and use them to trace the petals unto cardstock, construction paper, or even a pretty wrapping paper.

I decided to use wrapping paper. On its own it would be rather flimsy so applied glue to the inside and folded it in half. This allowed for it to be more sturdy and double sided. Here is a photo of how I traced the pieces out. The center circles are of a heavier stock paper. 

I used fun patterned scissors and a hole punch to put the finishing touches to the print out tags!

Here are some of my finished products! I think my packages might be too pretty that people won't want to rip them open ^.^ When I finish decorating one of my presents I'll post a picture of it with all of the toppings for you to see!

Site for the tags:

http://studio.heylook.fi/freebies/handmadetags.pdf

Site for the DIY directions:

http://www.olderandwisor.com/2012/12/pimp-yo-presents-tip-1-diy-paper.html

Stop & Breathe

After writing enough academic papers to publish my own encyclopedia (predominately on the subject of Adenovirus-36 induced obesity), recording my thoughts on here is so refreshing. I am uninhibited and free from subject compliance. The latter part of November, just before Thanksgiving break, has continuously been the most stressful part of the semester. Finals week is a close second but the open schedule and freedom from classes makes it more tolerable. I feel very overwhelmed & whenever this happens I have to remind myself to stop and breathe. Everything may seem beyond repair but nothing is ever so broken that it cannot be fixed. "Let go and let God." I regain my sanity knowing that He's looking out for me and everything will work out as it should. There is nothing more comforting than the love of God.

Anyhow, little update on what I've been getting up to (besides attending class & schoolwork):

The boyfriend & I loved making those little holiday houses before that we went back and bought a couple more for his apartment! We got glitter all over the place but the results made the mess worth it (at least in my opinion.. he may not agree considering that stuff doesn't go away for a long time).

This is from a couple weeks back but I came across the photo on my phone and had to share how adorable this little coin purse from Kate Spade is! Cute but pointless. All the best decorative things in life seem to serve no purpose other than to look good (which means they're doing their job perfectly).

This isn't my picture. I'm pretty sure I screenshotted someone else's Instagram photo because their cake looked so dang good. Donuts.. strawberries.. and cake?! All of my favorite edible things have been compiled into one delicious pink sugar bomb. This has to be reconstructed in my kitchen one day. 

Baking & Building

I know that it's been some time since I've posted on here & a lot has happened in my life that I'd like to share with you. You should see me when something exciting happens nowadays- I whip out my iPhone and say, "Wait! Let me take a picture! I wanna blog about this". I actually brainstormed a list the other evening about post topics. So believe me when I say that I have a lot planned, my only shortcomings in being a blogger are my semi-busy life and sheer laziness. 

The Holiday Season brings with it so many goodies in so many forms- there are candies, cookies, cakes, pies, breads, etc;. When the first chill bites my skin through my knit sweater I know that it's time to pull out the Christmas sprinkles and preheat the oven to start baking. The other day I picked up a pumpkin pie bar mix from Krusteaze that has a gingerbread cookie crust. It. is. SUPERB. It was also quite simple to put together and quick to bake. 

Along the lines of cooking- this weekend my boyfriend and I took turns cooking dinner for each other and the results were tasty. I did a shrimp scampi and he did a steak dinner with sweet potatoes and asparagus!

Cold weather is also an indicator to me that the decorations ought to come out. As a young adult who moves frequently, I don't have a collection of holiday decorations compiled over time to call my own. I tend to pick up a couple things here and there. On Halloween my boyfriend and I found a little kit in Target for a miniature themed house made of foam pieces. It was like a 3D puzzle with glittery stickers that finished impressively. When I saw Christmas houses at Michaels I knew purchasing them needed to happen. The other evening we took time out (collectively 3 hrs, to be exact) to watch some films and build them! The gingerbread house was for ages 3+ with some 120+ pieces and actually took longer to build than the little shop, which was for 6+ and had 240+ pieces. The age recommendations on those projects is absolute madness. If it takes two 23-year-olds a few hours to build them, then I highly doubt children could do it on their own. Also, 3-year-olds should not be playing with toys that have little pieces because I'm pretty sure that's still in the everything-goes-in-my-mouth stage of childhood. Someone made a comment which was so spot-on- "that's for the parents of the 3-year-old".. Precisely. 

Lastly, my roomies are babysitting their friend's puppy for a week while he goes back home for a wedding. It's an English bulldog named Titan who is only 6 months old. His proportions are so unbalanced it's almost comical. He trips over his own paws and falls forward because of his massive head! I love puppies but this guy seems like a handful and a half.