25 Days of Christmas: Day 23

On two of the Christmas trees we had at our house growing up (we had a lot of trees! :) I loved it!!), there were these sets of little heart ornaments that smelled of cinnamon and were decorated with lace.  On the tree in the den, the set of ornaments had a red felt background and red bow; on the tree in the living room, the ornaments had a light pink felt background and pink bow.  This way, each set matched the theme of its respective tree. 

Somehow, I managed to get one of each color to hang on my own tree in my room...and those ornaments have made their way with that tree to our house now!

Anyway, my mom had made these ornaments years ago, and I think several times I or we have said we should make some again.  As I was brainstorming ideas for this year's 25 Days of Christmas, Mom came up with the idea of finally making some of these ornaments! Today was the day!  I headed over, was greeted by Annie of course, and got set making some new ornaments (because really, you can never have too many ornaments.)

They're very easy to make...just take a little bit of time and patience!

Here's what you're going to need to make them:

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup of ground cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon of Allspice
• 2 tablespoons of ground cloves
• 1 tablespoon of Nutmeg
• 1 cup of applesauce

Directions:

1. Mix together. Simple as that. haha. 

2. Roll out dough and cut out ornaments. We sprinkled cinnamon over the counter so the dough wouldn't stick. Flour would've turned the dough white.
 

Look closely at these pictures...it's a little hard to tell.

Mom is on the left; I'm on the right.

We ended up wearing the same shirts today! haha. Christmas presents from Abby last year!!

 

Loving how these turned out!!

 

3.  Let ornaments dry on a flat surface covered in wax paper for 4 to 5 days.

Also, be sure to poke a hole at the top of your ornament, so you'll have somewhere for the hook to go!

 

Merry Christmas Eve eve!!!!

25 Days of Christmas: Day 9

I am very excited about tonight's post!

When I first saw this idea on Pinterest over a year ago, I knew this was going to be something I had to do eventually. You see, I'm a very sentimental person, and I like to keep a lot of things. (BUT, I am getting a lot better about this....just believe me on that one.) I love to keep cards that I've received and I have just tons of cards! I have had our stack of Christmas cards we received last year sitting in a pile upstairs since last Christmas, waiting for me to actually do something with them.  Then, when I started brainstorming ideas for these 25 posts this Christmas, it was a perfect opportunity to actually follow through!

These card books are so perfect for keeping your cards nice and organized, and also displayed out for Christmas!  This craft doesn't take very long to do--I did it in about 20 minutes or so before bed tonight. haha.

The supplies you need are:

• Christmas color/patterened cardstock or scrapbook paper
• Letter and number stickers
• Double sided tape
• Binder Rings
• Three hole punch
• Your cards!

First, I made the cover for my book. I couldn't figure out how big I wanted to do it (I think the original website has it as a 5x7.).  I asked Matt his opinion and, as always, he comes to the best conclusion, and, it was the easiest thing to do.  I found our biggest card in the pile--this would be our last card.  I measured that, which ended up being 8x4.5 and that was the size I used for my cover.

After making the cover, I started hole punching away! It was fairly easy to punch through all of the cards, and to eye-ball whether or not they were centered over two of the punches.  I tried to not let my OCDness get the best of me on this part!  It doesn't need to be perfect!

Once all of the cards are punched, start putting them on the binder clips.  I used another suggestion from the original site and used one of our Christmas cards we sent out as the first card in the book, following the cover of course.  So, the first card is us wishing everyone warm wishes with pictures of us in Jamaica! haha.

Voila! I was very happy with how the cover turned out!  The candy-cane striped background was Matt's idea, so I will of course give him the credit on making it look even better!

Now, time for me to start working on our Bridal Shower and Wedding Cards! I've been wanting to do a book of those for quite a while now, so now that I'm in the swing of it, I think I'll try to get to it soon. Maybe over Winter Break??

Our Fall Wreath

It feels like I just shared my summer/wedding wreath with you all, but a couple weeks ago, we took that wreath down and replaced it with a new one!

Since yesterday was the official first day of fall, I figured it's now time to share with you the fall wreath I made!  I had this idea since the summer, so I couldn't wait to finally make it and hang it up! And we didn't wait two seconds to hang it up!

Once school starts, it feels like summer is really over {even though it isn't officially over yet}, so we started putting out some fall decorations, and this wreath was the first to go up! :)

The materials I bought were the wreath, a stem of fall leaves, twine, and a letter N.  All of these were at Michael's, and I was SO excited to find the N in the clearance section for just 49 cents! And, if you've been

The Sweet Treat Boutique!

I think one of my favorite things about "growing up" ---or just 'getting older'--- is seeing what everyone is up to now.  It's pretty cool to see where people I grew up with are now and what they're doing with their lives.  I still think it's so strange that my friends & I are all at the age where people are getting married, having kids, etc., I mean, I graduated college five days ago and that still seems so surreal! 

My sister and I have known one of our friends, Lacey, basically our entire lives! Our parents knew each other in high school, so we've been around each other a lot--birthday parties, dinner nights, being babysat together (we have several funny stories from those days! :) )  I remember when Lacey got married a few years ago, she was the first of my childhood friends to get married and it was very exciting!!  Since then, she has done so many awesome things in her life, one of them being, The Sweet Treat Boutique!  Lacey carefully handcrafts these adorable keychains, charms, & pendants to look like, well, SWEET TREATS!  It amazes me how much her creations look like the actual food item!