Countdown to Christmas with Balsam Hill

Today I'm partnering with Balsam Hill for their Countdown to Christmas series. If you are visiting from Our Southern Home...Welcome! So glad you are here!

I am joining 23 other bloggers in counting down to Christmas as well as offering 25 lucky readers a $100 gift card to Balsam Hill. You can enter Here! 

Can you all believe that Christmas is in 19 days? It looks a bit different for us this year. Since the twins have been born, I have realized that this mama can't do it all. So we are really trying to simplify and enjoy this season without having to deck the halls to a "T" or bake excessive amounts of cookies. We are slowing down and soaking up the magic in these babies' eyes.

DIY Felt Tree

Christmas to me this year is spending time with the people that I love. As we have seen in the news most recently, life is precious so why not spend every moment with family and friends that mean so much to us!? I absolutely love this Advent Calendar from Balsam Hill and can't wait to make this our family tradition in the years to come. Placing activities for the kids to do each day will make this season even more meaningful. 

One tradition that I just can't seem to give up is decorating a tree with my collected vintage ornaments. I have so many fond memories that are attached to these ornaments.

We aren't throwing a party this year, but I just had to set the table in case you all want to come over! You know I love a good table setting and using my grandmother's china takes me back in time to sitting at this exact table in my grandparent's dining room on Christmas Eve.

I hope you all will take a few moments to slow down and really feel the meaning of Christmas this year. 

Tell me....what are some of your favorite family traditions? I need to pile some ideas away for the years to come. 

Make sure to visit Robin at All things Heart and Home tomorrow for more inspiration.

**Don't forget to enter the $100 giveaway! Enter HERE.***

**A Huge Thank You to Balsam Hill for the Embroidered Advent Calendar! We will enjoy this with our family for many years to come. All opinions and photographs are mine.**

Glimpses Into Our House at Christmas

Things around this blog haven't happened exactly how I thought they would this time of year, but nonetheless the house is decorated, gifts have been bought and about 1/4th of our cards have been mailed.
I usually do a full Home Tour around Christmas, but just didn't have a whole lot of energy to stage and take pictures.
So without further ado...here are some glimpses of things I love about our home at Christmas.

For more posts on Christmas Decor:

Holiday Home Tour 2013

Oh Holy Night Mantel

Simple Hot Cocoa Station

DIY Anthropologie Snow Globes

Posting might be a little light over the next couple of weeks. Looking forward to spending some sweet time with family and friends as well as catching up on some much needed rest.
XOXO

Linked up at:  Thrifty Decor Chick's Christmas Party & Two Purple Couches

Wrap Wrap Wrappin... {Free Printable Gift Tags}

It is that time....the packages are calling! Time to get my wrap on over the next few days. I am going to try and set up a wrapping station on the dining room table. It will be a big mess, but at least I will be able to watch movies while completing the big task.

While I start getting things prepared over here, I thought that you all might enjoy some sites to look at for printable tags. It would be an unexpected surprise to have some fun tags tied to your packages that didn't take you all day to make. Just grab some card stock and your printer!

There are some wonderful ideas out there and some talented graphic designers (which I am not). Here are a few of my favorites that I thought you might like!
**click on the link below the pictures to download your pdf**

Black and White Tags

Merry Christmas Tags

Woodland Gift Tags

Modern Black & White

Colorful Gift Tags

Calligraphy Gift Tags

These are some of my favorites. When you click the link you won't see all of them, so make sure you go to the download page. There are quotes from Elf, Home Alone, The Grinch and Griswald Movies! Too cute!

Colorful or Black & White Gift Tags

Modern Gift Tags

So are you ready to start wrapping? OR are you still shopping?

I better get a move on...have a wonderful day!!

Last Minute Christmas Cards + 60% OFF today only!

Welcome to Monday! With only 10 days left till Christmas I am sure most of you are busy getting ready for guests, wrapping presents and maybe even doing some last minute shopping. I am happy to say that I am finished with shopping and plan on taking some time to wrap gifts in the evenings this week.

One thing that I was WAY behind on this year were my Christmas cards. And...from the look of my card holder, most of my friends are too! hehe

I usually have my cards ordered by the first week of December and have them addressed and out the door two weeks before Christmas. Well life happens as we all know, and I just ordered mine yesterday! Yikes! I am hoping they will be here this week so at least I can get them out the door by the weekend.

As I was looking around the usual sites that I have order from....Minted, Tinyprints, Shutterfly...I noticed that they had absolutely wonderful cards, but the prices were mighty high for the last minute card maker like me! I was going to end up paying around $150-$175 when all was said and done. With two babies on the way I knew that the Hubs would throw a fit at that price. So....I shopped around and found Snapfish. They had similar cards, but had/have a deal going on for 60% OFF plus free shipping! (CODE: PEACE60)

Here is a little sneak peek of our card...

I was happy with how it turned out, especially for a last minute thought. There was even room on the backside for another picture and a place to write a bit about our year for no extra charge. 

Thanks to my dad who came over and took some great pictures of us in our backyard last week! Love using talented family members to get things done. 

Here are a few of our outtakes & unedited pictures from the photoshoot....

We sure have a good time together and he was a good sport about my Merry Christmas sign. He didn't know where to put his hands and thought the idea was crazy, so we cracked up about it but, got at least one good one for the card! Oh the simple things that keep us laughing.

Tell me...are your cards already in the mail? If you are a procrastinator like me, you can check out all the sites I listed above and here are a few deals going on this week:

SnapFish: 60% off Holiday Cards (CODE: PEACE60) **Only through tonight, Dec. 15th!***

TinyPrints: Up to 30% off and 25% off no min (CODE: 30SWDEAL) Free Shipping on $49+ (CODE: FREESHIP49) ***This Runs through Dec. 16th***

Shutterfly: Save up to 40% off Cards and Free Shipping on $49+ ***Runs through today Dec. 15th***



By the way...I was not compensated for this post in anyway. Just thought some of you could benefit from my lack of organization! Enjoy! :)

Ladies Craft Night {3 Holiday DIY's}

Well Happy Friday to you all! I wanted to get this post done earlier this week, but if you all follow me on Instagram, you know that we have had some exciting things going on around here! We found out this week the gender of our twins. We couldn't feel more blessed that we are going to have one of each! Eeek! So excited. So lots of doctors appointments ate into my blogging time. But, I think that is a pretty good excuse, don't you?

Last Friday night I had a Holiday craft night with some of my dearest, closest friends. I set out some hors d'ourves and drinks and then we chatted and crafted the night away.

Holiday DIY #1: Book page Potted Trees

I absolutely love how these turned out. They were fairly simple.

Supplies:

*Old Books (found at local thrift store)
*Small Terracotta pots
*Styrofoam balls
*Skewers
*Moss
*Scissors
*Hot Glue Gun
Optional:
-Paint for pots
-Paint Brushes
-Paper or stickers for top of trees

Because we had three projects to complete that night, I made templates for cutting the book pages starting with 4" all the way down to 1 1/2" descending in 1/2" increments.

Of course I don't have pictures on how we assembled the trees. I was talking too much! But, you can probably figure it out. We started with using the templates cutting about 20 pages of each size. Then we picked what moss we wanted (I had options) and hot glued the styrofoam ball to the pot as well as the moss to the top of the styrofoam ball. Next, we pushed the skewer into the center of the ball and started stacking our book pages on top. Starting with 4" all the way down to 1/2". We alternated the pages turning them every couple to create a textured look.

Some friends decided to paint some gold trim on their pot. Some even decided to start with 3 1/2" template making for a skinnier tree. The possibilities are endless I tell ya! 

Holiday DIY #2: Christmas Tags

This was a great craft where everyone could be creative and do their own thing. I placed out lots of supplies like: washi tape, glue, buttons, stickers, glitter, ribbon, makers, chalk pens, etc. I also cut different color and size tags with my Silhouette. If you don't have a cutting machine, you could always pick up some pre-cut tags from Jo-Ann's or Michaels....and don't forget to use your coupons!

Holiday DIY 3#: Sugar Hand Scrub

This little craft was so easy and only takes two ingredients! Sugar & Soap!

Supplies Needed:
*Sugar
*Dawn (Pink) Dish Soap with Hand Renewal
*Jelly Jars
*Spoon
*Label (optional)

First, fill your jar about 2/3rds full with sugar. Next, squeeze your soap to fill the rest of the space to just below the lip of the jar.

Lastly, Stir the two ingredients together. Mix well. I had to add just a touch more sugar to mine to make it a bit more like a paste. That's It!!

Some friends added a little coconut oil to the mix. You could probably also add an essential oil, but is not needed. It smells magnificent anyway and really makes your hands nice and soft. A Must Try!

A great little neighbor or hostess gift and doesn't take any time at all!


We really had a wonderful time socializing all together. I can't believe I didn't even get a picture of my beautiful friends. Oh well...there is always next year!

So what do you all think? Are these DIY's you would like to try?

Have a wonderful weekend! I will have my holiday home tour up for you next week...right after I finish my shopping. Yikes!