We Christmased...

Christmas Eve found us at Bass Pro Shop taking pics with Santa...We had so much fun and it wasn't busy at all, surprisingly!  There was so much FREE fun to be had!

The carousel was adorable!

There were all different animals.

Violet loved it!

Did I mention it was FREE?!?!

I was so happy that Violet did well with Santa!

Not the best pic, but with four kids, you get what you get!

There are crafts there, too!  This day was cookie decorating...

So fun and saved me from having to bake later.

The kids in their Momma and Nana-made Christmas Eve Jammies!

Flannel sheets from Target make for cheap yardage.

I love these peasant style gowns.  Caught Violet mid-yawn.  Ha!

The boys...

The kids left goodies for Santa!  

Lilly wrote a letter to Santa...

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE what she wrote on the inside!!!  Warms my heart so much!!!

Santa came!

The table all set for Christmas brunch...

Christmas Brunch is always the same...sausage balls, muffins, and fresh fruit.

The mirror got gussied up with paper snowflakes from Wal-Mart and a sign I made.

The hutch...little crooked, oops!  Shouldn't take photos at 3am!  Hope y'all had a wonderful Christmas!!!

12 Days of Christmas*Teachers' Gifts...Days 11-12

Day 11...happy, scrappy signs.  Since my Cricut took a nosedive on me, I had to go to my local scrapbook store to cut the letters.  I just bought some wood, had it cut to size, painted it, and Mod Podged on the letters.  I drilled a hole to put the wire thru to make the signs hangable{which is apparently NOT a word-ha!}, and tied a bunch of ribbon on.

Day 12...I bought candles from Wal-Mart, which smell AMAZING, took the labels off and glued burlap and/or ribbon around them.  Simple and cute!

This one is for Jackson's teacher.  She has a more rustic/natural Christmas theme, so I thought the burlap and yarn would be great.

For the rest of the teachers, I used a fun polka dot ribbon.

The packaging.  My camera seriously hates me.  I think a kid got a hold of it or something, because I cannot get a focused picture for anything!  Anyway...I printed off tags that said, 

"May your days be Merry and Bright!  

Happy 12 Day of Christmas!

Love, 

Lilly{or Jackson or Fisher}"

That, my friends, completes the 12 Days of Christmas*Teachers' Gifts!  This was a lot of fun, but a LOT of work!

Come back soon and I'll show you our home all decked out with Christmas Cheer and share some other good news!

12 Days of Christmas*Teachers' Gifts...Day 10

Day 10...Wooden Nativities.  I found the tutorial, or basic instructions, here.  I glued my people together, as I didn't want them to wiggle or come apart.  I also sanded my wood, but the original maker did not.  Other than those few little differences, I mostly followed her instructions.  I love the simplicity of these!

This is how I packaged them up.  I printed the passage of  Luke 2: 8-14 and stapled it on.

⁸ Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. ⁹ And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. ¹⁰ Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. ¹¹ For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. ¹² And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.”

¹³ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying:

¹⁴ “Glory to God in the highest,
And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!”

12 Days of Christmas*Teachers' Gifts...Day 8

Day 8 brought felt snowflake ornaments from Target, along with Hershey's Kisses and peppermints.

I put them in a quart size Ziploc bag and stapled a doily to the top.  A stamped tag finishes it off!

12 Days of Christmas*Teachers' Gifts...Days 5-7

Hey there!  I hope y'all had a great weekend!  We did!  We had two cookie exchanges, so it was a super busy, fun time!  

Day 5 of the 12 Days of Christmas was snow globes!  I'm sure you've all seen these around Pinterest and other blogs.  I love them!  They are super simple and inexpensive to make.  I saved my jelly and spaghetti jars, so it brought the cost down even more!  I just took the labels off, washed the jars really good, and spray painted the lids.  Then, I took trees from Wal-Mart and glued them to the lids, added in a little snow, screwed the lids back on, and voila, a cute gift!

I loved this packaging!  I took small tags that I aged in coffee and cinnamon, stamped a 5 on, then tied them to the bag along with a snowflake ornament, and grey ribbon.

A little closeup...the snowflakes came from The Dollar Tree in a pack of six.

Day 6 was yummy, homemade cookies!  You can tell I went all out on the packaging!  Haha!

These cookies are seriously yummy! You can find the recipe here.

Day 7...I decoupaged ornaments with book pages and glitter.  I then printed out the Noel on the computer and strung it all on twine.  My inspiration came from Pinterest.

I just nestled these in some kraft paper shreds in a cellophane bag tied with twine.  Simple and beautiful!

12 Day of Christmas*Teachers' Gifts...Day 4

Day 4...I made tags that the teachers can either tie on a package or decorate with.  My personal favorite is the snowman.  I just found a vintage snowman postcard, saved, and printed it to size.  Then, I just used a glue stick to adhere it to my tags, which I soaked in a bath of coffee and cinnamon to age, then used good ole Elmer's to make a bead around the edge and sprinkled glitter.  LOVE how it turned out!

I wrote a little poem, then stapled it to a fun cellophane bag.  Ready to give!

12 Days of Christmas*Teachers' Gifts, 1-3

I got this hair-brained idea to do a 12 Days of Christmas gift giving extravaganza for the kids' teachers this year.  You know, cause I'm not busy enough!  Aren't we all, though?

So...Day 1 was homemade hot chocolate mix, that I just put in mason jars and added cute lids.  The little bags hold marshmallows and Bob's peppermint sticks.

Day 1 all packaged and ready for gifting!

Day 2...Decoupaged initial ornaments...

A closeup of one...

Day 2 packaged up!

Day 3...Christmas Popcorn!

I have lots more ideas up my sleeves so y'all come back!

Horsey Love...

One of Lilly's friends is into horses.  As in, she has won first place in her shows.  The sweet thing broke her arm and so we decided to make her a care package.  I made a horsey hair clip inspired by this girl's.

Lilly made a little hoop art for her friend.  I think she did a great job!!  We threw in a few other store-bought goodies and called it done!

Handmade, Rustic Wedding

Back in May, I had the priviledge to help style my cousin's wedding. A couple weeks previous I helped give Shana, my new cousin-in-law, a wedding shower. I guess that's when they realized how awesome I am!! Hahahaha!!!

The wedding was at my aunt and uncle's house that they built and raised their four children in. So jealous...anyway. They have a very homey, rustic cedar home so naturally rustic was the way to go for the wedding. Shana had already decided on the style and colors, black, white, and red. The arbor has been in the yard for some number of years and has plants growing over it so it was a natural backdrop.

Shana gave me free reign over this part. So funny, too, because she does wedding planning herself. I was so thankful and slightly nervous that she trusted me. I am quite confident in my abilities and gifts and yet didn't want to disappoint Shana on her special day.
I used a barnwood frame{that I got at a yard sale for maybe $2} and two frames that I thrifted{you know the kind with a seriously sad picture in them, don't pass up a cheap, awesomely chunky frame!!} and spray painted white and red. I{my mom} hung them from rope from the arbor rails. We then hung a pair of Ikea lanterns on either side of the front. There are also red geraniums hanging from hooks on the inside sides of the arbor-making any sense?? I then set a larger Ikea lantern filled with pillar candles on the stacked stone.

My aunt has a fabulous collection of vintage tableclothes that we used for the guestbook table and gift table. My uncle showed me this awesome wooden stepladder and we just put a potted plant to gussy up the area. My Mom took pictures of the guests and will give Shana and John the cd that way they can print out pics. I had the idea to take a photo album{each page holds two 4x6's} and on top there would be a photo of a guest/s and the bottom will hold an index card that they would write John and Shana a well wish. A modified guestbook of sorts...

Ahhh, the book...I had this wild, last minute hair to make a cover for it...Its a tree with a heart with their initials "carved" into it. You can't really make out the detail in the pic, but it was cute!! My cousin{oldest sister of the groom} did the embroidery and I was so thankful!!!

Shana's family owns a restaurant so they, along with my uncle, and a few other's did all the food themselves. I made grape salad and will have to share that recipe with y'all soon. It is sooo yummy!!

So the food went under the carport. The set-up and decor was mostly done by Shana and her family. I had made pompoms{want to make your own, click here} out of patterns{with the help of my fabulous Aunt Sherry!!} for the wedding shower and Shana wanted to use them for the wedding also, so I made some red ones to go along with the others.

To the left, above the cake table, is a banner I made from burlap that says, LOVE. We used it at the shower, also. Then to the right we hung the banner that I made from vintage hankies. I used that for Lilly's doll making tea party, some of you may remember that...

Another last minute idea...I got coffee filters, the brown and white kind, twine and doilies from Wal-Mart, and my cousin-in-law, Kelly, strung it together for me. Thank you again, Kelly!! This would be the first thing people saw as they walked up the drive-way.

Here is another view. Down the hill you can see John and Shana's cabin. It is beautiful and I am going to hopefully share it with someday...

This is one of my favorite pictures of John and Shana!! So sweet!!!

This wedding was such a family affair and proof that wedding's don't have to cost a lot of money!! I want to have another wedding now...