Merry Christmas

Our little Christmas card this year :)

Hope you all have a wonderful Christmas! We're looking forward to spending some more time with family tonight and tomorrow. We have an annual Polish feast every Christmas Eve, and I'm pretty sure it's the best tradition ever! (pierogies & other yummy Polish foods, drinks, peppermint ice cream pie, singing Christmas carols...eeee!).

Oh and before it's too late to share these, we went to an ugly Christmas sweater party a few weeks ago and I wanted to share some photos!

Cheeseballs in front of the fake tv fire.

Fun props.

Yummy dessert table. I made those eggnog shortbread puddings in the mason jars...so good!

Chris and I - you love my vest? Sears special! Hah!

Crafty Christmas: Goodies & Cards

I haven't been able to get enought of Christmas lately! Our house is all decorated, and it makes me happy :) Maybe later this week I'll share some more decor around (and outside!) our house. I've been doing a bit of baking for a few Christmas parties I went to recently. One was a cookie swap, where each girl had to bring 5-dozen cookies. It was also a contest to see who made the prettiest and yummiest cookie. Although I didn't win (I totally should have!!! bitter much?), I wanted to share what I baked because they are sooooooooooo delish!

I made Salted Caramel Chocolate Cookies, recipe found here. I've been obsessed with salted caramel goodies for a while, sipping on salted caramel hot chocolate, and I've even made cupcakes.

This was my little cookie setup at the cookie swap party:

I totally forgot to take a photo of the inside of the cookies, but if you check out the recipe you can see it's filled with a carmely suprise in the middle :) They were awesome, and pretty, if I do say so myself. Which I do.

I also wanted to share how I am hanging our Christmas cards this year:

I just took some green and red yan and twisted them together, and used some push pins to secure them to the wall. Cards are being held to the yarn with the cutest mini clothes pins (from Michaels). Last year I just taped the cards to the wall, and I like this a whole lot better!

Christmas Cheer

I can't get enough of this time of year...

My niece during some family photos, she's so CUTE! I love being an aunt.

Some cute deer; at a local zoo that put Christmas lights all over the park for the holidays.

I love this little penguin! I think we got it last year.

Oh, and Tundra wishes you a Merry Christmas. She's very amused, as you can tell!

Crafty Christmas: Book Covers

So! It's December and I'm sure everyone has been busy decorating for Christmas, right? I'm sure there are even those crazy people that started in November. Yes, you. ;) I've been doing a lot of little, easy, DIY projects around the house and this is one of them.

I have a bunch of old books around the house that I use for decor, because they are so cute and I just love the look. But, they don't really go with holiday decorations. So I came up with this little idea. Remember in school when you had to cover your text books so they wouldn't get so torn up during the year? It's basically that, but cuter. Have fun!

What you need:

Some books. Scissors. Tape (if needed). Holiday wrapping paper, or any wrapping paper that goes with your theme. I even used some holiday paper grocery bags.

For each book, lay out some paper, put your book on top and measure how much paper you will need to cover it. Leave 1-2 inches excess paper off all edges. Then cut out your book cover piece.

Now that you have your cover piece, you'll need to fold over the top and botton edges of the cover just to match up the top-to-bottom length of your book, as shown below.

Then position your book so it's fairly centered on your paper. Fold the overlap of the front cover side of the book and make a crease. Then insert the book edge into the "pouch" created by the overlap paper. See image below. Repeat for the back cover. Use tape to secure any pieces of paper that just won't stay tucked.

Repeat for as many books as you see fitting! I covered all my books that weren't really Christmas colors :)

The brown paper is from a Trader Joes bag, btw.

Hope you enjoyed this little DIY!