Fun Christmas Activity for Kids

November 15, 2019November 19, 20194 Comments

Good morning! How has everyone’s week been? I am so happy that today is Friday. Not because it’s been a really long week, but it’s the weekend and I have a lot of fun stuff planned. So I cannot wait for Friday to be over!

Welcome to the 5th annual 12 Days of Holiday Ideas event, hosted by Shirley of Intelligent Domestications and Erlene of My Pinterventures Between Nov. 11th and December 6th there will be hundreds of new ideas shared by over 55 Co-host bloggers!

Go here to see our kick-off collection of Holiday ideas as well as all of this years talented participating DIY and Foodie Blogs. Download this years November and December calendars with all of the topics and dates so you can make plans to watch for ideas!

We are hosting a BIG GIVEAWAY from our Sponsors this year! Be sure to scroll all the way down for more information and to enter to win!

We are continuing on the 12 days of Christmas with a fun Kids Activity! Or, a fun day for kids, whichever you prefer. We decided to go with an afternoon of fun for the kids and Oriental Trading Company has helped us tremendously with this! They were gracious enough to give us some of the supplies needed to complete our fun afternoon!

My inspiration was a fun little girl Paris party. We wanted to have some Eiffel Towers and lots of pink! Of course this is my kind of party! We wanted white, Eiffel Towers, pink, silver, gold, snacks, and a fun activity. Thankfully, Oriental Trading was able to help us out with some of these things.

So we started our afternoon by setting the table. We had a beautiful faux fur table runner (I’ll just say that mom and I have really enjoyed petting it, it’s SOOO SOFT) and we used it as a faux snow for our centerpiece. We had some white houses that we used to decorate last year and some Eiffel Towers that I have as decoration around my apartment. And of course to make it Christmassy we added some cute sisal trees. Honestly, how cute is it?

Since this is a kids party, we knew we had to have some fun activities. We found these coloring page placemats on Oriental’s website and knew that these would be perfect for our party. Unfortunately, we didn’t have any kids who were there while setting up for our party, so mom and I got to color the placemats. And Munchy helped!

Since every good party needs some snacks, we thought the coolest thing would to have a cupcake decorating station. So we have some cupcakes that we decorated with pink and green sprinkles from Oriental Trading. Who knew you could buy a whole pound of sprinkles from Oriental Trading? We also got these cute cupcake carriers from Oriental Trading. There are so many different designs of cupcake carriers so you can pick your favorites. Of course, I picked the pink chevron design! The carriers fit two cupcakes or a lot of cookies if you wanted.

The other fun activity we picked out for kids was making an ornament. We found all of the items needed on Oriental Trading’s website. We found these cute open face clear ornaments and I knew what I wanted. I found fake snow, cute deer ornaments, and some tiny sisal trees. Now, some of the deer were too big for the ornaments but the little fawns were perfect size. So with a little hot glue, we were able to glue the deer and the trees into the ornaments before pouring the fake snow in the bottom. How cute are they! And even though the ornaments may require a little adult supervision but they would be cute gifts to take home.

And that’s it! This is totally my kind of party. How fun would this be for kids, or adults? We had so much fun making everything for this party and we can’t wait to actually have a party with our nieces! So thank you to Oriental Trading for helping us set up our Kid’s Activity Party. And thank you for stopping by! See you on Monday!

Don’t forget to check out the other kids activities in the inlinkz party! And enter the giveaway below!

MEET OUR SPONSORS who have generously donated fabulous prizes for the Big Christmas Giveaway!

DecoArt winner will receive a prize package valued at $100!

Dixie Crystals/Imperial Sugar winner will receive a Keurig Coffee Maker valued at $100!

Oriental Trading winner will receive an OrientalTrading.com gift card valued at $200!

Cabot Cheese winner will receive a gift basket of Cabot products valued at $75!

Burlap Fabric winner will receive a prize pack of products valued at $50!

Zulay Kitchens winner will receive one Milk Frother and a Lemon Squeezer valued at $21

It’s Home To You winner will receive one wooden Santa sign valued at $65

Giveaway begins Nov. 8, 2019 and ends Dec. 6, 2019. Winners will be notified by December 13, 2019. Sponsors will ship each prize to the winner. There will be a total of seven winners, one for each prize. Drawing is by random selection using the Rafflecopter widget.

Must be 18 to win. Open to U.S. residents only.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Hundreds of Christmas Ornament Ideas!

November 14, 2019November 11, 2019Leave a comment

Welcome to the 2019 Ornament Exchange Link Party! It’s my fourth year of the blogger ornament exchange and you’ll find hundreds of DIY ornament tutorials and inspiration. This link party runs from November 14th through December 14th, so make sure to come back to add as many of your own handmade ornament tutorials before it closes!

This year, we have 38 talented bloggers hosting the handmade ornament exchange link party! The rules of the challenge were simple: create a handmade ornament for $15 or under, create a tutorial (all tutorials are linked below), and ship the ornament off to a new home!

ORNAMENT EXCHANGE LINK PARTY HOSTS

My Pinterventures • Create and Babble • 2 Bees in a Pod
Across the Boulevard • Elle Marie Home • Faeries and Fauna
Home on the Corner • This Autoimmune Life • Our Unschooling Journey
Domestic Deadline • Inside the Fox Den • Intelligent Domestications
Cookies, Coffee and Crafts • Munofore • Rosewood and Grace
Raggedy Bits • Christmas Tree Lane • Making Manzanita
Mom Home Guide • From Evija with Love • Red Cottage Chronicles
Coastal Bohemian • Our Crafty Mom • Girl, Just DIY! • Pixel Maven’s Retreat
Prim and Propah • Purple Hues and Me • Farm Girl Reformed • Eye Love Knots
Keys to Inspiration • Charleston Crafted • Sparkle Living
Interior Frugalista • Love My Little Cottage • My Family Thyme
Crafting a Family • All Things New Again • Just a Little Creativity

You can see the ornament I created for my new friend Morgan, here.

DIY Turquoise, Silver and Gold Coastal Ornament

I can’t wait to see what you have all created! Link up you ornaments below!

Share your handmade ornament tutorial on the link party below ⇓⇓ Add as many ornament tutorials as you like until December 14th.

Nautical Inspired Seashell Ornament

November 14, 2019November 11, 201913 Comments

Good morning! Welcome to the 2019 Ornament Exchange! I’m so excited to be participating again this year! It’s such a great way to find other bloggers and some new friends. Thank you Erlene for putting this all together! Look at all these great ideas! You can click here to go back to the blog hop and link up your own ornaments!

This year I was partnered with Morgan from Charleston Crafted. She has some of the cutest ideas and the cutest little boy! I love her style and enjoy following all the diy’s her and her husband work on. Please go over and take a look at her blog!

Morgan enjoys the coastal style just like I do, so making her an ornament for her Christmas tree was easy! I started our with these clear ornaments. I found the smaller ones at the Dollar tree and loved the swirly design.

I bought some glittery paint to add to the ornaments. I knew these would be the perfect colors for Morgan.

I practiced making dots first on a piece of paper. I didn’t want to mess up the ornaments!

I used a cup to balance the ornament on and once one side was dry, I turned the ornament to paint the other side.

While the paint was drying, I made bows for the top of each ornament. I learned to make bows years ago when I took some florist classes. They aren’t too difficult, but do take a little bit of practice. If you want really nice looking bow, use wired ribbon. It makes any bow look perfect! Here are the steps for making your own bow:

!. Start with a small loop of ribbon. This will be the center of your bow.

2. Twist the long piece of the ribbon on the back of the loop.

3. Taking the long piece, twist the ribbon into another longer loop on one side. When you bring it back to the middle, twist it again and make a loop on the other side.

4. Keep making loops on each side of the center loop and keep twisting the ribbon on the back.

5. Once you have as many loops as you want on each side, make one more loop around the bottom. You can also leave extra so you will have 3 tails on the bottom.

6. Cut a small piece of wire (easier done before you start :)), slide half the wire through the middle loop.

7. This part takes a little practice. The wire should go between your two first fingers and them squeeze the two ends of the wire together under the loop.

8. Once the wire is together, twist it tightly around to secure the bow.

Fluff up each loop and cut the long tail loop and you have a bow! Did you know if you cut ribbon on a diagonal, it won’t fray?

Here is a video too that might make it a little easier to understand.

I used silver and gold ribbon, tied them into bows and glued them to the top of each ornament. I also glued some seashells onto the ribbon, just to make it look more coastal.

They look so pretty when they sparkle with the lights from the tree.

Since the ornaments were a little hard to see on a white tree, I took a few pictures with green pine too.

I loved making these and I think they turned out so good. Thank you Morgan for your ornament too! I will be sharing it soon! Be sure to go back and link up your ornaments too. I would love to see them! I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season!

How to Survive Christmas: 101

November 13, 2019November 19, 20192 Comments

Good morning! How strange to be posting on a Wednesday! We haven’t posted on Wednesdays for a while now but here we go! Remember to head over to the original 12 Days of Christmas post here to look at all the other hosts and their ideas, to print out calendars and to enter the giveaway! Also, there is an inlinkz at the bottom of the post where you can add your ideas of how to survive the holidays!

We are hosting a BIG GIVEAWAY from our Sponsors this year! Be sure to scroll all the way down for more information and to enter to win!

We are continuing on with our 12 Days of Christmas Blog Hop. This is day 2 of 12 and we are talking about the best tips on Surviving Christmas! Christmas is one of the busiest and most stressful times of the year and this year will be no different. While everyone is trying to complete their Christmas list (for themselves and shopping for others), here is a short list of things you can do to make your Christmas go smoothly.

Order All of Your Gifts Early and Keep a Checklist

I think this is probably the biggest thing to help keep you sanity during Christmas. I like to write down everything that I want to get for people and mark it off when I have received the item. So for my checklist this year, I wrote down my sister, my mom, my dad, my Secret Santa for work, and my cats (you can’t forget them). Under each person I put what I am planning on getting them and put a check mark next to it when I have purchased the item. If you have a price limit for the gift, I like to write the price next to their name so I don’t overspend. And don’t forget to order way ahead of time! If you are planning on getting gifts from websites like Amazon, make sure you order them early so they have time to arrive. You would hate to order a very important Christmas gift a week before Christmas and it not arrive on time!

Set Up a Time to Wrap All of the Presents

This is something that my mom does every year. Once she has collected all of the gifts, she finds a day where she isn’t doing too much and wraps ALL of them. When my sister and I lived at home, mom would lock herself in her bedroom to wrap all of the presents. But make sure you have all of the things you would need to wrap. Paper, tape, ribbon, scissors, tags, boxes, bags, and tissue paper. Make sure you have all of your stuff so you don’t have to keep leaving the room. Make sure you have some water and a possible snack and some good music to listen to!

Make a Checklist of Christmas Activities You Want to Do

More checklists! Personally, I love making checklists or to do lists so this is definitely something I do. Your checklist can be as big or small as you would like. You can add things like visit a nativity, bake cookies, watch a Christmas movie, go caroling, and many many more. You can add as many or as few things as you would like to your list. This year, my Christmas list actually looks like a Christmas tree coloring page. All of the things I want to are ornaments on the tree and I get to color one in when I’ve completed it. And guess what? You can use it too! I placed it below so you can print out your own Christmas Tree Checklist!

Christmas To Do Coloring Page

Pick One or Two Days to Stay Home

With all of the craziness of the Christmas season, it is easy to get stressed out from going places and doing things. Take some time for yourself and stay home. Plan a day to stay home and bake Christmas cookies, watch Christmas movies, read Christmas stories, stay in Christmas pajamas all day, drink hot cocoa, among other things. You don’t always have to be crazy busy. Make sure you take time for yourself and relax for a day.

If You are Hosting, Enlist Help

During the crazy Christmas season we are always attending parties. If it’s just hosting Christmas at your house or hosting a Christmas Cookie Exchange, it can still take a lot of work. And it’s tiring to do it all yourself. Don’t forget to enlist the help of others to prepare for your party. Have your family help you clean (even if that means getting the kids to just tidy up their toys), ask some friends or family who are attending if they would be willing to help you prep, and asking others to help supply food. For our families Christmas, we separate the food duties out between all of the families attending. It makes life just a little easier when it comes to the actual day of the party. That it one less thing you have to worry about the day of the party. It makes the day less stressful and the party easier to enjoy!

Buy Wrapping Paper WAY Ahead of Time

Something my mom and I do is we actually buy wrapping paper AFTER Christmas. This is the perfect time get huge discounts on wrapping paper and other supplies for your Christmas presents. Ribbon, bows, paper, boxes, bags, you name it you can get it discounted. Now, I know it’s too late now, but I highly recommend buying your wrapping paper sooner rather than later. The sooner that you have your wrapping paper, the sooner you will feel less stressed.

And that’s it! These are just a couple ideas on how you survive the Christmas holiday season. There are more things you can do to help make the season less stressful. But these are my top things to help keep my sanity. So I hope you enjoy and let me know if you are going to try any of these this season!

Here’s the inlinkz! See what the other ideas there are for surviving the holidays!

MEET OUR SPONSORS who have generously donated fabulous prizes for the Big Christmas Giveaway!

DecoArt winner will receive a prize package valued at $100!

Dixie Crystals/Imperial Sugar winner will receive a Keurig Coffee Maker valued at $100!

Oriental Trading winner will receive an OrientalTrading.com gift card valued at $200!

Cabot Cheese winner will receive a gift basket of Cabot products valued at $75!

Burlap Fabric winner will receive a prize pack of products valued at $50!

Zulay Kitchens winner will receive one Milk Frother and a Lemon Squeezer valued at $21

It’s Home To You winner will receive one wooden Santa sign valued at $65

Must be 18 to win. Open to U.S. residents only.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Christmas Gift Guide Round Up

November 11, 2019November 11, 20194 Comments

Good morning! Welcome to the beginning of a 4 week blog journey that we are embarking on! We are a part of the 12 Days of Holiday Blog Hop where 50 bloggers are coming together to give you amazing Christmas ideas and some beautiful inspiration for your 2019 Christmas season. If you want to visit the other blog posts, click here and it will take you to the main blog post where you can visit everyone else’s blog posts!

This is the 5th annual 12 Days of Holiday Ideas event, hosted by Shirley of Intelligent Domestications and Erlene of My Pinterventures. Between Nov. 11th and December 6th there will be hundreds of new ideas shared by over 55 Co-host bloggers!

The other fun thing is that there is a link-up at the end of each of the posts where you can link-up your own great ideas! I can’t wait to see what everyone comes up with! I still need a few ideas for gifts for some hard to buy for people!

So to start off the 12 days, we start with a Gift Guide Round-up. Now, I know there are a lot of different kinds of people you have to give gifts to so I will have a couple different gifts for each of the following groups of people: Gardener, Techie, Animal Lover, Baker, and Decorator. So read along, take some notes, and see what you think!

Also, all of these will be linked to Amazon. If you click on the link, it will take you to the product where you can purchase it. And for each purchase, we will get a small portion of it back to us with no extra cost to you. So enjoy!

The Gardener

The first thing I want to share is the awesome gardening set. This set come with 20 different pieces including tools, gloves, identification tags, a spray bottle, and a tool organizer. All of these are super nifty for if you have either a large vegetable garden or a small succulent garden. All in all, this would be awesome for anyone who has a garden!

AOKIWO 11 Garden Tools Set Heavy Duty Aluminum Manual Garden kit, 20 Pieces, Green

The second item is this super cool 4 Tier Mini Green House. I would love to have this for my apartment because it would add so much space for my succulents. This is the perfect gift for someone who enjoys gardening but doesn’t have that much space. The racks are removable which means you can put larger plants on the shelves as well.

4 Tier Mini Greenhouse with PE Cover and Roll-Up Zipper Door, Waterproof Cloche Portable Greenhouse Tent-27.25″ L X 19″ W x 63″ H, Grow Seeds & Seedlings, Tend Potted Plants (1pcs)

Techie

I have decided that this first item is on my Christmas list. This backpack not only features a ton of pockets (because who doesn’t like pockets), but it also features a lock, a headphone jack, and a phone charging cable port. This backpack can fit a laptop and a ton of other items. And, it even has a strap that can attach to your suitcase handle so everything is easy to carry around. How cool is this single backpack?!

Bertasche Business Laptop Backpack 17-17.3 Inch w/USB Charging Port Water-Resistant Canvas Backpack for Work College School Travel

The second thing I have included is a Ring Doorbell. Now, I know that the Ring isn’t a new item but it is something that every techie would love to have. I know my parents love having their Ring so they can see who is at their door. But these are amazing to have at your door to make sure that nothing bad is happening at your door. Safety is always important, don’t you think!

Ring Video Doorbell with HD Video, Motion Activated Alerts, Easy Installation – Satin Nickel

Animal Lover

We are animal lovers around here and I can confirm that it can be difficult to find something cute to give for Christmas. So I am here to rescue you! The first item I found are these adorable kitchen towels. Now, they come in multiple different designs so you can pick towels for cat or dog lovers. Some are black and white while others have color on them. They are the perfect for someone who loves their pet!

DII 100% Cotton, Everyday Basic Home Kitchen, Ultra-Absorbent, Drying, Cleaning, Pet Lover, Printed Dish Towels, 18 x 28, Set of 3-Dog, Dishtowel, (3)

The second item I wanted to show off was this adorable rose gold heart necklace. The necklace features two small pendants, one rose gold heart and one silver paw print. This is such a small dainty piece of jewelry that anyone would love. It would be such a sweet gift for someone who loves their pets!

Heart Paw Print Necklace – Rose Gold Plated Silver – Dog Lover Gift, Dog Paw Jewelry

Baker

I really enjoy baking and I have gotten a lot of baking things from friends and family, but there can never be enough baking items. So here is a group of 214 (!) baking items that would be perfect for any baker! You get pans, spatulas, piping tips, decorating tools, and much much more. This is not only perfect for a seasoned baker, but it’s also great for someone who is just starting off and needs a lot of supplies. And, it’s not crazy expensive either! How fun would this be to wrap and watch someone open?!

Cake Decorating Supplies,214 PCS Baking Set with Springform Cake Pans Set, Cake Rotating Turntable, Cake Decorating Kits, Muffin Cup Molds, Perfect Cake Baking Supplies for Beginners and Cake Lovers

What baker doesn’t need a cute apron to bake in? Now, I’m not saying this is the only apron you should buy, but this one is adorable with the little cupcakes all over it. HOW CUTE IS THAT!! You don’t have to pick the cupcake apron, you can pick others that are cute, but this one is just an idea. Who knows what you could find!

KAF Home Adult’s Hostess Extra Long Ties – Adjustable Bib Cupcake Apron-Machine Wash-Used in Kitchen, Gardening

Decorator

The first item I want to show off is this soft and fuzzy pompom edged throw blanket. This blanket comes in multiple different colors and is super cute. I LOVE the mustard yellow color, but it does come in some neutral colors which is great for any kind of decorator. This is something that I would buy for myself and for my mom (yes there is a pink and a blue version of the blanket).

LOMAO Flannel Blanket with Pompom Fringe Lightweight Cozy Bed Blanket Soft Throw Blanket fit Couch Sofa Suitable for All Season (51×63) (Mustard Yellow)

Who doesn’t like a nice fuzzy pillow? Though it can be inconvenient to store 100 regular pillows, it isn’t as inconvenient to store 100 pillow covers! And these soft and fuzzy pillow covers would be perfect to add to your pillow cover collection. They come in a couple different colors, but there are hundreds of options of pillow covers on Amazon. The possibilities are endless!

Uhomy 2 Packs Home Decorative Luxury Series Super Soft Faux Fur Throw Pillow Cover Cushion Case for Sofa or Bed Gray Ombre 18×18 Inch 45×45 cm

There are so many ideas for gifts for everyone in your family! I hope this is helpful for you and your Christmas list. I hope that this blog post has helped you decide what to get for friends and family for Christmas! Thanks for stopping by and be sure to come back in a couple days to see what else we have to share! Remember you can print out the calendars here so you know what’s coming up!

Here is also the link-up so you can share your own ideas too! I am excited to see what great gift ideas you have!

We have a BIG GIVEAWAY from our Sponsors this year! Fill out the rafflecopter for some great prizes!

Giveaway begins Nov. 8, 2019 and ends Dec. 6, 2019. Winners will be notified by December 13, 2019. Sponsors will ship each prize to the winner. There will be a total of six winners, one for each prize. Drawing is by random selection using the Rafflecopter widget.

Must be 18 to win. Open to U.S. residents only.

a Rafflecopter giveaway