That's a Wrap

Hi. My name is Amanda, and I'm addicted to wrapping gifts.

Ok, I feel better now.

I just finished wrapping my first few Christmas gifts and I am very excited about it! I like wrapping other people's gifts almost more than I like opening my own. There's something about the idea of transforming a plain box into a thing of beauty. The paper, the ribbon... It's like a work of art. I've even been guilty of wrapping empty boxes just to put under the tree.

Anyway, here's a look. I used some iridescent craft ribbon I already had on hand to tie a couple of pretty bows. Simple enough. But then I glammed them up by adding a dangly "charm" in the form of a mini, mega-sparkly star ornament from Crate & Barrel. I think I may wince in silent pain just a little when it comes time for the recipients to tear their gift open.

I can't help but give a little sigh of satisfaction every time I look under the tree. These little packages are so purty, I thought they each deserved their own glamour shot. (Sorry the pics are a little washed out... my camera sucks.)

I love how the ornaments add a little extra embellishment, but also double as another mini-gift. And if it's sparkly, that's even better in my book. There are so many cute ornaments out there, it's such an easy (and inexpensive) way to add some personality to each present. I also really like these colorful light bulbs from Crate & Barrel (just under $1 each!), which would make perfect gift charms, too.

And just for fun, here's another picture of the presents... with our cat Phoebe peeking out from behind them. One of her favorite places to lounge during the holidays is under the tree, especially when there are presents to hide behind! I'm sure this will be the first of many Phoebe-sightings on my blog. 

Wrapping gifts: do you love it or hate it? How do you accessorize them? And most importantly, am I a total dork for being more excited about what's on the outside than on the inside?

Blog decor!

So, I wasn't crazy about my old blog background (or any of the other Blogger templates, for that matter). And being a newbie to this whole blogging thing, I didn't really know how to go about changing it. After some Googling though, I found that it's a lot easier than I thought it would be to add a new background! (I'm sure most of you knew that already, but let me have my moment.) So thanks to ShabbyBlogs.com, I now have this fabulous Christmas tree to brighten up my blog for the next few weeks. The red and gold theme even matches the decor in our house! B-E-A-utiful.

Goals for this weekend: Decorating the front porch, which should be a pretty easy project. And we also need to get started on Christmas shopping.  Eek!  I'm trying to come up with DIY (read: economical) gifts for everyone, but I'm having a brain blockage. How about you? Have you crossed off everything on your list, or will you find yourself wrapping presents on December 23, wondering what happened to the past three weeks?

Deck the Halls... or the corner

When we initially looked at this house, one of my first thoughts was that if nothing else, the front entryway with its large picture window would be the perfect place for a Christmas tree (even though Christmas was still 10 months away at the time). Here's what it looked like as of last week. [Side note: Because of the light fixture that was already there when we moved in, we believe this space is technically supposed to be the "formal" dining room, although it's much too small for that purpose. I have many issues with this area and it's functionality (or lack thereof), but that's a post for another day.]  

Anyway, here's what it looked like as of last week.

Over the past couple of days, I've tried to fight the urge to put up all the Christmas decorations at once, and spread it out a little instead. Some sort of exercise in patience, I suppose. We don't have enough to transform our entire house; we mostly have a "Christmas corner." But I plan on taking advantage of some post-holiday sales to work on that! I still have a few things I may set out here and there, but this is what it looks like now:

I think it has such a warm and inviting glow, don't you? Oh, and our tree is fake and pre-lit. And I love it. It's pretty realistic as far as fake trees go, and it's even got some pine cone accents to boot. Our ornaments don't really follow an overall theme; we've got red and gold, plus a few random ones that have some sentimental value. One of my favorites is part of a set of three (Peace, Noel, and Joy). So pretty!

 

And here's our sideboard, which is decorated somewhat simply. We had to scootch it over to make room for the tree, and I thought it would bother me not having the West Elm sunburst mirror centered anymore, but I think it works. I'm digging the tinsel trees that I made earlier this week! Mah-velous. And yes, I was having too much fun taking all these pictures.

 

Today, I took advantage of another 50% off sale at Hobby Lobby (one of my favorite--albeit dangerous--places to waste time over lunch break) and picked up some fake snow and mini ornaments for a grand total of $3.70. I put these in a cylinder vase, and voila! Simple yet stunning! I only wish I had a bigger vase.

 

I loves me some faux snow.

Oh, and here's the other tabletop tree I made, which I put on an end table to add a little sparkle to our living room. As you can see, red and gold are the dominant colors in our Christmas decor. I'm not sure we could pull off pink or some of those other contemporary holiday colors in our house. How about you? Traditional or trendy?

And finally, the kitchen table. Again, very understated... some gold pine cones in a glass bowl that belonged to Luke's grandma, because it's nice to incorporate pieces that have some meaning behind them. I may need to embellish this a bit more when we pull our table out to its full size though.
 

So, you'll notice that I didn't post any pictures of stockings. We do have a couple; we just don't have a good place for them--or any stocking holders to hang them on, for that matter. I've seen some really cute holders, but they are so expensive! Aside from waiting until after Christmas to find some on sale, anyone have any other ideas? 3M Command Hooks, perhaps?

I've also been itching to try and make the Eddie Ross ornament wreath that everyone's raving about, especially after seeing some really amazing versions around blogland! If I don't get around to it this season, that will be on my to-do list for next year. There are just so many great ideas out there!


We're also going to dress up our sad, empty front porch with some holiday cheer, so I'll post pictures once that's done, too. Until then, happy decorating!

 

DIY Tabletop Trees

First of all, I hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving! By now, of course, just about everyone has shifted into Christmas gear. After a stretch of warm, sunny weather here, it's cold and blustery today, so now it finally feels like the holiday season has officially arrived.

This year, I thought I'd try making some of my own decorations. I've always loved the "tabletop trees" that seem to be everywhere now. I'm particularly fond of the glittery ones, like these Gold Trees from Crate & Barrel ($29.95 for a set of 2), but Target's curled wood version is pretty fabulous, too ($24.99).

At these prices, they're not going to break the bank or anything. Yet being the penny-pincher I am, I thought to myself, I bet I could make something like that for half the cost. Plus, it could be kinda fun! So I started searching for materials to make my own conical creations. Here's what I found:

 

23" Christmas Craft Tree - Hobby Lobby (40% off): $4.79

17" Christmas Craft Tree - Hobby Lobby (40% off): $3.59

itsy BEADsies bowl and vase filler - Hobby Lobby (2 bags @ 50% off): $4.99

18 ft. True Silver Holiday Garland - Target (2 garlands): $7.98

So the garland from Target wasn't exactly a bargain, but it was the perfect size for this project -- nice and skinny, so my tree wouldn't be all shaggy. Making the garland tree was pretty simple. All I did was wrap the garland around it, starting at the base and keeping the rows packed tight. I dabbed some hot glue on it every so often to keep the rows in place. Total time: about 20 minutes.

The beaded tree, however, was a bit more tedious. First, I covered the cone in gold wrapping paper, which I already had on hand. Then, I hot glued the beads on one by one, starting at the bottom. They were actually a little bit squishy, which worked out well when I was trying to squeeze them together as close as possible. Once I started, I realized it was going to take awhile, but I had to see it through to the end... which came about two hours later (including a couple breaks to rest my eyes and straighten my hunched back). Yikes!

And (drumroll, please), here are my completed tabletop trees in all their glimmering glory!

What do you think? I have to say I'm pretty pleased overall. The silver garland created a super-sparkly effect, and I love the texture, too. I wish there were fewer gaps in my beaded tree, but there really wasn't much I could do about that. I didn't save quite as much money as I had hoped; however, I do still have some leftover garland and beads for another project. There's also something to be said for the feeling of accomplishment you get when you can say "I made it myself." I may even experiment with more tabletop trees made with other materials... flowers, feathers, ribbon... oh, the possibilities!

More Christmas decorations coming soon... Yippee!

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The 'Zine Scene

So I got my first issues of House Beautiful and Better Homes and Gardens in the mail a few days ago (thanks to a couple of 1-year subscriptions on Amazon for a mere 5 smackers). I've been trying not to look at them, like a kid trying not to peek at the Christmas presents, because I want some new reading material to take along on the Thanksgiving road trip.

I'm super excited to start channeling my inner domestic diva! Anyone out there subscribe to either of these mags? What other glossies are you reading? (Even if it's not home-related... I'm also a fan of InStyle and Bon Appetit.)

Speaking of the impending holiday... I'll be making some pumpkin pie bars and apple pie today to take to the fam ... yummmm! 

And next time I post, I'll hopefully have some good Black Friday deals to report on, and of course... decorating for Christmas! I'm even going to get my Martha Stewart on and try my hand at a crafty project or two... check back for an update on Sunday!

But until then... Happy Thanksgiving!

Flashback: Well, how about that?

If you'll recall from my previous post on our sprinkler system, we had almost finished it up until we realized there was another very important step we needed to take...something we had neglected to research, being the naive first-time homebuyers we were.

As it turns out, most homes in the area we live have their own wells in their yard to access the large water table that's below this part of town. Some have their well hooked up to their whole house, and some only have it hooked up to their outside faucets and sprinkler systems. After talking to several neighbors, we found out that having a well would be a big money-saver in the long run, even though it's a large cost upfront. After all, once you pay for the installation, the water is essentially free after that. We decided to get ours hooked up to our sprinkler system, since we knew we'd be using a lot of H20 once we installed our sod.

Drilling a well is obviously not a DIY project. We got some recommendations for a local drilling company, and set up a time for them to come drill. When the day came, we both took off work to come oversee the process. It was a good thing we hadn't laid sod or built our fence yet, because they had to back their big honker of a rig right up into our backyard.

The whole process was pretty interesting... and a little frightening at times. See for yourself:

When they started the drilling process, this is what spewed up from the bowels of the earth (ok, so maybe it was only from a few feet down):

 

 Eventually, we had our own little lake in our backyard. Lovely, no?

Fifty feet later (at $16/foot), they were ready to install the casing for the well (the long white tube).

After back-filling the rest of the hole around the casing with sand, they installed the actual pump mechanism.

Finally, after some water testing, it was all over. Our very own well! Actually, the whole thing took less than two hours. We also learned a lot from the process. For instance, have you ever seen brown or even black stains on sidewalks or driveways? Here's a couple pictures from the sidewalks down our street:

Turns out this is caused by the iron content from the groundwater. It's hit-or-miss, and some houses get it worse than others depending on their location. We've experienced it ourselves too (the picture below is what the edge of our driveway looks like now), but there's not much you can do about it. Plus, you get used to it when you see it everywhere else.

Once the well was finished, we were able to get it hooked up to the sprinkler system and finish that part, too. And so ends another [painfully long] chapter of the saga of our lawn. Next step? Getting some GREEN!

Clean Sweep

So, I had the day off work today and what did I choose to do with my time?  Lounge on the couch watching TV? Spend the day outside enjoying the unseasonably beautiful weather? No, for the last five or so hours, I've been doing some serious house-cleaning. Dusting, vacuuming, scrubbing the bathroom tub, shower and floors... I even managed to get all the laundry done. Am I crazy to spend my vacation day doing this? Perhaps. But let me tell you, it felt pretty darn good. Plus, not a bad workout. And now I can chillax the rest of the weekend.

How do you feel about cleaning house? Do you dread it, or do you find it therapeutic? What part of cleaning makes you cringe the most?