It looks a lot like...

...the Christmas Spirit threw up all over my house. Well, it's not that bad, yet. Yet being the operative word. The girls and I have been busy the past month making ornaments for our tree, and other holiday crafts. Here's a sample of what we've done:

All of the projects are inspired by Pinterest. Here are the details:

First, I whipped up these holiday decorations in about 5 minutes while the kids were in school. The instructions can be found here.

I absolutely LOVE them! They suit my taste/style perfectly! I removed the bells from the back of the deer before gluing down so they would be somewhat flat against the glass. It cost me $3 to make both. The ornaments were 2/$1 and the frames were $1 each at Dollar Tree. I already had the scrapbook paper. These will go on the mantel.

Next up, ornaments!

The girls and I worked on Santa ornaments first. I used this blog post for instructions and modified them to suit the supplies I had on hand.

We made a total of 5 and I need to finish them. I need to add some embroidery floss to hang them with and I'm thinking I might want to add a strip of black felt to make a belt, but I'm not sure.

Making the Santa ornaments inspired me to fiddle around and create a Mrs. Claus. Here's what I came up with:

Isn't she just too stinking cute?! I love her to bits! I need to make 4 more now.

Living in Maryland means we sometimes have snow on Christmas, but it's not guaranteed.  Well, the girls and I decided we would make sure we have snow on Christmas every year. First we made some Model Magic snowflakes following this tutorial.

We were able to get 11 snowflakes out of 2 packages of Model Magic. I didn't want to make them too thin so they'd be sturdy once dried. They turned out pretty much awesome! I thought about drawing designs on them with red Sharpie, but I actually like them just the way they are. I hung them on our chandelier to dry, which took about 2 or 3 days.

One of my favorite experiments in high school chemistry was growing crystals. When I saw this blog post I just knew I needed to share that experience with my daughters. Science really can be stunningly beautiful! Here's how our crystal flakes turned out:

In person they look like they are encrusted with diamonds. So darn pretty! I can't wait to see them on the lit tree. The sparkles will just be amazing!

It's our Anniversary! (7th, that is)

Well, officially yesterday was our anniversary. We were married on Friday, Oct. 13, 2004. It was a dreary, rainy day and the sun came out when we were taking photos after the ceremony. Funny thing is yesterday was a dreary, rainy day and the sun came out at about the same time it did 7 years ago. How amazing is that?

We decided a while back to do the celebrate thing for our anniversary this weekend. We gave each other little things yesterday. Bill gave me a very touching card that I've re-read at least 10 times since getting it and 35 little post it notes with "Love You" written on them posted all over the house. I gave him an e-card, a Cthulhu cup cozy (hand crocheted by the lovely Jade Bartlett) for him to take to work for a laugh, and a real card.  Otherwise it was a fairly normal evening in our house... dinner, family time, unwind after kids are in bed, etc. Today I woke to find a love note written on the storm door in dry erase marker from Bill and I gave him his other, sweeter, present when he got home from work. I used this tutorial and template download to make it. He loved it. Here it is:

Here's the other gift I gave him:

Photo courtesy of Heather Brooks.

A Cthulhu Cozy! Ha!

Bill will give me my other gift this weekend. I can't wait! Tomorrow we are going to have dinner at El Dorado and after dinner we will go to the "Ghosts of Sotterly" performance at Sotterly Plantation. Sunday we will wake up late after enjoying an evening without the kids.

Vintage Clock Coasters

Old CDs, printed clock faces, sliced wine corks and lots of mod podge and I came up with these:

 

I was inspired (and got a couple of the clock images) from a posting on Pinterest. Love how these turned out!