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Merry Christmas!

Decking the Halls + a crafty tutorial of sorts

Ok, actually our one hall doesn't even have any decorations in it. I am working on a bunch of framed photos but the frames happened to be the kind without the hanging part on the back and we haven't made it to the hardware store to pick those up.

Ahem...

Anyway, we have decorated our little space for the Christmas season and I thought I'd share with you Malakai's first time decorating the tree, and my handmade decorations.

{I just love a Christmas bokeh}

After choosing our tree on Sunday night we turned on some Christmas music, made some hot cocoa, got into our comfy clothes and began to decorate.

The first thing Malakai did was walk up to the tree, point to a branch, and say "nummy!" Luckily, he didn't try to eat it. He was really excited about the glittery "ball" we handed him to put on the tree. Our Christmas bulbs are all plastic with no hooks. We bought them a few years back to replace the set that our cats kept breaking. Such a great purchase!

A lot of decor in our house is red, my kitchen is red + black and our bedroom is red + deep purple. A lot of Christmas decor is red. However, our front room is a mix of blues + greens and lots of brown. So we went with a silvery blue for our ornaments. Now if only the skirt matched.

Malakai didn't want to let go of the "ball", but we finally got him to hang his first ornament.

Even though he took it (and many others) off again just after I snapped this photo. Miraculously, since that evening he hasn't touched the tree or the ornaments. He has been very obedient when told that he cannot touch. This is not like him at all!

After he went to bed that night, Ben + I finished decorating the tree and setting out a few other decorations. This will be our first Christmas at this house. It was fun to figure out where everything would go and I was very excited to put the tree in the front window since we weren't able to do this in our previous house.

 I also worked on a garland I decided to make for our dining room. It's purpose, to display our holiday cards. We had already received three. Part of my mission was to use items I already had for this project. I gathered glitter glues (many of which were dried up as I haven't been crafty in far too long), yarn, a gift bag, clothes pins, and a couple different kinds of ribbon. One of which I had actually purchased over the weekend from the dollar section at Target. 

I had a general idea of what I was going for in my mind. Something a bit like this...

I removed the bamboo art print from our grey wall where I knew I wanted the garland to go. I also managed to only make one extra hole in the wall, which was one more than I wanted, but necessary to make it work. 

I tied the on the wall, letting it droop between each attachment at first. Later, when hanging things on it, I tied it tightly so that it could droop less and more naturally under the weight of the clothes pins and cards.  Then I went to work with the glitter glue on the clothes pins. I chose red, to match the kitchen + dining area. I just love the contrast of red on the grey paint in our dining room. 

I didn't use nearly enough at first so I made it as thick as I could so you couldn't see the wood underneath. I also colored some black and gave them red glitter accents. The ribbon I got from Target was only 25 inches long so I decided to cut some pieces and glue them on the clothes pins. 

I put the clothes pins up with some cards, knowing it needed something more. I was thinking of making snowflakes, or paper hearts like the example above when I remembered something that would be perfect.  I had a gift bag from a friend who brought us a housewarming gift in it and it was just right. It has these circular designs in white + black on a red background. I cut them out with a scalloped scissor and tied them on with short ribbon. The ribbon was precut to this size because they had once topped by bubbles from our wedding.

I think the paper accents make the perfect little addition and I love that they kind of look like snowflakes. Here's the finished product, waiting for more holiday cards.

Now, on to a new crafting obsession. Tissue paper pom-poms!

What are you making by hand this year?

It's already time for Christmas cards!

I am hoping to get our Christmas cards out early this year. I've been planning on making my own this year. I thought it would be most cost effective to create something on the computer and then print them as photo prints through Shutterfly. That was, until I discovered their promotion through my friend Anna's blog.

If you are a blogger, you can apply to receive 50 free Christmas cards through their current promotion here. So now I find myself looking through all their layouts and my cards might not get out so early this year because I can't seem to choose just one favorite out of all their designs! I have already put together and saved about 17 different versions of cards. I love that I can design as many as I want until I find that perfect design and photo combination.

Here are two of my favorites. I love the modern look with the classic Christmas time feel to them. I don't know if I could choose just one photo to send, so I may have to go with the second one to get more pictures in. I love photo cards.

What design would you choose?