Christmas Playlist - The kind that makes you want to tap your feet

Christmas music is on all the time. On the way to work, at work, on the way home, through Starbucks drive thrus, at home, cleaning, cooking, teeth brushing… whatever activity there is to do in a day, Christmas music is playing in the background.

It does help me get in the Holiday spirit, especially since the temperature here is in the high 70s.

While I love the classic Christmas songs, nothing gets me in an even more holly jolly mood than some poppy rock versions. These songs in my playlist are definitely going to be playing at my two holiday parties, and as I listen and discover more, I’ll be adding to it.

What are some of your favorite Christmas songs? 

{See the making of that DIY mini tree here}

Anxious for Christmas

I don't know about you, but I cannot wait until Christmas!

A few things I'm super excited for:

Spending the holidays with Joshua for the first time.

Hosting my family's gift exchange party.

Baking cookies and mixing holiday cocktails. 

Seeing my gifts for friends and family unwrapped.

But there's still so much I need to do... like finish gift shopping, gift wrapping, sewing a Christmas sweater (ya know... because it's supposed to be an ugly sweater), going to see the lights downtown... Hopefully I will be able to get all that done this weekend!

Here's a few holiday links for those also prepping this weekend:

DIY Golden holiday table via Hey Look

Gift wrapping ideas via Hooray

typographic gift tag printouts via Eat Drink Chic

Chocolate mint crackle cookies recipe (perfect for gifting or your holiday parties) 

Awesome gift ideas to scroll through from Little White Whale Blog

 I hope you all have a lovely weekend, and there's just 11 more days! 

Handmade Holiday: DIY Twine Ornaments

Currently, my Christmas tree has a lot of shiny and sparkly gold ornaments. So, it's got the green and gold colors from my theme mentioned here, but I needed to add some brown to really make my rustic theme complete. Easy solution: add twine. 

A lot of my DIY holiday projects, which I will continue to share, involve reusing materials. Makes sense, right? It keeps the costs down and it's easy to make things matchy matchy. 

Choose a starting point on your foam ball, add a dollop of glue and stick on the twine.

Wrap the twine around the ball adding a little more glue here and there. 

(It is not necessary to add the glue every time you wrap the twine around, although I did find that I needed to more as I got closer to the bottom)

Add wire, ribbon or make a loop with your left over twine to create a hook.

Hang finished ornament on the tree.

Step back from the tree and admire your handy work.

Handmade Holiday: DIY Miniature Christmas Tree

Who says you only need one Christmas tree? Maybe one MAIN Christmas tree... but then maybe you want one in your room too so that you can wake up to a lovely pine and Christmasy aroma each morning. Or maybe you want another one just to make a room festive or maybe you live in a small space and want a small tree.

Whatever your reason may be, there is a simple and super inexpensive solution... a DIY miniature Christmas tree.

I got the idea after going to pick up a tree from the lot, and the vendor was giving away free tree clippings. He said take as much as you want, and so I took two armfuls. As I was holding a bunch in my hand, I was thinking how it kind of looked like a mini tree. So in that moment, I decided I would make a little tree for my room.

Supplies you need:
Christmas tree trimmings (usually free where they sell trees)
Twine
Square burlap fabric
Wire (from the hardware store)
Clippers
Pebbles



Pick the branches you'd like for your tree, trim them as you like. Use the wire to tie the branches together. When you've gotten your tree's shape, use a little bit of wire to wrap the "trunk" together to make sure they hold strong. You can also use twine to do this.




To create the base, put the rocks and tree in the middle of the burlap, bunch up the fabric around the "trunk" and tie it all together with your twine.

And there you have it, a mini Christmas tree for any room of your home!

I've been doing a lot of holiday crafting lately and I'm excited to share some more simple projects over the next couple weeks.

I'd love to see what your crafty projects are too, please share your links!

Linking up with Southern Lovely's Show & Share, My Girlish Whims's Your Whims Wednesday, Snap! Show and Tell, Simply Designing 

Christmas Inspiration

 I'm finally going to go pick up a tree and will be decorating it and my home all weekend long! This will *hopefully* be the first Christmas I share with Joshua (yes. after 4 years), so I'm putting a little more time into decorating this year. I'm going for a green, gold, white and brown theme. I'm pinning more photos for inspiration on this christmas board (follow my pins here)! 

Do you have a holiday theme this year?

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