Christmas 2009 Decor

As planned, we took all of our holiday decorations down this last weekend and I love how simple and clean the house looks right now. I loved the Christmas decorations so very very much, but it's a really nice change. I snapped some pics and wanted to document it for next year, as well as share it with you all of course :).

A simple garland of vintage wire candy canes found on Etsy and hung on white embroidery floss I use for everything...


I love these two vintage reindeer found at this past fall's Antique Weekend surrounded by organic cotton fill "snow" we had lying around....


Homemade soy candles surrounded by vintage pretties (found where you can probably guess:) and some tree clippings. This is sitting on top of one of many crochet doily placemats I inherited from my mom...


I adore vintage crochet snowflakes and have collected many over the last couple of years from various places. I love seeing them hang, especially around our Michelle Armas painting, which she created for our wedding anniversary this last year. She has been getting alot of much-deserved attention lately around blogville (so glad!) and a print of her gorgeous Secret Garden painting is even being sold at Urban Outfitters now! SO, check her out...


This lil' holiday village on our mantle was one of my favorite things this season! I scooped up the bottlebrush trees at Antique Weekend this past spring and the houses in the fall. It's surrounded by more organic cotton "snow"...


An inherited metal basket filled with vintage Christmas books, some of which were my Love's growing up, some were Etsy finds, and the others were a sweet gift from a dear friend. This sat on our coffee table and the books were read and/or flipped through quite a bit! The vintage bells and the ribbon were also found at the amazing Etsy. Shocker, I know...


More adorable vintage reindeer found at a thrift store from the same thoughtful friend (thanks Emily!) surrounded by more of that "snow". I love these little cute guys with their tiny bells...


Another village shot...I loved this even more because my Love did it all and quite enjoyed himself along the way! He did a wonderful job and I so loved looking at this every day and seeing his work. I'm a blessed girl...


So there you go, our Christmas 2009 decor. What fun! I loved it overall more than any other year thus far and I look forward to the 2010 decorations, but first comes Valentine's and ALL the other seasons/holidays that I love so very much :)! For awhile though, I'm just going to enjoy the minimalist look we currently have going on.

Our Heart Day

Hope your Valentine's was as perfect as ours! Wasn't it so much fun that it fell on a Saturday? It was a slow day at home with the three of us just hanging out and enjoying each other. We ate some delicious food (and desserts:), crafted a bit, and caught up on some of our favorite shows online. I thought I'd share some hearts and such from our weekend...


Yummy whole wheat chocolate chip pancakes made for me by my sweet Love...


Lovely patch I made from recycled shirts, then embroidered and sewed onto one of my Love's undershirts as his little gift from me. He loves it as he has always wanted a tattoo of my name, so this was something in that direction :)...


Delicious and simple homemade pizza made by my Love for dinner...


Adorable new leg warmers on Lovebug as her little gift...


Precious little conversation people customized for us by these Etsy gals that inspired my Valentine's look this year...


Fun little banners and mobiles I made from newspaper, acrylic paint, and cotton yarn...


Hope the rest of your week is full of yummy, lovely, delicious, adorable, precious, and fun things! OH and thank you so much for all of the sweet comments on Lovebug's party, especially to Joslyn for putting it on Kirtsy. I felt so honored and am super glad I finally posted it! :)

2008 Christmas Decor

I don't think we'll be leaving our decor up for another week anymore because our tree is looking very very sad :(, so I thought I'd do a little photo post of our Christmas decor before it comes down. Isn't so fun to decorate your nest? I already have ideas brimming for 2009 - stockings that need to be made, more vintage ornaments found for an advent calendar, and many other things. It seems forever away, but time flies when you're having fun so I know it will be here before I know it!










Have a great weekend!

Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays!

My goodness, I cannot believe Christmas is here! We've been (are) busy finishing up things for all the festivities. The snowflake fairies visited our house last Friday night so now even though we won't have a white Christmas we can look outside and see "snow". So pretty. My Love and I had fun making them but they are very addicting! We also had so much fun on our first Lovebug-less date on Saturday night! YES, it was way past due, but was still very hard for me at first, but I finally was able to relax and we had SO much fun! We missed our lil' sweetie greatly though and were so excited to get back to her. Thank you again wonderful grandparents!

Yesterday I had a couple high-stress moments because our Christmas cards/Lovebug's "announcement" (yes, she just turned one:) arrived and they looked terrible so we scrambled around trying to fix them...let's see, then some other presents we ordered online arrived and they're wrong or won't work. SO I had to make myself some chamomile tea, turn on some holiday music, calm down, and just relax. I needed a good reminder about what this time of year is all about and what it means to me. It's so easy to get swept into the stress of the season, but I'm good now...and ever since I've been making an assortment of sweet and spicy organic nut mixes, coffee cake, and cookies to enjoy with our families! Still have presents we need to finish up today though too...but not stressing, just enjoying.

WELL, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone!!! I hope you all have a wonderful time with your families and friends!

Green Light, Recycle Light

I remember growing up how much fun it was to decorate for Christmas...an enormous amount of jolly music, a great deal of laughter, so many yummy holiday treats, and just a ridiculous amount of fun. All of that is still true, but now I get to decorate my own nest with my Love and it's even more enjoyable!

In order to green up your holiday decorating, if you need new lights for your tree or outside, go get some LED strands!! They are WONDERFUL...we've had ours for 3 years and have never had a single bulb go out or break!!! Of course, proper storage is key once decorations come down, but our LEDs are "fade/chip/peel/break resistant" and so far so good. LEDs also use about 10% less power than traditional incandescents, are cool to the touch, and they will last much longer! PLUS, if one bulb does go out, it won't affect the whole strand! Now, THAT is a huge plus, isn't it?

I was first introduced to LEDs as an event designer when we switched from traditional lights to LEDs for event lighting and the difference was huge!! The quality of the light, the options we had with them, but mainly how much less power they use! They might be more expensive up front but they will end up saving you money as they will last you longer and lower your electricity bill. Three years ago we got ours (Philips Indoor/Outdoor Set) at Target but I know they're even more widely available now at home improvement stores and whatnot. Our LEDs burn brighter and have a cool look to them that we really enjoy, but I know they also have "warmer" toned strands now as well for those of you who would prefer that.


Holiday LEDs is a wonderful website that sells a TON of different options, so you should check them out as well...but what is REALLY amazing about them is they offer FREE Christmas light recycling!!! Well, the recycling is free but you have to pay for shipping obviously. Here is all of the info with details of how they go about recycling the lights. It's just so wonderful because with traditional incandescent strands, it seems people are constantly having to get new ones (I know we did growing up) and those strands which contain PVC, glass, copper, and lead are just ending up in the landfills which isn't so great for the environment. SO instead of just tossing your old strands, send them to Holiday LEDs and in return, they will send you a 15% off coupon! Pretty cool...

They prefer the light strands sent in a cardboard box (so it can be recycled) and they ask that you include your name and email address so they can send the coupon to you! For more details, check out their website...

HolidayLEDs.com
Attn: Recycling Program
2500 W. Argyle St.
Jackson, MI 49202


As another option, I had heard Home Depot was collecting any type of holiday lights for recycling as well but only for a limited time. I called my local one and they ARE still accepting them, so maybe check them out first as a local option.

Please do keep in mind though that whether incandescents or LEDs, all light strands contain some amount of lead as a stabilizer for the PVC. So wash your hands thoroughly after handling lights and keep little kids away from them!

WELL, this weekend is going to be busy...got my 10K I've been training for tomorrow and then Lovebug's birthday party on Sunday - YEA! I'll let you all know how they go...Have a wonderful weekend!