Christmas Decorating on a budget (how I do this)

I just love this time of year.  My most favorite thing is decorating  for Christmas.  That is what we celebrate in my little creative home.  I love to looking through Magazines for decorating ideas.  I'm always a sucker for Pottery Barns website during this time of year, however,  unfortunately I don't have quite the budget that some of those magazines do.  One of my most favorite magazines to pull ideas out of is call

What I do each year is find pictures of Christmas decorations and I go out to find reasonable duplicates for my favorite layouts that I pulled from website, magazine and sometimes even my own little noggin.   Now this doesn't have to break the piggy bank girls.  A lot of my decorations come from Home Goods, Hobby Lobby, T J Max and I know it's hard to believe but the Dollar Store.


Home Goods and Hobby Lobby always have really great sales prior and after the holidays.  For instance all of my decorations that I picked up there this year where when they were running their 50% off sale.   I even was able to score some really nice quality items at the end of the holiday sales and if I can remember correctly two of the items I got for 75% off.   That's my trick I try not to buy anything full price unless I absolutely love it.  Also this year I found a new source to pick up things it's call Lakeside.com they have really adorable Christmas and other holiday items for a great price and if you are lucky you can even find that they run 50% sales too.

So with out any more delays let's take a tour of my house for this years decorations shall we....


Let's start in the living room.  I decide to keep the decoration simple this year.  I choice to mix my Christmas decoration within my every day decoration.   I love this idea because I don't have to worry about packing away my every day decoration (and worrying they get broke).

I bought a couple of new items for this room this year.  The pillows you see on the couch I got at Hobby Lobby at there 50% sale I think I snagged them for $10 for each of them.  I just love that store for buying Christmas decorations.   They have a great selection no matter what type of style you are looking for.

Next on our tour is my formal dinning room.   The theme again this year SIMPLE.   I bought a new table cloth at Home Goods (another favorite store to shop for home decor.).   I also picked up the Christmas tree candles they were in the clearance isle.   The hurricane glass candle jar I picked up last year at Kohls it was a great find it was a $80 mark down to $25 it also was in there clearance bin.  My center piece was last year wreath that hung on my Kitchen light.  The poinsettias I had for a long time I picked them up at Michael's a few years back.

Moving onto the Kitchen.   I really didn't decorate too much in here.  I just put a couple items out this year.  I threw a couple ornaments and some picks in my fruit tower to give it a little bit of a festive look.  On my top shelf next to the cabinets I put my favorite Santa that my mother made for me.  She is so talented.   Believe it or not that bottom shelf is a dollar store container for cookies.  I just filled it up with old glass ornaments and then added some holiday picks that I picked up last year from Michaels and Hobby Lobby after Christmas sale.

Now I think that the Family room decoration is where the magic begins.  I decided to redo my shelves and mantel this year.  I just love how they came out.

New items this year the little pipe cleaner trees (from Home Goods), Santa Claus portrait (from Hobby Lobby 50% off),  candle sticks along with Wooden Angel were (Home Goods),  and new stockings this year (from Target)

On the right side of my fireplace this is how I decorated this year.  I purchase a couple new items for the shelves this year.   Those houses you see on the third shelf  I got them at the dollar store.

On the left on my fireplace is another built in shelf the only thing that is new here from last year is the on the second to the top shelf the Santa I picked up from Hobby Lobby when they were running there 50% sale.

This year I had a little helper decorating with me (or should I say for me).  It turned out that when I wanted to get the decorations up this year I caught the flu and it knocked me out for three whole days.   While I was down and out in my little flu induce coma my mother came over and decorated my house for me.   I don't know what I would do with out her.   I love how it all came together this year.

I hope you had fun with your decorating your house this year and that you see that decorating  doesn't have to be expensive.  If you pick up items that you love and you watch for sales and you slowly accumulate these items you will find that this really can be inexpensive.   A few of my decoration came from the dollar store and would you believe those are the decorations that everyone seems to go wild over.

Travel Organizations

As I told you all before I love to organize and one of my most favorite things to organize is my luggage. I am going to share with you some of my favorite packing tips here.

Packing Luggage


Packing cubes

A well packed luggage means you can take more in less space.  Now a days checking one bags comes with baggage fees.  Checked bags fees have gotten way out of hand.   So I try to pack efficiently. Having less bags means less hassle too.  I love to pack and over the years I have put in place many packing systems.  I am always looking for ways to pack more in less space.

In my quest to pack more in less space I have fell in love with a packing system from the Container store called Eagle Creek.  They have several pieces to their system.  I absolutely love the Eagle Creek Pack-It Folders.  They keep my clothes wrinkle-free, plus I'm able to pack more with this system. Each Pack-it Folder comes with a special lightweight board that helps you fold your clothes so they can fit into the folders.  I have been using these for a while now and I will not go back to my old system.

Picture source - Amazon.com

What I love about these packing cubes is that they make my life easier.  All I have to do is pack these cubes up and once I reach my destination I just have to take them out of my luggage and pop them into the hotel drawers.  No unpacking needed. (Chorus of Angels inserted here).  I have found that since I started using these I am able to pack a week worth of clothes in a small carry-on bag.  That means less hassles at the air port which who wouldn't love that.

Zip-lock Baggies

Now I know these little babies are kind of expensive (but truly worth their weight in gold) so if you can't purchase these for your packing there are alternatives.  Prior to finding these cubes I used to pack using zip-lock bags.   Yes zip-lock bags!   

Zip-lock bags are useful if you have small children.  I used to pack a whole outfit in a quart size bag for my young child.  I would be able to put a shirt, shorts, underwear and socks in one bag squeezed out the air and pack the zip-lock bags into my luggage.  Using them saved on space and also made it easy for my child to pick out there own clothes while we were away.

I also used zip-lock bags to organize electronics that I took with me on trips.  This helps when you have more than one cell phone charger or DS games.  You can put it in a bag and lable them for each member of your family.


Rolling Clothes

When packing cubes and zip-lock bags aren't an option.  Then try rolling your clothes.  If done right you can get to your destination with wrinkle free clothes.   I usually fold a t-shirt in half then fold in the arms of the shirt then start rolling. What I don't like about these system is that  you are not always guaranteed that your clothing will come out wrinkle-free.

I hope you find these tips helpful.

I'm still here!

Sorry for the long break, but it was a much needed break.  Lots going on around here.   With the kids off school and family issues I've had a hard time concentrating on my blog.  Things look like they are slowing down and I miss blogging.   I have decided to branch out into different areas besides crafting with my blog and I hope that you will continue to visit me here.

Thanks for understanding and stay tuned for new post soon.

Where did it go?

Some how some where I have lost it.  That is my creativity.....  I feel like I should apologize for being such a bad blogger.  My mind is so far from being creativity at this time, but I have to say that I've been busy doing my 2nd most favorite thing and that is organizing.   I am trying to tackle some big projects around the house.   They are organizing projects.   I have already cleaned out, sorted and reorganized my storage room.  That was a huge project and has taken me a long time to finish.  I decided that I needed to clean out the storage room prior to picking up my son who has been away at college, because I knew he would have a truck load of stuff that he was bringing home with him that he wouldn't be using during the summer.

After finishing that project I was thinking  maybe I should of blogged about this since I don't feel like being creative at this time and I love to organize and reorganize things.  I have a few more big projects in mind to do around here and I decided that I will bring you along with me this time.   So stay tuned.

What's happening

Life has been very busy here lately.  With two kids on two separate Spring breaks, a visit with my parents and a little decorating what can I say I've been a bad blogger.

This is the first year that both my son and daughter were not on the same Spring break schedule and I wasn't prepared for this as you can see my posting dropped off at the start of my son's break.  Today my daughter return back to school from her Spring break.  

I have a few projects that I am in the middle of and will be posting on these this week.  Stay tuned folks....

Project Life

SO COOOL

Have you ever wished that you could some way capture your video and put them into your Project Life album?  Is it even possible you are asking to yourself right now?  Well I am here to tell you that it is possible.   All you need is a smart phone.   Now I know a lot of you out there already taking pictures with your IPhone to use in your Project Life Album.  Now you can start shooting videos too.   It's really simple and I am going to walk you through the process right now.

First thing first have you ever heard of a QR code.  A QR code is a matrix bar code (or two dimensional code), readable by QR scanners, Mobile phones with cameras and smart phones. I bet you have seen them.  They look like this...

So what do you need in order to accomplish this task?

Smart phone (I have an IPhone)

QR code (You can go on line and generate this QR codes for free like here)

A video with a URL link (I use Vimeo to upload my videos)

A printer

That's all you need.  The first step is to shoot your video on your smart phone.  Then you need to upload to a site like Vimeo or YouTube in order to create a URL link.  You can sign up for free to both Vimeo or Youtube.  Follow the directions to upload your video.  After uploading your video you need to copy the URL link and paste it into the a QR code generator.

Within minutes you will have a QR code bar.   Copy your code (by right clicking on your code and do a copy save as) then opened a Word file and paste it into word.     

Once you have it pasted into word you can re-size it to whatever size you like,   Now you need to down load the QR code reader (I use the QR code reader for IPhone),    Once that's been uploaded to your phone all you have to do is place your QR code into your Project Life album and scan your code and it will take you to your video,

If you have any questions please leave me a comment I will get back to you with the answer.



This was linked to Some What Simply

I have received an award from one of my dear blogging friends Paula at Scrappy Me.  Here is how it works:

"Liebster" is German for 'dearest.' The award is a 'share-the-love' arrangement, given to inspirational bloggers with fewer than 200 followers (based on Google followers). 

Here's the to-do list of any Liebster award recipient:
1. Thank the giver and link back to the blogger who gave it to you
2. Reveal your five blogger picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog
3. Copy and paste the award on your blog (see above)4. Hope that those you award forward it to their favorite bloggers

So here goes.  I've decided to give this award to the following lovely bloggers, all of their blogs are so worth seeing and I get great enjoyment in reading about their latest projects and their life in general.  Please stop by all of their blogs to see for yourself I think you just may become a follower too.  

1.  Natalie from NorthShore Days a very talented lady - I have just started following Natalie's blog and her projects are a must see,

2. Karen from Somewhat Quirky I just love her post they are so well written and her projects don't get me started, please pop over to her blog to see for yourself.

3. Feeding Four her blog is full of wonderful recipes and her last project turned out so well.  Why don't you skip over there to see what I  mean.


4. Debbie from Beautiful things and trashy she such a creative and talented lady and she has so many wonderful projects on her blog.

5. Paula from Scrappy Me I don't know if this is allowed since she gave me this award but Paula is a very talented and creative card marker.  I've been following her blog for a very long time and she is such a sweet lady.  Please stop by her blog to see for yourself.

My Happiness Project

Okay I have to confess something - At the end of last year I finished reading the Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin and thought wow this is a great book, but deep down I questioned if it would really work.  So I set out to do my own experiment  to test it out.  

Source

If you haven't read this book it's all about how the author Gretchen Rubin took a year of her life to do things that would bring her more happiness in her life.   Each month she focuses on something new which she thought would bring her happiness.   It's a very inspirational book and it got me motivated for sure.

So starting on Jan 1st I wrote my goals down that I wanted to accomplish in order to bring more happiness into my life.  To tell you the truth I don't know if I will make it through the whole year but I am happy to say that I've made it happen for two months now and that's encouraging to me.

I think that any time you get a chance to reach outside of your comfort zone you receive rewards.  So far my little experiment has only proven me right.

So what have I've been up to in these last two months?????

Well for January the things I focus on were:

January


To act like I wanted to feel -  This goal might be confusing to you.  How can you act like you want to feel?   Simple it meant instead of letting outside matters control the way I felt I concentrated on how I wanted to feel,   So many times I've simply let people in my life affect the way I felt.  For example if I ran into a crabby kid I noticed that I started to feel that way too.   So I decided to focus on how I wanted to feel and stuck to it.  No matter what I ran into I choose that I wouldn't  let outside interference change the way I wanted to feel.

To do what ought to be done -  I noticed that when I set out to do something and I did what needed to be done it felt so good.  For example I've been really working on sticking to my cleaning schedule that I made for myself.  When I stuck to my goals the house was kept cleaned and I was able to do more things which increased my happiness factor.   Also in the beginning of the year I joined Ail Edwards one little word workshop and picked the word DISCIPLINE.  So these two little goals went hand in hand together.  It takes discipline for me to get the things done that needed to be done.  When I achieved what I wanted to get done I couldn't help but to feel happy.

February


To count my blessings -  I have fond this goal to bring me the most happiness.   At first it wasn't something natural for me to do.  Most days I would walk around not even thinking what I felt blessed about.  However, when I started to make an effort to be grateful for what I had around me it really did make me feel happier.


Focus on something I really enjoyed -  I wanted to focus on one thing that I really enjoyed.  This goal was a tough one for me,  Let's face it I'm very crafty person I enjoy crafting and I enjoy showing people what I have accomplished but I found that I was always scattered.  I would have three projects going at the same time.  As much as I tried to stay focus on this goal in the beginning of February it didn't turn out.  So I decided that I would change the goal up a little.  I knew that no matter what, I wasn't going to change the fact that I had more than one project going at a time so I decided to focus on my blog.  By just picking one thing to focus on (like my blog)   I got enjoyment out of it.  I focused on setting goals for my blog and by setting these goals I've accomplish one of the things I always wanted to do and that's to grow my blog.  I got a few more followers and that gave me a thrill like you wouldn't believe.

Like Gretchen observed in her book it takes a conscious effort to be happy and by being a little bit more aware of that fact any one can set out to be a more happier person.

Simple Project - For Baby Shower

This past weekend I attended a baby shower.   This was the first shower that I ever could remember where the gift register was completely taken.  I mean there was nothing left to get on the list.  Every  item was taken.   Needless to say I began to sweat a little, what the heck was I going to do?   Then I remember a post on Pinterest a few months ago about these onsies with the months on them and I sighed a little breath of relief.


Materials Needed

Iron
Transfer iron-on paper
Onesie
Cameo Silhouette machine
Pattern Paper (for card)
Wilton Cake box


I bought these star shapes from the Silhouette on-line store and added the text (using the text tool on my Silhouette) for each month.  I printed them on my home printer onto iron-on transfer paper. Cut the shape out and ironed them onto the onesie.   I went to Joann Fabric and got the Wilton cake box to package them in.  This was such an easy project to do and I've been wanting to make these ever since I saw them posted on Pinterest.


Here are few more pictures.

I made the cute little onesie card (that says Sweet-Tee pie)  to go inside the package.  That image was also bought on the Silhouette on-line store.

This will be posted on  Today's Creative Blog and Not Just a Housewife

What I want my Blog to be when it grows up

This caught my eye when I saw it on Today's Creative blogs this past Tuesday. I thought it would be interesting and fun to join in.    You can click on the link below to find more out about this link-up party. Where you tell your five goals for your blog for this year.

It all Started With Paint

Lets start off at the beginning shall we......   I started blogging back in 2008 not sure what I wanted to do with this blog other than having a place for my family and friends to view the craft projects I have completed.  Fast forward a few years and I find my blog a place that I use for socializing.  I have followed and made friends with so many talented creative ladies.  Press the fast forward button again and that brings us to today.  With me contemplating what I want my blog to be when it grows up.  

What do I want my Blog to be when it grows up?

Value

I want my blog to have value.  I want to set goals to make my blog have some type of purpose that is fun and practical.  What I've observed lately on my blog is that a few of my project tutorials have been pinned and re pinned on Pinterest.   I've given some thought to making some video tutorials so that you can see the complete process of these projects.

Well Written

I want my blog to be clear and well written.    I would like people to come and visit my blog and read my posts to the end.  I would like to find some avenues to improve my writing. In the past I've taken workshops to improve my writing for my journals on my scrap book pages and I've found that they were very helpful.  My favorite class was taught by Ali Edwards called Storyology.   I've even thought about taking some type of class in order to improve my writing.  I've always enjoyed writing so what do I have to lose right.

A Destination 

I've kind of borrowed this idea from Linda at It all Started with Paint blog. I want to grow my followers and have this be a blog where people want to keep coming back to.  I would love to be more involved in party link ups like this one and maybe even hosting one too.   I also want to host give a ways.   I love give a ways and get excited for the chance to win.  Maybe I can find sponsors so that can happen.

Social


I want this to be a blog that is fun and that builds friendships.  A place that we can gather to collaborate on ideas and give each other inspirations.  By participating in blog hops, link up parties and so on.  I want to be genuine, and real - because let's face it not every project, picture or post is 100% perfect I want you to see the real me.

Organized


Last but not least I want my blog content to be retrieved easily.  I want to give more thought to the tags I give to each post so that when some one wants to retrieve a post regarding a certain project or post content that they don't get frustrated and give up.  I want my blog to look neat and inviting to people.

I'm so glad that I decided to participate in this link up party.  It gave me a lot to think about and things to strive for.

Sunday Craft Project

Transferring Pictures onto canvas


Let me start off this post with the fact that I've been researching the many ways to transfer a picture onto canvas ever since I saw them posted onto Pinterest.   There are so many ways to accomplish this task, however, I was limited with the fact that I have an ink jet printer at home.   So that being said -  I found several posts on-line describing different ways to transfer pictures to canvas using a ink jet printer.

Today I set some time aside to test out two of these methods of transferring pictures.  The first process was using tracing paper and the second process was using tissue paper.  The steps I used for both process are listed below.

Materials Needed


Canvas
Modge Podge Glue
Foam brushes
Tracing Paper/Tissue Paper
Photo Shop Elements/ Photo Shop
Picture


Both of these methods preparations a very similar.   First I took a piece of tracing (or tissue) paper and wrapped it around some heavy card stock.

I taped the edges onto the back of the card stock as shown above.   Next I place the covered card stock into my printer with the back of the card stock facing up.

I opened up my picture in my Photo Shop Elements 10 program and resized the picture to print out 8 x10".

Once printed I cut the picture out and coated the canvas with Modge Podge.  Then I placed the picture onto the canvas being careful not to crinkle up the paper.  Tips - I found that when you coat the canvas with the Modge Podge that it helped to let it sit for a few minutes before putting the picture onto the canvas.  Also I learned that with the tracing paper method it was better to put a second coat of Modge Podge over the picture once it was placed on the canvas but it was not helpful to complete this step when using the tissue paper.  Another thing I found out while doing this is that you do not want to over load the canvas with the glue because it will cause the ink to bleed.  I found with a light touch and minimal amount of glue I had a better result.

For the tracing paper method I found it help to smooth out the air bubbles using a gift card I had laying around the house.  I would not suggest to do this with the tissue paper method because it will cause the paper to tear.

THE FINISH PRODUCT


I have to say that the out come from both methods I was not pleased with.   However, I can say that I have a few things that I would do differently if I did use either of these methods again.  Also like I said above I have a couple of other methods that I would like to experiment with first before I commit to one certain method.  This project was and is a project with a learning curve.   I think once I get the technique down I will love the results as for now I think I will keep searching for a different method to accomplish this.  Now here is a peek at my results using the Tracing Paper Transferring Method and Tissue Paper Transferring Method.

Above is the Tracing Paper Method.  You can see that there is a lot of wrinkles. I believe the reason for that is that I did not wait for the glue to set up before I put on the picture.  Also it is very important to make sure you have an even brush stroke when putting the glue onto the canvas.

Above you will find the Tissue Paper Method.  I think out of the two methods I like this one a little bit more. I don't know if you can see but there are some wrinkles on this picture too but not as much as when I used the tracing paper.  Some of the things I would do different with this method is -  I would not put a second coat of Modge Podge over the picture I would stop with just putting it onto the canvas (reason being that the ink did bleed a little).  Secondly I would have made the picture a little bigger so that it would of wrapped around the edge of the canvas.

Stay tuned to see how my other methods turn out.  Until then thanks for stopping by.

Enabler Alert

There in, There in!  The Project Life page protectors style "A" are restocked on Amazon today.  I am so excited I've been waiting for these to be restocked.  Also those cute pocket pages are restocked too.  This is turning out to be a very good day in the land of Project Lifer's.