:: Carly's B-day ::

Wednesday was my wonderful friend Carly's birthday. We went out to eat with her family at one of her favorite restaurants from her college days, Bella Milano.

The birthday girl with her sister and me!

Here is the card that I made her for her birthday. When you look as good as she does, turning 30 should be a piece of cake!

Happy Birthday Car! I hope you had a good one!

:: White Elephant ::

A couple weekends ago, my friend Angie had a Christmas party with a White Elephant Exchange. It was a great idea and a lot of fun.

White Elephant Gifts!

Everyone brought a gift that could range from stuff laying around your house to...well anything under about 15 or 20 bucks. Then, everyone drew a number. The first person simply chooses a gift from the table and opens it. The person with number 2 can then choose to steal person 1's gift or try their luck with an unwrapped gift from the table. The third person can steal either gift or choose an unwrapped one, etc, etc...

I made some magnets to give for my gift. Merry elfin' Xmas!

I also added some Kebler Elf cookies to sweeten up the gift. Yum.

On my turn to go,  I choose to steal a pretty awesome camping chair/cooler from someone who had opened it before me, but it was a popular item and was then stolen from me. So, I got to choose an unopened gift from the pile.

No Sneaky Peaky!

I chose this super cute bag and ended up with a bottle of wine! It was a great night with good friends.

I hope everyone is enjoying time with your family and friends on this holiday weekend. Merry Christmas everyone!

:: Inspiration = Stuffed ::

For November, Carly choose the word :STUFFED: for our monthly creative project; which is appropriate because that's exactly how I felt after Thanksgiving dinner!

:: Christmas Jars ::

I week or so ago, someone on Instagram posted a picture of something similar to this. I loved the idea of the Christmas trees and snow inside mason jars and the vintage charm that they have. So, I took a trip to Michael's to get some supplies to make some of my own.

I got 3 different sized mason jars, and rather than getting pre-made miniature Christmas trees which are more expensive, I got a pine spray that took apart to make the trees. I also got a small pick with a silver gift, poinsettia, and ornament ball for some accent pieces.  I already had a faux snow from a product I did last year.

 
I ran into a litle snag when I was trying to figure out how to get the trees to stand up in the jars. First, I tried hot gluing them to the bottom of the jars, but that didn't work. After a little bit of thought, I decided that hot gluing them to a clear, flat floral gem might work, and it did! It was just heavy and sturdy enough to hold the tree down on the bottom of the jar. And as a bonus, I can now remove them when Christmas is over and re-use the jars for another project if I want.

Mini Tree!

After placing the tree in the jar, all that was left was pouring on the snow.  (To get the snow to stick to the trees little better, I dipped the trees in diluted Elmer's glue before putting them in the jars. I don't know if it really made that much difference though.) I put a the small silver ball ornament in the medium jar and the silver poinsettia and gift in the large jar along with the trees. 

I just love them! They're like little Christmas terrariums.