A Few Online Family Christmas Traditions to Add

Oh mylanta. I am feeling very unprepared for Christmas this year! I still have many last-minute things to do but I am excited to tie up loose ends and get to the good stuff: driving around to see Christmas lights, decorating cookies with my family and watching a barrage of Christmas movies.  In the past few years we've added a few modern traditions. You may have heard of them, but just in case you haven't I thought I'd share two of our favorite Christmas traditions courtesy of the Yuletide Internet.


1. Elf Yourself from Office Max.




It takes just a few minutes to upload a photo of each family member and fit them to their new elf persona.  Then choose your favorite Christmas song/routine and have so much fun laughing as you watch your elfin family perform spectacular Christmas song and dance numbers-my kids and I giggled at this endlessly (we do every year).

2. Portable North Pole (PNP)


 PNP is so fun for the little ones.  You can visit their site and create a free custom video message from Santa to each of your children!  It takes a few minutes to enter the information to create your video- but it is so worth it when yours kids see a sweet little video of a real live Santa talking to them!



I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas and happy holidays!

Pottery Barn-Inspired Picture Frames Ornaments {for $1}

Hi friend! I hope you are enjoying the holiday season~  I want to share with you my all-time favorite ornaments: Pottery Barn Inspired Picture Frame Ornaments. I made these a few years ago and they are every one's favorites in our family.

 I loved the frame ornaments every year in the Pottery Barn catalog, so I decided to make my own version.  I frame one picture from each Christmas to hang on the tree.  It is so fun to get them out each year and laugh and reminisce about bygone holidays. In addition to being pretty tree adornments, this project makes for a great family tradition.  Best of all- it's cheap and easy! You can do it in a few hours for as little as $1 per ornament!

Pottery Barn-Inspired 
Picture Frame Ornament Tutorial

Supplies

• Small frames ( 4 x 6 or smaller- search dollar stores, craft stores or make your own from wood trim pieces)
• 1 Screw eye per frame ( found at any hardware store or even Wal-Mart))
• Spray paint ( if you want to change the color of your frames)
• Ribbon to hang frames with
• Small photos to fill your frames ( I like black and white photos for this project)

I found my little ornate square frames at Dollar Tree a few years ago and had most of the other supplies on hand. 

Directions

1. Put a screw eye in the top of the frame  ( I recommend wood or plastic frames). I can't lie, this took a bit of muscle to get the screw eye into the plastic frame- wood is the easiest material for this project.

2. Spray paint the frame and the screw eye ( take the glass out of your frame first)

Use a program like Picasa or Photoshop to re-size and print your favorite Christmas photos to fit your frames (I like to print the year on the photo too)

Thread some festive ribbon through the screw eye and tie it on the tree!

I am linking up this project to  Wow Us Wednesdays at Savvy Southern Style and these great blogs.

Little Girl Bedroom Re-design

I wish I could tell you that I've been hard at work and just finished this sweet room, but my only contribution to this  project was helping my good friend, Heather, deliberate over paint chips. I am excited that she is kind enough to allow me to post pictures of her daughter's Big Girl Bedroom re-design! With a sweet little baby arriving next month,  there is a bit of bedroom shuffling going on at her house. So she's re-designed this bedroom, and is in the process of re-designing the nursery and is in the early stages of building a brand new bedroom for her boys- how is that for nesting?! 

I don't have a before picture of the room, but it belonged to her two boys.  It was a darling room, but definitely all boy, with darker colors. She painted all of the walls and the ceiling and added trim to the window and board & batten using this tutorial from the blog, JennaSue.  The paint colors are all from Behr: Clam Chowder (Yellow), Raspberry Lemonade (Pink), and Marshmallow (White)- yes, the pregnant lady freely admits she chose all paint colors with food names ;)

Here are some of the fun details. 

The darling quilt and sham are from Company Kids.

Heather made this sweet little accent pillow with fabrics from JoAnn's.

Heather sewed a valance with polka dot green ruffles (fabric from JoAnn's)

This lamp was made by Little Miss A's daddy when he was in 6th grade shop class.  Heather spray-painted the base and covered the shade with fabric and added some fabric flower embellishments (all fabrics from JoAnn's.

Using fabric left from the other projects and a little inspiration from Pinterest, she made this fabric wreath.

The picture rod is from Rod Works.  The frames are from The Organic Bloom. It has to be said that my friend Heather is mildly obsessed with Organic Bloom frames (they pop in a few more places in this room)...this is an obsession she has passed on to me;) If perchance, the obsession has rubbed off on you too, Heather sells these frames, so contact her to purchase them!

The shelf came unfinished from Robert's and Heather sanded and painted it. The big letter "A" is a cardboard letter from JoAnn's, painted green with acrylic paint.

She added these sweet little polka dot ceramic knobs from Hobby Lobby to the shelf.

This is hands-down one of the best kid (or adult) dressers.  I think buying kids furniture is always a dilemma. You want it to look good, you want it to last, but you don't want to spend a fortune. This dresser  is part of the Birkeland collection from Ikea. The warm white color is perfect, the construction is good,  it is short enough for little people to reach, the drawers glide with ease and it has loads of room- ever since I saw this one in action, I've been trying to figure out how to fit one in my daughter's room. Heather also bought the Birkeland nightstand (that is where the cute lamp lives).

Another Organic Bloom frame- so fun!

The fun and functional storage cubes and colored bins are all from Martha Stewart's line at Home Depot.

There is one happy girl that now lives in this candy-colored bedroom.Thanks, Heather, for sharing your photos!

P.S. One more Organic Bloom frame ;)