It's not to late to share

about CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS!!

I know I am behind on what feels like everything in life including but not limited to blogging 

So, here it goes..

The sign in the living room I made out of red scrapbook paper and glittery letters

The top of our bookcase aka "our mantle"

filled with various trees and a nutcracker

Our christmas tree

Walking into the dinning room with dollar store snowflakes

Dinning room tablescape (aka my husbands homework area)

Wall of cards in the dinning room

The infamous window in the dinning room

and the kitchen chalkboard

and kitchen tablescape.

What do you think?

A new ornament

This year has been a world wind of excitement

For our ornament this year I wanted to do something related to that of P getting a real flying job

(to learn about our little christmas tradition go here)

So we looked at different stores for a pre-made ornament and were not to happy from the selection so we decided to go diy.

We went to a hobby store and found a model propeller for $1.50 

and painted it and made a hanger for it

This is what we came up with

We painted the tips silver

and P added the "company name" and year to make it look more authentic

Do you make your own ornaments? Are they sentimental?

A little christmas tradition

In 2009, we bought our house here in Central IL and we also wanted to make our own little christmas tradition. We get a real tree every year because its just so fun to go pick one out together, but we decided that we were only going to get one ornament a year.

I know, I know, what your thinking, but its our tradition. 

So, instead of covering our tree with cheap ornaments that have little to no meaning and can add up, we spend our money on ONE ornament and have it mean something or reflect our year, etc. 

The first two years we choose because they are pretty and unique looking and just go together. The third is this glass ornament I made. It says just married and has a paper flower that was used in the wedding. 

Yes, we will only have 4 ornaments on our tree this year. 

Do you have any christmas traditions?

Stay tuned for this years ornament. 

A new year and another recap

Last year I wrote a vague recap here

On New years day 2011, we had a date as seen here

In Jan of 2010, I wrote this recall of 2009

Well, this year started off with a bang. 

This was new years eve 2012

I became a derby girl this year playing for our local team on a home team called "The 'Paign"

We went to mexico in March for P's brothers wedding

We went to california for my best friends wedding

I did the crazy K mud run with these lovely ladies from my old job.

I got a new job at a local hospital.

P started flying for a career again

and we ended our year with out ugly sweater party.

This year was good to us and I enjoyed it very much. 

I am planning on running more, eating better, spending more time with P, and just enjoying life. 

What are you resolutions?

How to make your own ugly christmas sweater

As you can see here, we hosted our ugly sweater party the saturday before christmas. 

As the tradition of ugly christmas sweaters becomes more popular it is harder to find ugly sweaters at the last minute. So I decided to make my own ugly sweater vest. 

I searched Ravelry for vest patterns. I tried one, but I didn't like it. So I tried this one

(source)

This is what I came up with

I bought the trim on clearance at Michael's, the ornaments and pom poms are from the idea store and the yarn I already had. 

I paired the sweater vest with a goodwill skirt and sunglasses without lenses, a walmart turtleneck and target socks. 

The final product with P.

What do you think? 

I love dressing up.

Ugly Christmas sweater party 2012

 This years party was pretty epic in my mind.. If you miss the ugly christmas sweater of the past you can take a look here

Our winners

Best outfit on the top and best sweater on the bottom

Our winners

Best outfit on the left and best sweater on the right

If you remember my trophies here

So, what do you think of our sweater ugliness? I think i am in love with this party.

The evolution of ugly christmas sweater parties

  It started in the December of 2007, We went to (perhaps our first) ugly christmas sweater party.

We waited till the last minute and couldn't really find anything.. 

This is what we came up with

too cute? I know.

After we got our own house we decided we wanted to throw our own annual ugly christmas sweater party.

It started in 2010 with a limited amount of people

This party has evolved from there to an annual tradition. 

This is a recap of 2011

This year was a whole new world of awsomeness, I will post later with pictures of that party and how I made my own sweater vest this year. 

Did you go to any ugly christmas sweater parties this year?