The Christmas Card Saga: A Sad Tale

Since this year was our first married Christmas, I decided early on that I wanted to send Christmas cards. I originally planned on sending out a silly card, but was too tempted by Shutterfly's 50% off sale. So, I hounded Thomas about sitting down with me to pick one out.

We're pretty picky about Christmas cards and the like, so it was tough to find a template that we liked. When we finally did, we built out our card and put it in the shopping card. It wasn't until then that I remembered a site I'd used before, Peartree Greetings. So, I headed over to PTG, where I found a much, much better selection of Christmas cards. The cards from Peartree are so much more our style, but they're also more expensive. Nonetheless, I chose an amazing card and spent an hour or two perfecting it. I put it in my cart, and went to apply a $10 off coupon code I found online. 

Unfortunately, that code didn't work. The only code available was for free shipping ($8 off) and I just knew I could do better. (This is the part where always feeling like you could probably save MORE money bites you in the rump). So, I decided to hold off because I was sure that the cards would go on sale for Thanksgiving.

Alas, Thanksgiving rolled around, and there were no sales. A week or so after, a coupon code cropped up! I think it was something like $10 off, which was great. Yet again, my hopes were dashed when I noticed that you could only get $10 off if you had $50 or more in your cart--my total hovered somewhere around $36 without shipping, $42 with.

So, I backed out again. "Surely something will come up before Christmas," I thought. After a couple of weeks, I gave up hope. Then, last week, I saw on PTG's Facebook that there was a free shipping deal for last minute orders! The coupon that sounded so 'meh' just a short month ago suddenly sounded like the best deal around. So, I rushed back to my shopping cart--where they save orders for 30 days--and entered the coupon code. As a final stab to my little Grinchy heart, I received a message that my order didn't qualify for the free shipping deal because it only applied to orders of $75 and above. 

While I know this story has probably depressed you beyond belief, I was able to throw together a little something for our first Christmas card. This way, the card was completely free and I didn't have to pay for postage;]

Merry Christmas!
-T, K, J, & C

Charlie Brown Christmas Wreath

Earlier in the week, I promised I'd do a post on the Christmas DIY crafts we completed this weekend. One of them is top secret (since it's a gift for our moms), but the other is cute, simple, and share-able.

Behold, the Charlie Brown Christmas Wreath.

This wreath was a combination of two things: this pin on Pinterest and my love for the 'natural' wreath. As evidenced by our wedding, I'm a huge fan of combining delicate, synthetic textures and natural ones (ex. lace and burlap). When I saw the above pin, I was inspired...but I wasn't a huge fan of the white yarn-wrapped wreath base--or the $40 Etsy price tag. 


If you're a fan of the Charlie-Browned look, here's what you need to make your own for less than $10:

 A wreath. This one is around 20" in diameter and was $5 at Hobby Lobby.

You'll also need a hot glue gun, scissors, a pen/pencil, and some thin black ribbon--all of which I had on hand. 

Finally, you'll need a sheet of felt in each of your desired colors. We like multi-colored lights (see: our house), so we got blue, green, yellow, orange, red, and white. It was like $2.

I also printed off these bulb templates for a bit of a tracing guide. Fo' free.

 Start by tracing the Christmas light shape onto your felt. In the end, I used 3 bulbs of each color.

Cut all the bulbs out.

I didn't photograph the next part, but here's what I did: cut a small piece of felt for the black part of the bulb (Thomas says it's called a socket). Hot glued it on to the end of the bulb. Next, I wrapped the ribbon around the wreath (using the Pinterest wreath as a guide) and glued on the bulbs about an inch and a half apart. I think the pictures explain it better.

It really was simple, but I wasn't great at photographing the steps, so leave any questions you have in the comments!

Tomorrow I'll be wrapping up the Christmas decor posts and showing you my favorite part of our Christmas House--the garland.

-Kinsey

Fall Leaf Garland

Hey all!

Can I just say that literally ALL my Fall decor ideas this year came from Pinterest? This particular craft is super quick, easy, and pretty. Sarah at Clover Lane posted about the idea, and I've been excited to collect leaves for a few weeks now.

The perfect leaf collecting opportunity presented itself this last weekend when we visited Kinsey Family Farm, and we couldn't be happier with how easy the project was or how well it turned out! The whole project cost less than $5. Note: Be super careful while doing this project. You could easily maim yourself with the melted wax, and I won't be held responsible for that.

Here's what you'll need:

1. Wax (we used Crafty Candles because we couldn't find Gulf wax)

2. A Disposable Pie Plate

3. Fall Leaves of all shapes sizes, and colors. Like these.

4. Thread or fishing line 

5. Wax paper

Here's what you do:

Once you've collected your leaves, set them all out to make sure they're dry.

In the meantime, melt your wax in a disposable pan. CAREFULLY, on low heat.

And lay out some wax paper.

Once the wax is melted, turn the burner off. Then, carefully dip the leaves into the melted wax (I obviously got a little impatient since the wax isn't completely melted in the picture below).

 

Coat them well, then gently shake off the excess. Finally, lay them on the wax paper to dry.

We let ours set up for around an hour. Once the wax hardens, the leaves peel right off.

Finally, tie the leaves together with some thread or fishing line. Be really careful not to tangle the thread. (Tangle it anyway. Cry in shame.)

Finally, hang the leaf garland wherever you like.

As a complete aside, while we were on the way home from KFF on Sunday, we saw a park with some beautiful trees and decided to stop.

 

Pretty, yes?

As we pulled into the park, I noticed some older teenagers with fake swords and cardboard shields battling in the grass. That's when I realized they were LARPing. 

For those of you who aren't familiar with the term (probably everyone), LARPing stands for live action role playing. It's synonymous with nerdery--I can say that because I am a nerd--and it's pretty entertaining to watch. 

While we walked Jack around the park picking up pretty leaves on a peaceful Sunday afternoon, these kids kicked up a cloud of dust while fighting a medieval battle, complete with costumes and lingo. It was awesome, to say the least.

Even Jack got in on the action by bowing down to signal his readiness for battle.

Now that you know about LARPing, I hope you'll go join in a medieval battle or something. Happy Tuesday!

-T, K, J & C

Felt Rose DIY: Part 2

Hello again! 

Monday is back, that tricky beast. Fortunately I have another fun felt rose DIY to post about, and I'm drinking a tasty cup of cinnamon coffee! Not a bad start to the week I'd say.

Once we finished the big wreath from yesterday's post, we discovered that we had lots of yellow felt left over. The felt we used for the first wreath was actually a dandelion color (not a true yellow), and we ended up deciding against mixing in some bright yellow that we'd also gotten at Michael's. Here's what we chose to do with it instead...

Thomas had the idea of filling a little turquoise bowl with yellow roses. Super cute right?! I've been looking for a way to display that bowl, and I think this is pretty perfect. 

Remember the orange wreath in this picture from yesterday? Probably not, so here it is again in the bottom left.

I decided to re-purpose that wreath from my childhood by painting it brown and adding a spray of flowers.

Pretty much, these roses are our new favorite thing. The total for both of the above projects was less than $6--around $1 for the felt and $5 for the brown spray paint. Felt flowers are easy to make and can be made in all different sizes. I'm contemplating making a headband, but I have a tiny one that I'm for sure making into a ring. I'll post pictures once I finish!

Finally, I made these little owls (Jack and Charlotte are the babies...don't worry, we didn't have secret twins or anything) out of paint samples we found while wandering around Lowe's.

I originally wanted to make some felt owls for the small wreath, but saw the [free] paint samples aisle and decided to use those instead. I like the wreath as is, but I'm considering framing these cuties anyway.

I hope you all have a great Monday! Happy crafting:]

-Kinsey

Pumpkins out the wazoo.

I have now officially worked my first 40 hour week! Overall I really enjoyed myself, and I definitely feel like I'm getting into a routine. Everyone I work with is really fun and nice, and it's been really nice to finally start making some new friends. 

As you all know, I've been really looking forward to decorating for Fall for a few weeks now. I'm sure you can imagine my disappointment when I opened the box labelled "Fall" and found only a couple of things:

This light up pumpkin...

And this squishy one with a huge schnoz, buck teeth, and his tongue sticking out.

Thomas wasn't super impressed with either (particularly the squishy pumpkin, but I've had him for literally my entire life), and we both agreed that it would be nice if we could add to our Fall decor selection. Because right now, it's kind of pitiful.

I have to admit, I find decorating for holidays overwhelming. I look at tons of magazines--and now Pinterest--pages upon pages of gorgeous homes all decked out for whatever season, and at first I'm really excited. Then I remember that we're pretty poor budget conscious, and it's a little intimidating to imagine decorating every room of the house.

Instead of setting huge and expensive goals to begin with, we decided to start out small. So this morning, we set out into the world of craft stores to gather the supplies for a few DIY projects. Don't get too excited...there aren't any featured in this post, but there is one in the works.

To start off our "Fall decor palooza," first we headed to Hobby Lobby. They had some great sales going on, but I'm sad to report that our trip was a complete bust. We didn't find a single thing we wanted/needed there! Pretty unbelievable. So we moved on to Michael's.

While at Michael's, we found two scarecrows that were only $4 each. Thomas apparently doesn't like scarecrows, but I DO, so we bought 'em. And I proceeded to pretend that they were children for the rest of the trip.

First they rode in the kids' part of the basket...

And then they sat in Jack's car seat. Because I believe in protecting scarecrows. Safety first!

After what seemed like a long morning of shopping on an empty stomach, we asked Scoutmob where we should eat (for 50% off). It told us Alvarado's Taqueria! We've been there before, and I have to say that our food was even better this time.

I had a chimichanga. It was covered in sour cream and guac, and I was in love.

Thomas got the adobado plate, which he says was amazing.

After lunch, we made our weekly trip to Walmart. Oh joy! We've decided that we'll be grocery shopping on Friday night from now on, because there's something about Walmart that makes us feel like we're wasting our Saturday. We grabbed lots of pumpkins and gourds while we were there, and even got some Fall flowers. Then it was home to decorate.

 Here's our cute little gourd centerpiece.

And here's our front steps! Please disregard the lack of real flower pots...it's a long/sad story:[

Our little scarecrow couple. They're even holding hands!

 My favorites, the striped pumpkins.

We also got the supplies for a DIY wreath, which I'll be posting about within the next couple of days (assuming everything works out well). 

For now I'll leave you with a video of Charlotte getting into the Halloween spirit:

Have a great weekend everyone!

-Kinsey

Framed keys: bad for unlocking doors, good for hanging

It's Monday again!

We hope you all had a great weekend. Ours was pretty exciting, starting on Friday when we went out for sushi! Pretty much everyone who knows us well is aware that we don't eat seafood. Of any kind, any way. I know--crazy! But it works out that both of us feel the same way. We kind of think we're allergic because we throw up whenever we try it. It might seem strange that we went out for sushi being non-fish eaters, but we discovered while in Atlanta over spring break that there are lots of great vegetarian and non-fish sushi options to explore.

Of course, we used a Scoutmob 50% off coupon for our dinner date, and we headed to a restaurant called Maki Fresh to try it out. We got a small appetizer and two different non-fish rolls all for $10.81! 

While at dinner, Thomas did lots of fiddling with his chopsticks.

The appetizer, tempura onion rings with a spicy sauce. So good!

I got the BLT, which had hickory smoked bacon, lettuce, and tomato (duh), as well as avocado. It was super tasty! Of course, ginger and wasabi on the side.

Thomas got the Vulcan, which had grilled chicken, yellow bell pepper, sun dried tomato, cream cheese, and spicy sauce. It was also great! We'll definitely go there again.

After dinner we headed to Baskin Robbins to share a kid's scoop of coffee ice cream. There was a big crowd and live music, so we sat down for some people watching. This little sign was taped to Thomas' side of the table, and it got in the way when he tried to put his arms down. So he cried.

Saturday morning after our sushi adventure, we decided to run some errands. First we went over to Bed Bath & Beyond to furnish our guest room with pillows for my mom's upcoming visit. We got to use coupons and gift cards, which always makes me happy. 

 I begged Thomas to let me buy this dog trash can (not really, but it is kind of awesome).

Next we went back to Hobby Lobby (two weekends in a row!) to get supplies for my newest DIY project, which I'll talk about in a sec. We bought three frames at 50% off, and used a gift card, so our total was only $7!

Finally, we stopped by a really cool grocery store called Super H Mart. They have lots of specialty Asian items (which is what we were there for) and they have a great produce section with low prices. I found a couple of things I thought were interesting there...

Just read the directions.

Prawn crackers!

Finally, we headed home to make a delicious tomato pie!

 We had green beans on the side (broiled with onions, olive oil, salt & pepper, the only way to eat them!)

So tasty!

Now, for the DIY project I mentioned earlier. Quite a while back (4 months ago maybe) we bought a set of 7 vintage keys from Pottery Barn with a wedding gift card. I'm embarrassed to say that they've sat on the end table in our living room gathering dust for a solid 2 months now:[ BUT, I finally got motivated and bought supplies to make them into a cool wall hanging. Check it out:

We used three frames of varying sizes, with the glass taken out. Based on the size of our keys, we chose 3 frames--one 8x10, one 7x7, and one 14x7.5ish (weird size, whatever).

You also need some sort of fabric to back the keys with. I used scrap from the bottom of our IKEA curtains (after I hemmed them, I had lots of extra and randomly saved it). You also need fabric scissors, and a hot glue gun. The stapler is optional.

First, figure out how you want to layout your keys.

To get started, remove the back of a frame and use the hot glue gun to tightly secure the fabric around it.

 First I glued the shorter sides, and after that I wrapped it like a present (folded/cut the corners and just made sure it was taught).

 I replaced the fabric covered backs in the frames, then I hot glued the keys to the fabric. I found this part a bit challenging because the keys are sort of heavy. I didn't want them all hanging the same direction, so I opted to glue them instead of pinning or wiring them. I'll let you know if they fall off...

Then, hang the frames however you like, and bam. I wanted them to have that "perfectly imperfect" vintage look, and I think they do.

Our house is kind of awkward because we have a serious lack of wall hangings/art, but we're slowly remedying that.

Here's a view of where they are in the room. I know, that chair isn't cute. It was left by the previous owners and is very functional--I have aspirations of reupholstering it at some point.

So there you have it! I love old keys, and we're happy with how the project turned out. It was really only $7, not including what we spent on gift cards, so it was budget friendly. If you didn't have gift cards, the keys were $19, the frames (50% off) were $18, and everything else, most people already have.

This was my final weekend hurrah. Yes, Jack is wearing a place mat (left over from last weekend's DIY project) and a hat (from his cowboy costume). Fake 'staches drawn by me! 

Check back later this week for info on some interesting cat training we're trying out!

Charlotte is skeptical.

-T, K, J, & C