Dec 11, 2013

Christmas Home Tour

No matter where we've lived, I have always enjoyed decorating our home for Christmas. This house, though, seems like it was made for Christmas! It makes it even more fun! I used a lot of the same decor as I had up last year (even the same tablescape- gasp!) but moved a lot of things to different parts of the house or paired them up in a new way. Enjoy the tour!


The front porch...


As usual, we cut down a really huge tree and then had to chop a lot of the bottom to fit it in the house. It was okay, though, because I had plenty of branches for making a wreath, a garland, and sprigs to tuck here and there. The ornament in the bottom right picture is the one we picked out on our Christmas date.


So much better than a fake garland! I might do this every year. The vase with branches is a card tree. We have a few up now!


Of course, I had to make new stockings this year. These were made out of old plaid shirts I picked up at Goodwill. Yes; I'm still obsessing over plaid. I did not come up with the chalkboard graphic on my own. I'm just really good at copying stuff I see on pinterest. The advent garland is still a favorite!



I didn't have the gallery wall up in time for Christmas last year, so I was excited to switch out the sheet music for some Christmas pieces.

That's it! Thanks for stopping by!

Dec 7, 2013

FREE Christmas Printables

Hello again! I've made some Christmas printables for myself and wanted to share them with you. They are lyrics taken from Silent Night, Holy Night, and It Came Upon the Midnight Clear. Enjoy!






Dec 5, 2013

Photography Tip

I am obviously not a professional photographer, and this may be a widely known trick, BUT I discovered a secret to getting real smiles out of kids (as opposed to CHEESE-y grins)!

I was taking pictures of some nieces and nephews and asked them to smile...


Without being prompted, they started cheesing.

And then I asked them to laugh...


SO much better! It worked like a charm every time I pulled the camera out. By the end of the day, they were laughing for the camera before I even asked them to!