A Little Christmas Giftie and Holiday Decorations

Hi there! So sorry it's been such a long wait. I know, I know, we had 22 people (including us) here for Thanksgiving & then yesterday was complete and total chaos! I also want to apologize for being so tardy on returning comments, I was about a week behind when I FINALLY got caught up this morning! 

Have spent quite a bit of time putting up the Christmas decorations up, which, in my world, is no small feat! I know most people have a bin or 2 and their tree, mine's more like 8 large bins and requires me to essentially take all of my "regular" decorating stuff down and put up all the Christmas stuff instead. First I start by laying those silk pine garlands draped with white mini lights over everything that doesn't move. Then there's ALL the other stuff and it is crazy! Being that my birthday is on Christmas, I have received many a snowman (I collect them, and must have 30+!), Santas, pine trees, and gingerbread men decorating items throughout the years as gifts. But the thing is, I really do love it! Yes it's a lot, but I so enjoy being in my house with all this sparkly merriment around me! ;) 

Ok, so enough of that (for now anyway, but will be posting several pics at the end of this post!) I wanted to show you part of a gift I made today.... Had decided for this person that some Christmasy kitchen goodies from Crate and Barrel would be a great gift, but I wanted to personalize it a bit. So, I am including a family recipe and one of my Grandma's vintage cookie cutters in the box. Here's some pics so you can see! 

These are the recipe cards, I used an old stamp set (SU!) to stamp the cards and then I used my fave edger punch along the right side of each. Did some simple embellishing & I really feel that this will help make the gift extra special! I also embellished the cookie cutter with some ribbon a wire Santa and a jingle bell. But once the bow is pulled, it will all come right off so it can be used. 

Detail shots:

Well, the embellishments COULD come off, but if you're me you hang your vintage cookie cutters on a slim 5' tree in the kitchen! Along with all your other "food/kitchen" themed ornaments! ;)

One of the "ornaments" on my kitchen tree.
This is one of my Grandma's old cookie cutters. 

Kitchen tree, yeah I know the topper
is crooked in this pic! LOL

And here's my "pot rack" actually a planter I turned into a pot rack a couple years ago. I change out the display inside the basket seasonally. Here's my winter one! :)

And here's some family room shots, that's where the stockings go! 

mantel

one of the built in shelves

Here's a great tip if you are ever planning on
expanding your family...
When there were just 3 of us, I bought three
DIFFERENT gold velvet stockings and
personalized them myself with gold puff paint.
As our family grew it was easy to find
another gold stocking, and since they
didn't "match" to begin with, they didn't look out of place! 

shelf next to mantel

And here's some dining room shots:

I saw this one in a magazine, use large ornaments
hung with decorative ribbon off of a hanging
 light fixture. With three boys I chose these
PLASTIC ones that look like vintage glass from Tar-jay. ;) 

dining room table centerpiece

And finally our REAL tree. This is the first year it has been in this spot. I usually have it in the curve our staircase creates, but you might remember, I put Ev's Art Center there! It looks ok here, I think, but I did have to do a bit of furniture rearranging! 

Christmas Tree

And, I got my BLOG CANDY photos taken! Will be back soon with a post for that! :) 

Well, that is it for me today! I hope you are having a FABULOUS Thanksgiving weekend! 

Hugs, Noelle

supply list: papers: Echo Park and Crate Paper; glitzy snowflake sticker: K&Company; snowflake button: Dress It Up; stamps: Stampin' Up!; pens: Zig; Diamond Stickles; punch: EK Success; red glitter gems; snowflake ribbon: Michaels; jingle bell: Dollar Tree; red wire Santa: ??

DUST IT OFF!: That wire Santa is so old I have no clue where he's from or when I got him, but I've got a few, maybe I will embellish some of my other vintage cookie cutters. Also that stamp set is one a friend gave me that she did't use anymore, I never used it until today! It's pretty old, the box is all yellowed and cracked! ;)