O Christmas Tree

The night before we went to pick out our Christmas tree, I planned out our Christmas decorations. We picked up a bow for a temporary tree topper until we can find something a little classier than those creepy looking angels at Michaels. OMG, they would've scared you.

Also, I got to work on my popcorn garland while watching the Notre Dame game...and Kyler slept.

Okay, he might've stayed awake for the first half of the game and long enough to snap this lovely picture.

After we got the tree home, we wrapped it in 4 strands of LED lights. Oh yes, we're hippie LED people ;)

We had a few silver and red bulbs from our tiny tree last year, and we both had some keepsake ornaments that our moms had given us. P.S. Did I mention that we started a tradition of picking up oraments at least once a year when we travel?

We picked this one up on our Honeymoon in 2011.

And this one in San Antonio during our 2012 Spring Break trip to Alli and Mark's house.

Hopefully we'll go to a cool destination in 2013 to keep this tradition going. But how about some of these keepsakes? Our kindergarten yearbook pictures on blocks (1995-1996).

Or this one from our junior year in high school, 2005.

We love having a mix of old and new on our very first real Christmas tree. So without further adieu, here she is in all her beautifulness!

I have plans to make a real tree skirt, but for now, this piece of burlap covers up that plastic holder.

Lights off.

And taking a relaxing seat with a lovely Christmas view.

Christmas Tree Shopping

I've been planning Christmas at our house for approximately 6 months. When we closed on the house, I told Kyler exactly where I wanted to put our tree. And finally, this past Sunday we were able to put the tree in that corner!!

But back up just a couple of months when I started seriously talking about our Christmas tree. Kyler's family had fake and live trees growing up, but my family was a strict faux pine kind of family. And our tree was always beautiful (and probably less of a hassle) but since Kyler had taken an interest in talking about Christmas trees in September, I agreed to try his idea of a live tree at least once. Don't worry, I picked his mom's brain about everything there is to know about live trees.

Kyler researched this really awesome Christmas Tree Farm about 40 minutes away from our house. The had horse drawn sleigh rides, a gift shop, complimentary hot chocolate, and of course lots of Christmas trees!!

Here's the first field of trees we stumbled upon.

And there was this little area where the workers would take your tree and get it all ready for you to take home.

That machine up there on the left wrapped twine around the tree so it was all bundled and ready for the top of your car. See that tree the guy is lifting to put on the machine? Well below, that same tree is the small, skinny, wrapped one coming out of this side of the machine. Talk about impressive!

Then there was this smaller machine below. They would put a tree in it standing straight up and then it would shake it like crazy to get all the ?? out. Bugs. Leaves. Dead pine needles. Definitely not bugs. I can't bring myself to think that there might be bugs in my tree.

Upon entering the field, we grabbed a saw and a little sled and browsed the selection until we found the one.

Here is our Canaan Fir tree. It's listed as 7-8 feet tall. We weren't sure how we would be able to tell how tall the trees were or how tall would be appropriate in our room, so we used Kyler as a measure. Before we left the house, we determined we could get a tree as tall as he was with his arm straight up. Any taller would be guesswork, although we did have a little wiggle room.

Then I put Kyler to work sawing away.

Then I got curious and got in real close to see how his progress was coming along.

They both look like keepers, eh?

Walking back to the front of the farm. I definitely got the easy end of the deal. Not that he had a lot of hard work.

We dropped our tree off to be debugged and wrapped, then we went inside for hot chocolate.

After warming up and looking around the shop, we went off to pick up our tree. Did I mention we drove Kyler's Cobalt so that we wouldn't scratch the new car. We were definitely the smallest car there, but the tree fit!!

And we finally got it home!!

Kitchen Upgrade

Last weekend while trolling the aisles of Target, I saw some new kitchen decor. OMG! How I love Target's decor section!  Usually I just peruse, but I couldn't pass up this yellow utensil holder. However, when I got around to taking a picture of it (don't mind the ugly black utensils that were ruined by our first apartment's dishwasher), there was a surprise waiting for me.

Kyler had made waffles the morning, and put the red spatula back in its place...dirty!

Decorating for Valentine's Day

I realize that I just posted about New Year's Eve, but now I'm moving on to our next holiday...no not Groundhog's Day.

I really want a fireplace mantle to decorate someday. For now though, I'll just keep decorating the shelves above our TV.

The last time I decorated for a season it was fall, so we were in desperate need of an update. And I'm pretty excited we have  a whole new look using only things we had on hand...and I'm really not sure why I keep using the term 'we'. Kyler was definitely no help during this project. :)

I bought the sparkly red scrapbook paper in December for a Christmas project, and the white felt is actually from a little project I did for a certain almost-2-year-old's birthday party. They're hot glued to piece of twine...which we bought earlier in the year for one reason or another. So far it's been used to measure out our new TV's size, wrap presents, and now this project.

Maybe my favorite part of this project is the frame to the far left. I pulled out a piece of red leftover fabric for the background, and cut out the heart and L from the new Fossil magazine.

It's a nice little sprucing up to our plane white walls. Which until a couple of weeks ago, these were the only decorations hanging in our apartment. At least now we have some wedding pictures hanging above the couch!

Old/New Pillow

A looooooooong time ago, when we lived in Harrison, I bought some fabric at our going-out-of-business JoAnn's. The old throw pillows I had in college didn't go with our new bedding, and I was going to make covers for them. And then I ran out of time because it was summer, and we couldn't stay inside sewing away all that warmth.

So during our first cold spell of the fall, I broke out the sewing machine and that fabric to cover my old pillows.

Only the fabric was cut so crooked that I couldn't cover the front of the pillow in one fabric and the back in the other. I was not happy at all, that I'd been sitting on this fabric all summer and fall only to find it useless.

Furious, I put all my things away...until this weekend when I decided that I just had to make something work. I had already spent the money, and by-golly I would have pillow cover by the end of the night.

Not exactly what I had in mind. The striped fabric has a few colors that don't really go with my decor but at that point I was just working with what I had.

This was the easiest pillow case ever. It's just an envelope, so that top flap is tucked into the bottom fabric. No hand sewing necessary when I flipped in rightside out.

I really love that paisley and wanted it to be the entire front cover, but this will do for now. As far as I'm concerned, my eyes are closed when I use it, so I can't see it up close anyway.

This is our teal bedspread in the most awful 'indoor at-night light' setting. The paisley would've gone with my bedspread much better. That dark hunter green and olive color doesn't really match the gray sheets, but I still like it. And I'm so glad I was finally able to use of that fabric.

Here's the new pillow beside my old bird pillow. And yes, it's staying. I love that bird pillow.

So a word to the wise, when a 17-year-old girl is pulled off the cash register to cut your fabric at a going-out-of-business fabric shop, order a little extra than you think you may need. Just in case.
The pillow may not live up to my expectations, but it sure felt good to break out the sewing machine for an evening.