Three events

This past week included some events that kept us busy. Tuesday night I sliced off my big toe nail when scooting my chair into a table at a restaurant within the first few minutes we were there. I was in pain and so embarrassed that I asked for a band-aid and then left. I haven't had any major accidents before so looking down and seeing my toe nail separated from my skin kind of freaked me out!

Wednesday was Ryan and I's 4 year anniversary. We went out to eat (because that didn't happen the day before) then came home and watched Home Alone. While watching we reminisced about our past anniversaries and realized we watched this movie on our 1st anniversary! Maybe we should make it a tradition every couple of years?

Thursday night a couple of my friends and I went to a UCF Alumni Christmas party in Tampa. We had a great girls night and gossiped about relationships, work and of course college and how much we've all grown since graduating. I like how the Tampa chapter is so active, they try to do a couple events a month to keep everyone involved.

How to: shiny deer silhouette

I originally wanted a mounted deer head but couldn't find anything within my budget. So I thought I could make a 3D one out of cardboard, but quickly took the easy way out when I saw this. I knew it would take no time at all and be cheaper than my original plan. It was very easy and anyone can do it! I'm not going to lie I'm kind of obsessed with it! The only thing I would change would be the size of the head, I wish it was a little bigger, but oh well.

Here are the steps I took when doing this project.

Find an outline and trace it from your computer onto paper. 

Make sure it works before you can't turn back. 

Trace the lines with permanent marker when the paper is on the canvas so it bleeds through. 

When done make sure its just right. 

Cover everything with glue that you want to have glitter on. 

Go crazy with glitter. 

Wipe off the excess glitter and you're done!

Winter mantel

I started getting ideas for this mantel right after I was done with the fall one. I didn't put anything that had to do with Christmas on it so I could keep it around until the end of January or so (besides the stockings.) I knew I wanted everything to be mainly white so I started with a bottle of spray paint and went from there. I found branches at the park, saved some soup cans and reused the pine cones from fall. We had a gift card to Hobby Lobby so we got a canvas, some sparkly branches and the spray paint at no cost.

The only thing I had to buy was the glue and glitter for the deer silhouette and then the snowflake picture holder that I used to hang the stockings. So over all this was done for less than $12! Another successful  mantel, and my favorite yet. I'm sure I'll be switching somethings up after Christmas though.

Inspiration. 

When stocking holders aren't cheap you figure out what else will work. This is a picture holder but for $6 is will hold our stockings. 

Spray painted soup cans, pine cones and branches with some sparkly things. 

Side view with a sparkly deer.

The final product. I took down the painting and put a sparkly deer in it's place. It seemed more fitting for the season. 

Three: holiday things

If you follow me on instagram then you've already seen these pictures, sorry in advance. This week and last I got everything ready for the holidays. We have a tiny 4 foot tree this year and that is just fine by me. It came pre-lit and took me no joke 5 minutes to set up. Another bonus, we only had to get a few ordiments because of it's small size. It's the perfect little tree.

As you know I put a new picture in the frame on the counter every week and this week it's all about Christmas Vacation, only the best holiday movie!

Lastly, it got cool enough for us to light the fireplace. Although it didn't warm up the house it was cool to roast marshmallows and hear the crackling of the fire.

Christmas time in the city

You may ask why I'm posting about the famous tree in NYC? Tonight is the lighting and I thought I'd share my experience with going last year.

My sister and I did the most random thing ever, we planned a spur of the moment trip to NYC to see the tree lighting at Rockefeller Center. She flew into PA in the morning and after I got off work we drove to NJ checked into our hotel then took a train into the city. The night of the lighting was the worst! 

The streets were crowded with so many people that the police blocked them off and at some points we couldn't even move, we were at a standstill in the middle of the sidewalk with a couple of thousand people. We were able to hear Justin Bieber and Usher singing so that was cool. Other than that I wouldn't recommend trying to see the tree on the actual night of the lighting. 

We ended up going first thing the next morning which was perfect, there wasn't that many people there. The only difference was we didn't get to see it all lit up but I had seen it at night the year before so that was just fine by me. 

2011 tree at Rockefeller Center.

The tree!

The streets were filled with huge Christmas related things, these lights were so tall.

2010 tree at Rockefeller Center.