Tree Trunk Ornament

Brad and I had our first Christmas together as a married couple this year (Yay!). Thanks to Pinterest, I found lots of unique and crafty Christmas decorating ideas and whatnot. Since we got a real tree this year (!!) I wanted to try out this ornament idea after we took our tree down.

After we undecorated our tree, hubs let it set outside a couple days in order to dry out.

Then he got his saw to it and cut a slice off to become the ornament! I sanded it down to make it smooth (which brought back that beautiful evergreen aroma) before I did any decorating. Instead of burning anything into the wood (since I don't have a wood burning tool) I got a paint pen at the local arts and crafts store and some super-on-sale Christmas ribbon to pretty it up! We also went to the hardware store to get an eye hook (?) thing to put in the top in order to hang it.

Now, I didn't free-hand the front. If you go to 1001fonts.com they have some great fonts to choose from. You can enter your text on the site and it will give it to you in whatever font you choose. Then you just copy, paste, print and trace it on!

Tadaaa:

Front! AH I love it!

Back: Brad & I signed our
names and added Oscar in. Love!

Hope this inspires you! We're looking forward to having this on our tree each year for sure.

Scrabble Coasters

This is of course a Pinterest find and creation! I meant to post this just after Christmas, but forgot. I didn't post it before Christmas because I didn't want recipients of this gift to find out about it before they received it.

So if you don't know me all that well, I'm a huge fan of word games: Bananagrams, Boggle, Words with Friends, Blurt, and of course Scrabble. I fell in love with this crafty idea the minute I saw it and got to work getting my hands on some tiles. How does one find a gagillion Scrabble tiles not attached with the actual boardgame?! Ebay. I found a lot of 300+ random/old/rejected Scrabble tiles. Not too shabby! So I purchased those, went to Wally World to get some cork pieces for the bottom and used some craft glue I had at home.

Now the ones I've seen online mostly use the tiles in a 5x5 square... but this was a little large and I wanted to make my tiles go longer so I could make more and have more gifts. I decided to go with 4x4 and it really is the perfect size for a coaster. Some coasters I've seen have words spelled out in them and whatnot, but I didn't have that much freedom in letter choice and didn't want to end up with any accidental four letter profanities, so I randomized each one! With the amount of tiles I had, it ended up making 5 sets of 3 each with one left over. I was hoping to get enough out of it to have a set of 4.. like normal sets of coasters, but either way they still turned out beautifully and were a big hit!

This project was SUPER easy, fast and fun to do! Please steal this idea, you won't regret it!

Hope you enjoy it! :)

-D

O Christmas Tree

Brad surprised me last weekend by coming home (after spoiling me with his presence all of Thanksgiving!) for the night on Saturday and heading back to Havelock on Sunday.

One day is so worth it.

Saturday night we had dinner with three lovely couples. Two of which Brad helped to build a barn for a few months back (they had dinner for all of us). Very delicious food, great fellowship and a game of Taboo (which our team won at by the way!).

Sunday mid-morning we went out to a Christmas Tree Farm and picked out our very own first Christmas tree as a married couple! We also brought Oscar along to help in the selection process, of course.

It was fun going out to pick our tree, bring it home and decorate it together while listening to Christmas music! One trick we did this year was using icicle lights once our two strands of regular clear ones didn't quite make our tree glow properly. :)

This Christmas was so great and I'm glad we got to spend it together and with each of our families. Here are some pictures of this season!

Picking out our first tree!

All set up!

Christmas Eve was spent with my family
in Winston-Salem at my sister's house!

(front) Me, Mom, Heather (Baby BOY!) & McKenna
(back) Brad, Dad & Grahm

Mom got a couple outfits for my NEPHEW
who is going to be here the beginning of May!!

Christmas with the Shields'

All of the Grandkids!
(R to L) Brad, Me, Jessica, Amy, Burton, Robert, Mere & Sarah

ANNND Sarah got engaged a few days before
Christmas this year!!! So we took a ring picture :)

Hope everyone had a very blessed Christmas this year!!

-D

First Christmas as Mr. and Mrs.

While Brad was still working out at the coast with hurricane clean up, he came home the weekend after Thanksgiving (surprise!) so we could spend some more time together and go pick out our very first real Christmas Tree (...we're banking on AZ being lacking in the tree department). We took Oscar and went out to a Christmas Tree farm right down the road and ran into some familiar faces as a bonus! 

The One!

Pulling it through the net so we can carry it home!

Lit, decorated and presents underneath! Cue Family Photo!

Our 2011 Ornament :)

I just love this one of our tree... thank you Droid for your camera.

Stockings on our make shift mantle :)

-D