Holiday Season

This girl is signing off for the holiday. Between traveling, moving, working with contractors and finishing up work for the year, I'm booked. This year has been full and I'm so grateful for a creative day. You guys make it worth it, are such an amazing support system and I'm so blessed. The new year is going to be a good one!

But I couldn't leave you without the lucky winner from our charles emerson designs giveaway, congrats Jenny! I'll be contacting you. 

And if you need any inspiration for last minute holiday gifts, make sure you check out our DIY Christmas Series from a couple of weeks ago. DIY painted mugs, gold painted napkins, homemade hot chocolate, anthropologie inspired snow globes, tray and gold polka dot ornament.

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See you in 2013! Lots of love, Eileen

this is how I feel about packing.

No motivation. We move in less than two weeks and I haven't started packing. At all. Send some motivation this way.

This sweater of mine has been on repeat this week. 

Truth.

Holiday outfit perfection.  

If you need some Christmas cards, these designed by my friend Lauren are pretty fabulous. 

I'm making these this weekend for breakfast and I'm excited about it.  

I need your shampoo recommendations pronto, my favorite one isn't cutting it anymore. 

Happy Weekend!

my wish list

1 // 2 // 3 // 4
I don't have that much on my wish list because right now I'm dreaming of crown molding and hardware but these 4 things top my list. I really want that anthro dress in both colors.

I'm a big girl now

I bought my first big girl rug from work for the new house and I couldn't be more in love. Come to mama. Luke has now put me on a spending hiatus until we actually move into the house, and I don't understand why I have to be totally rational about this. Totally overrated.

holiday bling // Giveaway

Merry Christmas peeps!

Erin, who you know as the genius behind the blog Richmond Thrifter, recently started a beautifully curated jewelry shop and today is your lucky day because one of you is going to get this gorgeous necklace. Totally the perfect bling for all your holiday parties. Erin is also generously giving you 20% off everything at charles emerson designs for a week with the code GIVEAWAY20. Lucky you! 

Here's how to win.

Leave a comment below

For extra entries (just leave a comment for each)

Like Charles Emerson Designs on facebook

Follow my blog

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Follow me on instagram (acreativedayblog)

Good Luck!

Boxes

Big news people. Boxes have overtaken my house. Why? Because we are buying a house!!
We have been working through the details and are moving in before the end of the month, and I couldn't be more excited. For real. 
Its in our favorite neighborhood in Columbia, filled with big oak trees and gorgeous homes. Our sweet little house is a 1940's bungalow, with original wood floors and tons of character. I'm so excited to be able to do what I want without a landlord to deal with. Now we can wallpaper, paint, tear down and build up all we want. Its definitely a project house and I'm going to be filling you all in on the details as we work. Happy dance over here!

How awesome was the DIY goodness that Gaby, Christin, Anna and Emily came up with last week for our DIY Christmas series. Did you get to check them out? Major inspiration all week, thanks for rocking this series ladies! 

Fun giveaway coming tomorrow, Merry Christmas to you!

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Happy Monday! 

DIY Christmas // recently

Hello all!  I'm Emily from Recently, and I'm excited to share not one, but two Christmas DIY's with you today.  I've been thinking of trying both of these projects for a while now, so Eileen's awesome series gave me the perfect opportunity.

Our first project is a fabric covered tray for gifting to a friend.  I used some leftover Michael Miller fabric I had from my DIY candle sleeve project, a cheap melamine tray I found at Target, and clear gloss Mod Podge for this easy makeover.  Here are the simple steps:

Almost any type of tray would work here, and the fabric options are limitless as well.  Just remember that if your tray is extra colorful, it might show through you fabric once the Mod Podge is applied.  A quick coat of spray paint before the other steps would remedy that situation.

Isn't it the cutest?  Now your bestie will have just the right spot for displaying her favorite jewels, or whatever else she adores.  She'll love it!

Now that we've got our friends taken care of, let's give ourselves a little treat!  A Kate Spade inspired gold dot ornament should do the trick don't you think?  For this project, I used Martha Stewart gold transfer sheets, a 3/4 inch craft hole punch, clear decoupage gloss, clear craft glue and clear plastic ornaments.  Here's how to get the look:

Most kinds of ribbon will work here, but make sure the craft glue won't show through once it's dry.   Also, choose ornaments that have two separate sides, so they can be taken apart to glue your dots.  The key to getting your dots to look just right, is to gently place them on the ornament without pressing too hard.  If they're covered with plenty of thin decoupage glue, they will stick without having any creases or bubbles. 

The sparkly dots will shine with the reflection of the lights on your tree, making it the prettiest hand made ornament ever.  At least until next year!

Eileen, you unleashed my DIY monster with this series, and I loved every minute of it.  Thanks so much for having me!

DIY Christmas // a newfound treasure

My mother-in-law and I were so inspired by these pretties from Anthro that we decided to make our own.

what you'll need:

1. remove the jar lid 2. glue the tree base inside of the jar lid 3. fill the lid with fake snow 4. screw the jar on upside down 5. set out and enjoy!

almost too easy...

DIY Christmas // with a c.h.

Hello, A Creative Day readers! I'm Christin from with a C.H. and I'm so excited to be participating in the DIY Christmas Gift series. I won't lie, when Eileen asked me to be a part of this I sort of freaked out. Okay, I freaked out a lot. You see, I don't really "make" things a lot per se. I bake and I cook but I don't give it as gifts and I surely don't craft. Cannot craft to save my life. But then I sat down and thought about something I could make that people would want that wouldn't only last for a few days. Enter homemade hot chocolate.
This is so easy and it's delicious and you will wonder why you ever bought those packets of Swiss Miss. Really, you will. You might even cry tears of joy because this, my friends, tastes like liquid chocolate. Much like my chocolate ice cream base. Trust me, it's delicious. I had set out to follow a recipe because I didn't want to lead you astray, but I couldn't find one that didn't add a disgusting amount of sugar. So I had to make one up. Yep, I'm awesome like that. And it's good. Chocolatey, not too sweet and goes great with some peppermint liqueur or Baileys. What? We're all adults here. HOMEMADE HOT CHOCOLATE 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate 1/4 cup milk chocolate 1/2 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa 1/4 cup sugar Combine semi-sweet and milk chocolate in the bowl of a food processor and pulse until you have small grounds but pay attention! You could end up with a chocolatey paste, which is delicious, but not what we're going for here. Transfer chocolate to a mixing bowl and add cocoa and sugar. Mix to combine and put in the cutest little jars you can find and tie those suckers up with twine! To make hot chocolate: Simmer 2 cups of milk to 1/3 cup mix. I like to warm the milk and add the chocolate off the heat and whisk until combined. Also amazing with peppermint liqueur and baileys. Start with two shots, one is a waste of time. You're welcome.

DIY Christmas // the vault files

Hi everyone! Gaby from The Vault Files here, honored and excited to be part of this very clever and fun series created by Eileen! I can't wait to see what my talented bloggy friends are going to share here, I'm pretty sure their projects are going to be fantastic!

For my DIY project I decided to turn some blah white fabric napkins into something modern and fun, something that could easily help you dress up a table for the Holidays, and something that I'm pretty sure any of your stylish friends could appreciate ;)

I could have bought some fabric and sewn the napkins myself (and if you have a sewing machine and are up to it, you can do that too), but I came across these ones at $2 each and thought that the price wasn't too bad for saving me a big step in the process, right?

So, all you need is some fabric napkins in any color of your choice, gold fabric paint ( I used this one, but if I had to do it again I would use this one instead), a brush, some tape for guidance if you're doing stripes, and stencils that come in handy (I used one for the leopard print but forgot I had one for the polka dots, that's why they didn't turn out so pretty!) if you don't want to do it all freehand. Total cost of this project (considering I had the stencils and brush): around $20, which in my opinion is not too bad.

All the patterns I did

Ready to be gifted ;)

Thank you so much Eileen for thinking of me for this series, I had so much fun doing this, hope you all liked it :)

 

DIY Christmas Series // Winner

image from here, graphic  by me

I'm really excited about this series. I'm having some of my best DIY girls visit sharing great DIY Christmas gifts, decor and food. Get ready for some major inspiration!

Monday- me // Tuesday- the vault files // Wednesday- with a c.h.  // Thursday - a newfound treasure // Friday-  recently

I'm first up sharing a fun DIY gift I did over the weekend. We've all seen handpainted mugs floating around pinterest, and I was excited to try it and surprised at how easy it was.

I grabbed the paint at Michaels, and its dishwasher safe. I loved these and decided to make them as a personalized hostess gift.

I used a stencil for the MR. and MRS. and just freehanded everything else.

I love them! After I saw how easy they were I couldn't stop...

So cute right?
Make sure you check back tomorrow to see some awesomeness from Gaby! 

And I couldn't leave you without the winner from our lulu and georgia giveaway, congrats to Cindy you lucky girl! I'll be emailing you!