Our Christmas Cards

Christmas card season - is there anything better?

Receiving Christmas cards from our family and friends and sending out our own cards is something I look forward to every year! Camden is really interested in helping get the mail now, so it's even more fun to look at the cards we get together. This is the second year in a row I've gotten our Christmas cards from Tiny Prints!

When it comes to ordering our cards online, they are hands down my favorite company to order from because of the personal touches I can put on the cards, extensive selection, and how fast they're always sent out to me.

I love how our family photos that Little Roo Studios took for us (Rachel also took these maternity photos) match so well with the colors on our card! Before our family photo shoot with her, I was worried we wouldn't have one picture to use for our cards because honestly Camden is not into pictures much lately. He just wants to run all over the place, so I wasn't sure how it would go! Rachel, once again, proved us wrong because she gave us so many beautiful photos to choose from (plan to post them all soon!) I also decided to include some pictures of the boys that I took at home randomly, just because I liked the idea of putting two different 'types' of pictures on the cards. Lastly, how perfect are those red envelope liners? I'm kinda obsessed with them.





If you haven't ordered your holiday cards yet - you still have plenty of time and can see all of Tiny Prints holiday cards here! And if your local and in need of family pictures - Rachel is your gal! (you can also find here on instagram here, or facebook here) You won't be disappointed!

And just for fun, here is our card from last year. I can't believe how much Cam has grown since then...

 

From Me, To You! {Our Holiday Cards}

wooden shelf tutorial {one of my favorites} you can find here

Ta-da!

Our 2013 holiday card. I think the gold foil with the fun design completely made these! It's actually even better and more noticeable in person, and the cards are so thick which I love. Minted really knows what they are doing..props to them.

A special touch to these is that the picture of our little family was taken in our backyard during our first big snowstorm last year. We have really come to appreciate our first home and the big backyard so much (especially after all the transformations we have done to it!), so I'm really glad I used this picture and that Rocky could be included. What would a holiday card be without him anyways?

I hope you all consider this my holiday greeting to each of you. If I could send them out to all of you (you know, if you actually really wanted one of us) I would.. :)

Christmas Cards: Win $75 to Minted To Get Yours!

I can't believe that I can actually say this, but I got our holiday cards ordered in November. I'm still a little bit shocked by this. If I had to pinpoint one reason as to why this magical thing happened, I would give all credit to Minted's new foil pressed cards. That's right...I said gold and silver foil pressed holiday cards. I was sold on our cards almost immediately.

I've used multiple companies for our cards in the past, but none have impressed me as much as Minted has. They send you a digital proof (for free) before your order is made so that you can approve the quality, look, and text. Not to mention, they have just about every possible design for a card that you could possibly want.

I'm so excited to get our cards in the mail (they are on their way!) and send them out to our friends and family. Which one do you think I picked?! They ARE gold (duh) but I plan to share them soon once I get them out in the mail. Minted also offers personalized wrapping paper with names, family photos, etc. This would so cute to get if you have little ones.

Today, Minted is being really awesome and giving you a chance to get your holiday cards for free! They are offering a $75 gift card to one reader so hurry up and get to entering below. 

*Disclaimer: I received courtesy Christmas cards from Minted, but all opinions are my own. I really mean it when I say the foil pressed cards make me want to do a big happy dance!

  a Rafflecopter giveaway

SAW IT. PINNED IT. DID IT: CHRISTMAS CARD HOLDER

Wow. Wow. Wow

Just wow.

Man, do I have a lot to cover today!

#1. Hello, hello, hello to all of you who are new around here! I'm so happy to have you. Since I feel like an introduction is necessary and would help you get to know who I am, I updated my About Me page and on that I also included a new list of my favorite posts I've written here on le bloggy. Some are personal...some are travel posts...some are recipes...and some are DIY related. I hope this will help you get to 'know' me a little bit better. Click here to read it. Thank you to those who have introduced yourself so far!

#2. Guess what, friends? WE raised $1,000 for Princess Maggie. Unbelievable. Originally, I didn't want to set a goal on the donation tool, because I would have been happy with $100. However, I did have that mega number of 1 with 3 zero's behind it in the back of my mind that I was totally wishing for, and we did it. I realize I sound like a broken record by now, but it's completely necessary-THANK YOU for showing so much compassion, kindness, and standing up to cancer. I have to say thank you to my sweet husband as well who has been my cheerleader (or man) throughout this whole thing. He literally would update me as the numbers went up, and up, and was the biggest supporter! I plan on doing another post once I get to deliver the money to the family, so be on the lookout for that.

#3. Season finale of Nashville last night. I was all like, "Scarlett, why must you stop making out with Gunnar?" He was looking at her like a true piece of meat. So much tension, so much tension. I'm excited to see what the next season brings, and I hope it's some juicy drama! Thoughts on the finale?

#4. It's time for Saw It. Pinned It. Did It. For those of you who are new and haven't been around for this, it is a link-up that me and my best Steph host where you share your latest Pinterest creations. You can link up a bunch of different things....a new recipe you made, a craft you perfected, or an outfit that you re-created from an image you saw on Pinterest. Feel free to join in on this partay!

This week I decided to tackle another Christmas related craft (go here to see my no-sew ruffled tree skirt from last week). Speaking of, I can't believe how fast Christmas is approaching! Alright, so here we go.

Christmas Card Wreath Holder:

You will need:

-green spray paint

-red pony beads

-a wire hanger with the hook cut off 

-clothespins (I used approx. 50)

-ribbon of your choice

Like the other projects, it is first necessary to get your game face on

and know you are about to tackle another project that will make you look 1/4th like Martha Stewart.

Then, you will cut the hook part off the wire hanger and shape it into a circle.

(this won't be perfect-but it's ok to be a little off)

Next, you will want to spray paint the clothespins.

How I did this was took an old box and attached the clothespins to the top all around and spray painted them outside. Make sure you cover all of the clothespins with paint!

Then you will just alternate stringing on a bead, and then a clothespin.

Repeat until you have about 1 inch of hanger space left on both sides.

To hold the hanger together, you will use a bunch of hot glue.

I made sure to glob on a bunch (which is ok because you cover it with a ribbon anyways) and then to hold it closed for a minute or two so that it stays in place. 

After that, all you have to do is pick out a favorite ribbon (and in my case, I used an old Christmas decoration for on top of it) to wrap around the top and hang. 

As you can see, I underestimated my power of spray painting and forgot to make sure the ends were covered. A simple solution to fix this is to just take green acrylic paint and paint over the ends, which is probably what I'll be doing tonight to fix it. You can just be smarter than I am and skip that step... ;)

Also, I had to include the below pic because I got Natasha's Christmas card in the mail (white one in the middle) and about fainted at Ethan's cuteness. 

What do you think?

How did I do?

I absolutely love having a cute place to display all of our Christmas cards now (which is more than 4 now, thank you very much haha) and this project was pretty painless! Definitely give it a try if you need a spot for your cards this season. Or next. Or the next. 

Now, it's your turn.

As usual, I'm excited to see all of your projects that you link-up!

Ready-GO!

Some little rules:

Link up using the linky tool below so everyone else can see what you've created!

Link back to Steph and I's blogs in your post so other people can know about the link up!

Include the button below by pasting the HTML into your post. Pwetty please?

<center> <a href="http://www.mykeepcalmandcarryon.com/"><img border="0" src="http://i.imgur.com/qlr8r.jpg">
oh, and just because I believe no post is complete without this little furry guy as my craft helper and he deserves an introduction as well.... meet Rocky (for those who are new around here)- you'll see him often around here.

PS-The winner of the $50 shop credit is Romance in a Glance. Congratulations!!

I will email you shortly!

Deck The House with Glitter and Christmas Cards!

Fa LaLaLaLa...

La.

Happy Tuesday friends!

{thumbs up..}

I don't know about you, but I'm so happy we made it past yesterday. The first day of work after a long holiday weekend always seems so long and well, somewhat terrible. Add some rain on top of that and you got yourself a sweatpants, hoodie, and movie kinda night. Yep, that's what I did last night..not sure about you. :)

The Krysh household is all decorated for Christmas, except for our tree which we are doing on Friday, and I'm L-O-V-I-N-G it. I'm a sucker for pretty decorations {shiny and glittery..what?}, comfort foods, Christmas movies, sugar cookie candles that I often want to eat, and snuggling up on the couch. I started decorating our house a little early {like before Thanksgiving} this year, but I really enjoy getting the most time possible to enjoy them.

{runner: Target, candle: Yankee Candle, centerpiece: DIY}

This centerpiece was such an easy DIY. My girlfriend Jessie gave me the inspiration and I decided to use it for our kitchen table. All I did was take a clear round vase I already had at home and filled it with red bulbs {or whatever color you prefer.} Then, I put the silver twigs {found at Hobby Lobby} in between the bulbs to hold them in place. For the final touch I used a hot glue gun to add a ribbon around the top to jazz it up a bit. Very inexpensive and hey, I think it looks pretty cute!

and if you don't think so...

well, back off.

just kidding ;)

I linked up @ Hi Sugarplum to share this easy DIY Christmas craft!

If you want to check out other crafts to make, go visit her blog because there are soo many cute ones.

and then last night I came home to these...

they are beautiful and match our Christmas decor..

double. bonus!

thank you, babe.

It's almost December...holy cow!

I really can't believe it, but I seriously love the holidays. I'm hoping to get our Christmas cards sent out in the mail soon {you know, that is if life doesn't get in the way}, so I figured I'd share our cards this year!

I decided to order our Christmas cards

 from two different places {yeah, I'm that indecisive}:

Shutterfly {because they are reliable and cute} and Vistaprint {because I had a great coupon.} I was nervous the ones from Vistaprint would take longer to arrive, so I figured I could send out the Shutterfly ones in the meantime while I was waiting. I didn't want to be stuck with nothing...because well, that would be just awful.

<insert control freak comment>

Here they are!



{designed from Shutterfly}

{designed from Vistaprint}

I decided to keep the same pictures and wording just to keep it easy, but switch up the designs. The picture of me and Billy kissing and holding up the "1 year" sign is from our 1 year wedding anniversary trip to Boston. You can read about that here if you missed it! I thought it was a cute picture to include this year on our cards. I'm really happy with how both of them turned out!

 What do you think of our Christmas cards?

Where did you order yours from?

Also, I know that I would love to get some Christmas cards from my blogger friends, so if you would like one of ours, leave me a comment or email me and I can make sure I get your address. We can do a little swapsies!! :)

Tonight is the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show

and I'm not kidding when I say I look forward to watching it every year!

It gives me motivation every winter to get my booty out of the house and RUN. I'm also known to print out pictures of some of the ladies and tape them on our refrigerator door {I know Billy doesn't object...} Don't judge me until you try it. However, I'm not usually injured every year like I am this year, so it looks like I won't be able to take any aggression out on the treadmill.

sad face.

For now, I'll just dream about magically developing Marissa Miller's body.

{PS-My Thanksgiving full recape will be tomorrow. My camera died on me this morning!}