Whimsical White and Pink Christmas Decor

This year the girls and I decided to decorate as pink as possible with our Christmas decor, and I'm seriously loving EVERY bit of it! All of the clean, bright colors and sparkle are such a good mood lifter - I'm seriously debating on why I should ever take all of this down! lol

This year I did a last minute collaboration with Balsam Hill, and couldn't be happier with their amazing products and decorating selections. Everything was SO beautiful, and came in perfect condition right to my door.

The tree I chose to decorate was the 7ft Saratoga Spruce Pre-Lit Tree with Clear Lights. It was incredibly easy to put together the three simple pieces of the tree, connect the lighting cords and fluff the branches out!

The tree we chose had two-toned needles, so it gave the tree a more realistic look.

After the tree was assembled, I added two spools of Silver Stretch Net Ribbon, a bunch of the gorgeous Glitter Coral Spray Picks, and then scattered a couple sets of the Coastal Elegance Ornaments, along with the BH Essentials Small White Glossy Ornaments around the tree!

I also added the 72" Mongolian Faux Fur Hexagon Tree Skirt and the 10" Capiz Snowflake Lighted Tree Topper, to give everything an even more whimsical look.

Tree Classics - Our Favorite Find for the BEST Pre-Lit Christmas Trees!!

With all of the questions we had on our faux Christmas tree this year, I knew I had to post about a new favorite find, even if it just helps a handful of desperate tree seekers for the next holiday season!

We were gifted our Christmas tree about 12 years ago, and sadly the company no longer makes it, but this year we DID discover that Tree Classics has an AWESOME option that's even better! Their Hyde Park Pine Snap Tree is SO beautiful AND pre-lit! PLUS, tons of their trees are on super sale & clearance right now!! 

The Tree Classic trees are on easy to position rollers, and assemble and come apart SO easily! They also have a nifty storage bag that makes it easy for putting things away... PIVOTAL when you already don't want to clean up Christmas in the first place. lol

The Procrastinator's Gift Guide to Easy & Affordable Giving

Today, the awesome team from the Caravan Shoppe are here again, sharing easy, affordable holiday gifts for all you procrastinators out there :)

Enjoy!

Christmas comes in just one week, and it’s probably not just us, but this year’s late Thanksgiving really threw us off, and we feel more behind than we do most years! At Caravan, two of our main goals are affordability and ease, so with those two ends in mind, we've put together a procrastinator’s gift guide: Easy and affordable gifts that require no special craft supplies. We’ll add our tips and insights to make these gifts as quick and painless as possible!

Calendars
price to download: $5
price to print: apprx. $2 each
give to: neighbors, teachers, coworkers, book club, family; anyone you give to in bulk!
pictured above: 1, 2, 3, 4

One of our favorite gifts to give is a calendar. For the past several years, we’ve given calendars as gifts to coworkers, clients, and neighbors. Year after year friends tell us how much their families enjoy changing the months on the calendars. It is a way for your friends to remember you throughout the year, not to mention, they might appreciate not receiving another plate of cookies.

All of our color calendars are small to optimize printing costs for you! We strongly recommend taking your calendars to be printed at a local print shop rather than your home printer, but you’re the judge on how well your printer works! At a print shop, if you supply your own cardstock, you would expect to pay about $0.60 per sheet, give or take, which is about $1.80 per calendar. Add an envelope (size A1) and a cover page (included in the download), and you’re all set!

Our Life Is Beautiful calendar is larger (5x7) and prints 2 months per page, but in black and white. So your paper cost goes up, but your printing cost goes way down. We would expect most print shops to be able to print these for under $3 each if you supply your own paper.

As an extra time saver for a little more money, ask the print shop about cropping and drilling your calendars. Not all print shops will do this in-house, but those that do can save you a lot of time by cutting all your calendars at once and drilling a small hole at the top! Depending on how many calendars you are printing, this $10 to $15 addition is a worthy investment!
See all our calendars!

Modern, Whimsical, Gold Christmas Decor - Our Holiday Home Tour

We're finally sharing our little 2013 Christmas decor home tour today!

This year we decided to go with LOTS of gold and neutral accents, vintage/whimsical touches here and there, and of course some modern flair thrown in too.

If you've missed our Christmas decor or projects in the past, you can see those in full detail by clicking on the icons below.

  

  

  

I have to say that this years theme, has definitely been one of my all-time favorites :)

I know that a lot of you will have questions about where things are from or how they were made, so I've included a quick reference list at the end of this post for that.

Enjoy!

It's All About the Tree - and Not ... at the Same Time

When Cason and I got married, we were lucky enough to be gifted one of his parents old Christmas trees. It's a great tree, 8ft tall, beautiful... and BIG. I swear that sucker is about 5 feet wide. Well, after our decision to move Cason's big ol' lovely piano into our front room earlier this year, we literally had no room for that huge, gifted Christmas tree. So... I started looking for another one (taller, skinnier and maybe even frosted or flocked) that we could use in this new space, and thought about how awesome it would be to have TWO amazing trees to choose from for Christmas each year!

Fast forward 3 weeks later, and I'm standing in the middle of the Tai Pan Christmas tree section, crying my eyes out. Why? Because for the past 21 days I had been researching and shopping for that "perfect second tree" with absolutely no luck. Sure, my perfect tree existed, but only at the pretty penny of about $580-$750!!! There was NO WAY I was going to spend that much, even if I DID have the money.

Call me a brat, call me tired, out of energy and totally OVER having sick kids for the past 2 out of three weeks that I speak of above, (which is probably why the crying really ensued)... but YES, I let my obsession with decorating, and the pressures of what people would think in blog world COMPLETELY overshadow the fact that even though (for me) Christmas decorating is ALL about the tree - it TOTALLY WASN'T at the same time!!!

As I drove home that night, it hit me like a ton of bricks. Why should it matter to anyone but me and my family what my tree looks like? What do people do who can't fit the "tree of their dreams" into their tiny apartments or smaller budgets? Have you really lost sight of what this whole holiday is all about?

This made me cry a little more... and then I went to Target (which always makes me feel better, ha!), used an old gift card that I had been saving, and bought this little ensemble. 

Yup... a tabletop Christmas tree, a cute bucket to put it in and even two ruffly curtain panels that I ironed out and rigged up on my little round table with some pins, to make it look like I had a layered ruffly tree skirt underneath it all. 

ruffle curtain panels, tree & bucket from Target

The next day I made a few trips to gather up some pretty, new embellishments, so I could pair them with a few we already had, and the twins and I got to work.

white pompom garland  + metallic bursts - Michaels, disco ball ornaments - Tai Pan, star tree topper - Target

Merry & Bright - Cyber Monday Sale in our Shop!

I'm pretty much done (for the most part) with Christmas decorating, after busting my hump this weekend trying to get it all finished. The only bummer, is that it's now wintertime here in Utah, so this means that the sun goes down around 4pm. No joke. grrrrr.
Today after church I got working as fast as I could to finish up these DIY stacked boxes to add to my Christmas shelves, but only managed to snap this quick picture with my phone before I completely lost light.

Tomorrow is my day for Christmas decor pictures, so I'm sayin' a little prayer that there will be some sunshine for me :) For now though, I'm excited to announce our CYBER MONDAY SALE over at our shop,

THE HOUSE OF SMITHS DESIGNS!

We're giving anyone who purchases items this cyber Monday in our shop, 30% off + a FREE GIFT with every order (and it's gonna be something good, I promise) whoohoo!

Just enter code: CYBER2013 at checkout. *code is case sensitive

We've got a TON of fun decals stocked up and and listed, ready for gift giving; and thanks to some awesome Designs by Destiny this holiday, we now have even more new Christmas themed ideas for you to check out this year. Can you say polka dots!? :)

As you know, I've been working on deckin' out my own polka dot wall, and even came up with this fun woodsy, whimsical board to add to our shop!

Alright, enough blabbing, get comfy and get your online shoppin' on! Start AND finish your Christmas gift list... you can DO IT!

HAPPY SHOPPING!

Christmas Gold + Home for the Holidays

Slowly but surely Christmas decorating is coming along over in our neck of the woods. I've decided this year that I'm not going to spend weeks and weeks decorating, just to feel like I'm having to turn around and take everything back down to pack it up in bins and boxes again.

polka dot decals // vase from Joss & Main

This time I'm enjoying the process, and making small, yet significant changes to our space. Mostly, just by swapping everyday items out with more Christmasy ones instead.

Merry Christmas + Holiday Joy from Friends Near and Far

I just wanted to pop in and say Merry Christmas!

This year we are EXTRA happy and grateful, and it's all because of YOU! Our friends Near and Far!

Everyday we wonder who's out there reading. What YOU look like. Where YOU live. What YOU do.

Now we know a little bit more!

We laughed...

We cried (out of joy)

Thank you to those who sent sweet little notes and gifts

and

We learned, about YOU and YOUR families!

Easy Chocolate Caramel Pretzel Bites - My Favorite Christmas Treat

While I'm sure that TONS (okay, maybe all of you) are already familiar with this super easy treat, I can't help but share it; if not mostly for journaling reasons.

:)

About 3 years ago my friend Susan brought these scrumptious, super simple pretzel, chocolate, caramel treats to Jen's infamous yearly cookie exchange party... and it changed my life.
Okay that's a bit dramatic, but they have definitely become one of my most favorite treats due to the fact they they have both the salty AND sweet factor goin' on.

They are pretty much the quickest, most shareable holiday snack to make too... so that's a definite bonus. The only part that takes a while is the unwrapping of the Rolos candies, so I usually put my kiddos to work doing that part, and they love it!