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.

Easy 4th of July Decor Ideas!

An oldie, but a goodie!

Heres one of our favorite, blast from the past, 4th of July shelf decor ideas, just in case you need one last minute. Happy weekend everyone!

Silver Mason Jar, Blue Stand, Pennant Banner - Pottery Barn 

Coffee filter wreaths have been done a billion different ways, and they're all over blogland and Pinterest, so I thought I'd try my hand out at one and put my own little spin on it for the 4th!

Mod Mantel Halloween Decor (from an iPhone) #winning

Yup, Halloween is long gone... and I'm just sharing my decor now.

(shrug)

That's how a bloggin' Mamma with a full-time job and a busy calling at church rolls, okay?

:)

Something thats awesome about having decor on hand from past years for the holidays, is that you can whip up something really quick, no matter where it is.

See...!

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!

One Thanksgiving Table - Three Different Ways

Okay, up to this point I've done SO much gushing over the Caravan Shoppe, their prints & projects, and how much I love using their affordable, adorable ideas in my home...

Valentines // Birthday // Halloween 1 & 2 // Backdrops

that I thought it was high time for me to finally introduce all of my readers to the crazy-talented crew behind it all.

Melanie, Alma and Mike are literally the most skilled graphic designers, Photoshop pros and artists that I know. Their ability to create amazing works of art, prints and graphics in almost no time flat... amazes me. The quality of their work is always superb, and I literally have never met more genuine, happy, fun, hardworking people... maybe ever.  Melanie and Alma are two of my MOST favorite people to follow on Instagram as well. Just subscribe to their feed, and you'll quickly see why :)

Today I wanted to have the Caravan team stop by and show & tell you FIRSTHAND about their flippin' awesome Thanksgiving products, instead of me just blabbing on about them. ha! So they've come up with the genius idea of working a Thanksgiving table three different ways!

PS: Remember, that these prints take minutes to purchase, download and send to your local print store (like Staples).  Even if you see these ideas the day before Thanksgiving, all of them are still 100% doable, with no stress. Oh! And use discount code "houseofsmiths20" at checkout to get 20% off of your total purchase!

ENJOY!
.....

Thanksgiving is less than two weeks away. This week will be full of grand plans. Visions of handcrafted marzipan cornucopia centerpieces, counters full of desserts with five word names (salted caramel pumpkin chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese cinnamon frosting, anyone?) and children playing happily and peacefully with the latest Pinterest-inspired Thanksgiving day quiet time activity. It all seems so perfect. And then the week of Thanksgiving actually befalls us. The centerpiece ends up looking like a five-years-old’s first attempt at play dough. The over-the-top desserts seemed nice in theory but they all taste like a train wreck of fall flavors. And finally, the kids took five minutes to rip apart the quiet time pilgrim puppets you spent three hours cutting and gluing together.

Breathe.

Forget the over-the-top centerpiece, return to your tried-and-true pumpkin pie recipe, turn on Charlie Brown’s Thanksgiving for the kids. And please, please do yourself the enormous favor of taking the easy way out while decorating your table. It'll look like you spent hours putting the party together, when in fact these table settings will come together with practically no more effort than a Mary Poppin’s snap of your fingers.

One Table, Three Ways

Perfect for:
Any informal and exuberant gathering. The illustrations and designs break the ice and bring out the kid in anyone who has ever wanted to draw all over the table. Ahem, you know, all of us. And of course, this is a shoo-in for the kids’ table.

Caravan product: Draw Together Thanksgiving Set - $8
- large black and white prints that can be used as table covering; has questions, prompts on it to encourage interaction
- placemats
- large black and white illustrations to hang on wall. This are perfect used as oversized coloring pages.
-  colorful napkin holders and place cards that can be used to hold napkins and utensils (or anything else that needs holding! Crayons! Pencils!)

What’s special:
The large black and white table covering and placemats are fun and encourage interaction and conversation. Finally, a table setting that works for adults and kids! So simple you won’t know why you’ve ever done anything else.

Accessorize with:
Print out the huge table covering ($7 per 3’ x 4’ print at Staples) OR print placemats. If using placemats, cover your table with butcher paper and tape the placemats over it with washi tape.
Make simple throw-together centerpieces out of fall colors with decorative pumpkins and gourds. Yellow napkins look lovely in the napkin holders. Make sure to have plenty of crayons and colored pencils on hand. Your guests are going to LOVE this. Remember to take pictures of all their table-drawn creations before you clean up for the night.

Cost:
Black and white posters print at $7 or less at Staples (for 3 x 4-foot). Napkin holders print in color 2/page (do on your home printer, or plan on about $1/sheet at a print shop). Placemats print at 11 x 17 in black and white at 15-50 cents each.