Hi Foxy Friends! Welcome to The Blended Blog Style. This week we decided to do a Christmas sweater theme. Unfortunately for me, I don't own a Christmas sweater, because #Californiaweather, some years it's 80° on Christmas day, so sweaters don't really do well here. Lucky for me, while shopping around for some Christmas shirts, I found a light weight long sleeve t-shirt, that was perfect! I do believe in the magic of Christmas!
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The boots are so comfy too, keeps my feet nice and warm!
Silly picture!
Thanks so much for linking up with us! Now show off your Christmas sweaters or shirts!
Happy Monday Foxy Friends! I hope you all had a great weekend. I know we had a very lazy one, which is exactly what we needed! Mr. has been gone for two weeks and boy did we miss him! He almost didn't get home too, snow and all, but caught a flight out at 2am! Crazy pants, but he made it, and finally got home around 5:30am on Saturday morning, talk about crazy travel.
Anyway, I'm linking up with The Blended Blog with my Ultimate Holiday gift guide. I've been doing gift guides here and there the last month or so, so I'm putting them all in one place. Link up your gift guides over on The Blended Blog. We're also doing home tours, so home tours and gift guide link up. It will be open for two weeks!
*Some of the links are affiliate links and I will either receive a small commission, at no cost to you, if you click on it or if you make a purchase from one of these links, I may also receive a commission on the sale of the product. Click here for my disclosure page.
We are all about education toys for the kids. I think these are all great picks. Check out the post here.
Here are my favorite gifts to give everyone right now, when I can't think of something to give someone, these are my default gifts.
Hey Foxy Friends! I know I'm on a roll! Two posts one day, say what?! But, I couldn't pass this one up! Terri from Christmas Trees Lane organized this Christmas tree parade. So take a look at some other bloggers and have fun!
Today I'm going to show you our Traditional Tree, in the sense this is where we put all of the random ornaments we've collected over the years. This tree is upstairs and where Santa leaves all of his goodies. Although Baby Fox is starting to think it's creepy that Santa is walking around our house leaving gifts, cause it's in a room that is furthest from the fireplace. So this is our tree, full disclosure, we did this on November 12th. I know super early, but we were traveling the following weekend and then Mr. was traveling for the two weeks/weekend after that. So no time like RIGHT NOW to start.
So here is the tree all finished.
It's a scrawny tree, donated to us by my parents back when we first got married, and they had it for a while before that, so I think this tree is pushing 20, if not more...It's been good to us. I'm thinking next year I might upgrade to a better one...we'll see. Anyway, this is the tree that we put all of our ornaments that we've collected over the years on.
Gotta have candy canes right? For whatever reason the kids wanted them up high...
Tip: Let the kids do their thing and put the ornaments where they want. Yes it's not probably where you put it, but it gives the kids a sense of pride knowing they decorated the tree.
Each year we head to Hallmark and let the kids pick out one ornament...it's fun to see what they chose each year.
Here are a few favorites this year:
Mini Fox: she LOVES this ornament. Any time she walks into the room, she has to turn it on and dance to it...see video below, minute 2:30. She got this one last year, and it remains her favorite. Although a close second is a tea cup and tea pot, which she pretends she pours and drinks AFTER she dances to the ballerina.
Baby Fox loves this Batman car, it does light up, but it's out of batteries right now. Darn.
This ornament my grandmother gave to me before I came to America. Acutally I was suppose to come here in November, but they didn't put me on the plane, my parents showed up at the airport, thinking they were getting me, to have to go home empty handed and wait another 1.5 months for me to come. My grandma had already bought this. I'm so happy after I got married my mom gave me this.
I think this is Mr.'s favorite ornament. I made this for him with Baby Fox when he was 1. Being born on Christmas just makes this that much more special.
So that is our traditional Christmas tree. Stay tuned, in a couple of weeks I'm showing the rest of our Christmas decorations, actually if you want to join in on the fun, join us at The Blended Blog for a Christmas decoration link up, December 19.
For those that like videos, I put together a video of us putting all of the ornaments on...in fast forward of course.
Happy Tuesday Foxy Friends! Today is day 10 of Blogmas, and today we are talking about whatever Christmas-y thing we wanted. I have so many DIY's in the works that I thought I would share a fun DIY project I thought of last year, but didn't get around to doing until this year.
You know all of those Christmas/Holiday/New Years cards you get every year? Well I keep them all, anything anyone sends me I keep. I mentioned that in my Why You Should Buy Holiday Cards Every Yearand now I'm going to show you how I am going to keep them from now on. Originally I was going to put them in scrapbooks like this...start with our Christmas card and work from there.
In this book I was able to get 4 years, but those were years that we didn't have as many cards as we receive now. I realized that was going to be a lot of books, of which I store in a cabinet and never bring out. I just love looking at old pictures, so I wanted them to be accessible. So I thought, hey let's put them on a ring, put them in a cute box, display for Christmas Decorations. Done. Super Simple DIY *Some of the links are affiliate links and I will either receive a small commission, at no cost to you, if you click on it or if you make a purchase from one of these links, I may also receive a commission on the sale of the product. By purchasing through Foxy's Domestic Side, you're helping me to continue creating fun things for this space. What You'll Need:
Cute Box To Store Cards In (I found mine at Hobby Lobby last year, and I saw a similar one this year too, this one and this one is personalized, that's pretty cool)
All of your old Christmas Cards
Binder Rings (originally Mr. bought me some cute red ones, pictured, but then I quickly realized those were too small, so I bought 3" ones, which are way too big, so I would go with 2" ones)
Directions: Step One:
Punch holes into cards. I tried to get them so they all faced the same way, so position the cards accordingly. But ultimately even the ones I did horizontal instead of vertical, still worked out, So really just have at it and get it done quickly. Took me about an hour to get through 5 years worth of cards.
Now repeat 100 times.
Step Two:
Put cards through the ring.
Step Three:
Put all the cards in a box
I think it is so super cute! I sort of even like the bigger rings, as you can grab them to pull them out of the box. I haven't decided on how I want to designate the year. Right now there is a piece of paper on the back with the year...but a lot of the cards have the year on them, so I think I will be able to figure it out, even without a card designated.
So if you ever want to send me a card, know I'm keeping them all, and if you want to know what card you sent to me in 2011, I have that, 2017, yep have that too.
Hi Foxy Friends! For my fellow American friends I hope you had a great long weekend. Today is day 4 of the 12 days of Blogmas. Today is all about Christmas Decorations, I thought I would share a post I did last year for The Blended Blog, where my mom, the decorator, shares how to get your Christmas tree to look like one from a magazine. You know the fancy hotel or magazine trees and you think, I want that in my house, well my mom is giving you the tips and tricks to do just that.
So, let's just pretend for this exercise that you have found your perfect pre-lit tree and that you also have a tree skirt. You need to find your garland and do that first. Starting from the bottom. My mom got this red feathery garland at Home Goods last year and loves it. As she adds each length she's watching for even spacing around the tree.
Step back and make sure that it looks good from far away.
This might seem crazy, but then add another row of garland. Be sure that the second garland is of a completely different consistency from the first. The first garland was long and feathery, the second is airy, small berries. It's all about creating interest with different shapes and textures.
She could have stopped here but had this button ribbon from last year and just wanted to enjoy it again. As she added the ribbon she used the berry garland to keep the ribbon in place. Just twist as needed.
Now for the top. She is using picks of berries and poinsettias and holly. Up the ladder, back down the ladder, again and again. Checking the look and the balance~ how far up, how far out and how close to each other do I want it? Totally subjective.
She added picks throughout the tree and used greenery with small pine cones and red flower branches. Always checking for a balanced arrangement.
Now come the ornaments. Birds are the theme here. white and red ones. Some she just pushes in, some are on metal 'feet' and some she just push onto the tip of a branch, in through the hole at the top of the ornament. TIP: A spool of wire is great to have to put your ornaments on your tree. You'll get much better placement with it rather than trying to use those little pesky ornament hangers. Cut the wire to the length you'll need, feed wire through the loop on the top of your ornament half way. Now you can attach the ornament to the tree at any length drop you want, twist wire as needed around the branch.
And here is the finished product.
Have fun with your Christmas tree decorating this year! I know easier said then done, but really, just do it. Buy some stuff with these guidelines and start decorating. See what does and does not look good, return what doesn't look good and keep what does. You got this! Don't forget to go enter our giveaway for $1500 worth of goodies!
