Posts tagged #christmas decor

Christmas tags in dusty rose, white and all that glitters!

My favorite Saturday mornings are the ones when you have absolutely no agenda on your mind and you set yourself up for true relaxation and recovery from the grueling week. That is, until you randomly (not) wander the halls of Michael's and you get about a thousand ideas of what to do with said Saturday morning. Indeed, rest ambitions failed me once again. But, hey, I now have some sweet Christmas present tags to show you!  

I absolutely love how these turned out! And it all started with a simple glitter set that I saw at the store plus some tags that happened to be on sale. A bit of white ink and gold twine later, and voila! I think I might keep some of these for my tree next year... 

Here is what you will need to recreate these very Christmas-y (oh very well, somewhat Christmas-y) dusty pink and mother of pearl tags:

  • Glitter set (similar found here)
  • Glue
  • Brown tags (mine were the last few but a similar set can be found here)
  • White pen (I couldn't rave enough about this pen - well worth the $1.99)
  • Gold twine
  • Some Pinterest inspiration

With 12 days left until Christmas (who's counting?), we have only one more Christmas-themed week left! And I can't seem to be able to make up my mind what to dedicate it to... Gift wrapping? Food? Traditions? Ahh, I guess I have a week to figure it out :).

Happy Sunday!!

Posted on December 13, 2015 by Katya Popova and filed under Design + DIY and tagged christmas decor christmas DIY christmas tags all that glitters.

New hobby alert... (plus T-2 weeks until vacation!)

A few months ago, one of my favorite friends invited me to join her at a calligraphy class for her birthday. Little did either of us know that this tiny act of awesomeness on her part would result in my latest hobby/obsession. Enter... the theme of all of 2015's holiday gift-giving and entertaining: a personalized note/card/packaging/placecard/ornament/anything-you-can-think-of with Katya's calligraphy and your name on it. Genius! 

Today, I present you with four similar but kind of different calligraphic options for placing your guests at your holiday table. All said and done, it came down to two general options for my table: either a card with my guest's name in calligraphy on it, or an ornament my guests can take home with their name in calligraphy on it (riveting difference, no?). I think I like both but I especially like the idea of the ornament because it can become a wonderful keepsake that will remind your family of you for years to come (as if they needed further reminding... :).

Here was my craft supplies list:

  • Glass Christmas ornaments (you can get similar ones here). 
  • Metallic calligraphy markers (similar ones found here).
  • Gold twine (mine is from TJ Maxx but here is a similar one). 
  • Leftover card stock.
  • Leftover winter greens.
  • "Mad" lettering skills (make sure you sign up for Kristara's wonderful class that started it all :) 

And now that I know how I'll decorate the table, I should probably get back to the basics (such as Christmas shopping).  I am ashamed to admit that I haven't even started that yet. And we are getting dangerously close to Christmas. These two weeks ahead will probably prove to be maddeningly busy. And oh-so-joyful! :) 

Speaking of which, time to get moving. Happy Sunday and have a great week, everyone!

Posted on December 6, 2015 by Katya Popova and filed under Design + DIY and tagged christmas decor DIY christmas home calligraphy tistheseason.

Back to being productive! A wreath DIY!

Happy belated Thanksgiving! Great news, everyone! This blogger survived the holiday without severely overeating! Oh, fine, this is a lie. I did overeat alright. But Jessica's sweet potatoes are too good to say no to. And, to ease my conscious (and bloated belly), I already went for a run and did an hour of yoga as soon as I landed. So there, I have been relatively good :).

Failed diets aside, we are finally getting back into a groove here... I present to you, the second Christmas-themed DIY in two weeks! Also known as, Christmas wreath 2.0. 

I guess you might think that yellow does not exactly scream Christmas but, hey, these craspedia billy balls could definitely pass for tiny christmas ornaments, so there, there's method to the madness :). Besides, they are so darn playful! And they work so nicely with all the other textures of the wreath, don't you think?

So... what will you need to make one of these for your home? Technically, a mere trip to the grocery store. Case in point, I got inspired to make this wreath while I was at my local Whole Foods to stock my rather empty fridge today. There, I saw the white wax flower and the craspedia billy balls (aka the yellow adora-balls) and thought that these would look quite fine on my two grapevine wreaths I bought three weeks ago and did nothing with. And this is how projects are born... :). 

After acquiring all materials, the only thing you'd be left to do is put in some elbow grease to cut each stem and insert it into the wreath.  And by elbow grease, I am severely overstating. Because this entire project took me a mere 20 minutes to do. Talk about good bang for your time-investment-buck!

Happy Sunday and good luck going back to work on Monday!!

PS: I cannot completely overlook Thanksgiving so here's a laundry list of some of the things I am rather thankful for but rarely have the chance to share:

  • I got to see my nephew sing the Star Wars theme song this weekend 
  • My nephew actually likes me :) Like, a lot :) (he is only 2 after all, love is hard to earn at that age!)
  • I get to see my family in less than a month and maybe go skiing (fingers crossed, snow-pending!)
  • And everyone is (relatively) healthy and (very) happy. 

 Yup, life is good. And it doesn't take all that much to be this happy :). This will be a great Monday indeed. 

 

Posted on November 29, 2015 by Katya Popova and filed under Design + DIY and tagged christmas wreath christmas decor DIY christmas.

I know, I know... Christmas is still more than a month away...

But if the radio can play Christmas music already, I am allowed to have Christmas posts, right? :)

So, what's in store today? First, an apology... It has been two weeks with no posts and I guess I could offer a great (made-up) excuse for this. But I cannot. I just had a few very great very busy weeks. The good news is that being busy at work and life does pay off after all! Here is a rare Katya brag-episode for you: my proudest career moment of my life (so far) came courtesy of the 2015 Lantern Awards. My team (well, our website) won the big 2015 award for websites! I was never much of a sucker for awards (which should have helped me be very much chill about this one) but heading to a podium in front of hundreds of spectators and your leadership to accept an award is far more nerve-wracking than anticipated. I have a whole new level of empathy for Jennifer Lawrence. DO NOT TRIP was pretty much the only thing I could think of.

But, enough (bragging) about work (I AM SO FREAKING PROUD OF MY TEAM!!!) and onto more appropriate topics for a personal blog...

Oh, hey Christmas! I had forgotten about you (said no Christmas lover ever). This year, Christmas decor takes a bit of a different meaning for me... Mainly because I will be out of the country for most of the holidays. And it just felt like decking out a whole tree for an absentee home owner is rather overdoing it. So what is one to do when they still crave for some festive decor?

Deck out something else, of course! Enter, the ladder-turned-Christmas-tree DIY tutorial! Promise, it's a simple one...

First, start with building your ladder (an even simpler tutorial can be found here). Next? Deck said ladder with as many ornaments as it can safely take. Try to be somewhat intentional with colors/textures/finishes and voila! You got yourself a very neat conversation starter. Most people's reaction is... Hm? A Christmas ladder? And in my mind, I am rather thinking... "You are welcome, world!" The only thing that hadn't been Christmatized before is now officially here! And what's not to cheer about that?? 

Inspiration via Pinterest. Execution via several Tj Maxx shopping sprees. :)

Happy Monday and... so glad to be back! :)

Posted on November 23, 2015 by Katya Popova and filed under Design + DIY and tagged christmas decor christmas DIY ladder.