The Christmas season is *almost* here! YAY!!! I love this holiday! It sounds cliche, but my favorite part of Christmas is giving gifts to the people I love. I always put a lot of thought into what I give, and try to choose gifts that are meaningful and/or useful. In my opinion, nothing makes a gift more special than when it is handmade! There are never enough ideas when it comes to handmade gifts so this Christmas season I have decided to do a few posts on that subject.

The first handmade gift idea I want to share is this DIY Gold Dipped Mason Jar. Both mason jars and gold are majorly trending right now (which I LOVE!). The best part about this gift is that it can be repurposed all throughout the year to match any season depending on how it is filled! I pretty much adore how it turned out and it was literally the easiest craft I have ever done.

Step 1 : Apply painter's tape to the top half of a mason jar and then spray paint the bottom half. Let it sit until the paint is dry (about an hour to be safe).

Step 2: Remove the painters tape, fill up the jar with potpourri, and tie a festive ribbon around the top. If you don't want to use potpourri you could fill it with peppermint sticks, pinecones, cookie mix, etc...

What do you think?! Is there anyone in your life that would be thrilled to receive this handmade gift?

Merry Christmas!

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I hope you all have a beautiful Christmas wherever you may be! Enjoy the yummy food, have fun, and most of all treasure the time you will get to spend with your families!

Christmas Time!

We celebrated the first of our four Christmases this past weekend. It was off to Kentucky to celebrate with my Mom's side of the family and it was all I expected it to be! This is a very easily excited group. There were lots of oohs, ahs, and squeals and I loved every second of it! If I had to pick a favorite photo from the bunch it would be the cousins shot. We were missing a few of the original Doyle cousins, but we have added a few more due to marriages (and one almost marriage). That's a hint directed at David to hurry up make it official with Stephanie. Anyhow! I love the cousins shot because it's so natural and I love that I am so clueless that they are making reindeer antlers behind my head! LOL. I'm just posing away! So great. I love these people!

Things I'm Loving Thursday : Peppermint

No doubt one of the things I look forward to at this time of year is Peppermint. It's probably my most favorite flavor ever. This year I am dying over the millions of recipes you can find on Pinterest with Peppermint in them! My mouth is watering just thinking about it. It's really too hard to choose, but here are some that I am putting at the top of my "must make" list this year.

Peppermint Oreo Fudge 

Peppermint Kiss Sugar Cookies 

        Peppermint Bark



Peppermint Ice Cream



Peppermint Brownie Cookies



Peppermint Crunch Cookies



 Peppermint Hot Chocolate



Peppermint Red Velvet Crinkle Cookies



DIY Twine Wrapped Christmas Trees

Happy Wednesday, everyone! Today I want to share with you how to create Twine Wrapped Christmas Trees. This is a super easy and affordable Christmas craft that you all must try! So let's get on with it, shall we?!

You will need Baker's Twine or yarn (either one will do), cardboard or cardstock, and a hot glue gun. I used Baker's Twine since it's what I had on hand and I used empty cereal boxes and Kraft paper cardstock to make my trees.

First you need to roll your cardboard or cardstock into cone like tree shapes. Use the hot glue gun to hold them together. I cut my cardstock into different sizes so I could get a variety of tree heights. They don't need to look good on the outside since you'll be covering them. Just make sure the shape is what you want.

Next start wrapping your twine or yarn around the bottom of the tree. Use the hot glue gun every so often as needed to secure it. I did a dot of glue about every 1/4 inches. Don't worry about getting every little spot covered on the way up the tree. 

Once you get to the top start working your way back down and fill in the empty spaces as you go. Once you get back to the base of the tree make sure you do a couple more dots of hot glue to secure the bottom strands. 

And that's it! This is something that you can do even if you think you aren't crafty. What's even better is that this could be used longer than just during the Christmas season. Make your trees in white, silver, and blues and display them all winter long!

Things I'm Loving Thursday : DIY Handmade Christmas Gifts

This week's Things I'm Loving Thursday is all about some of my favorite handmade Christmas gifts. They are easy, affordable, and I would personally love to receive each and every one of them! Which one is YOUR favorite?

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Free Printable Christmas Gift Tags

Most of you know that I am all about DIY and free. That's why I haven't bought a single gift tag this year! Yep, that's right! I have been able to make or print all my gift tags this Christmas.  And as a gift to you, my lovely followers, I wanted to share a few of my favorite free Christmas gift tags! Happy Holidays!

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DIY Christmas Gift Card Holders

I have been doing lots of Christmas gift wrapping this week. Packages are so fun to do because you there are so many ways you can wrap them, but when gift cards are involved it can be a little boring. And even though most people love receiving gift cards (including myself) sometimes gifting them can seem a little impersonal. So I decided to try to make mine a little more thoughtful this year. Once I got started it was a lot easier than I thought it would be, but they looked a million times better than when they were just in the store's packaging! Let me know what you think... and I would love to get some more ideas if you have them!

Ingredients: Treat Bags, Free Printable Tags, Baker's Twine, & Embellishments

Things I'm Loving Thursday : Glitter & Glam Christmas Decor

I'm a girl... I like shiny, sparkly things. If there were such a thing I would be a glitter vampire. Yes, I'm that obsessed! And I know that as much as some of you ladies would like to hide it that it's in your blood too! Another reason to love Christmas, right? Sparkles and glitter and silver and gold and .... ok, I need to calm down. I'll go do that while you take a look at some of my favorite glamorous Christmas decorations. Enjoy!

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