7 Days of Clean! {Day 5}

How to make your home smell like the holidays!

By simply simmering a few ingredients that you may already have at your pantry during this time of the year and your home will smell amazing!

Here's what I used:

- Cranberry

- Orange peel

- Orange

- Apple (sliced)

- Cinnamon sticks

- Clover

- Couple of my Christmas tree branches

Simmer and that's it! You can keep it and re-simmer later. Or you can even put it in a mason jar and re-simmer the next day!

Hope you like this 'recipe'!

Thanks for reading!

xo,

Marcela

PS: Due to a busy week, I had to change to only 7 Days of Clean.

7 Days of Clean! {Day 4}

How to clean your living room for the holidays

1. Dust from top to bottom, left to right (clockwise), vacuum soap, clean under sofa, fluff the pillow, straighten throws.

2. Water your Christmas tree every day to keep it fresh

3. Add festive elements. They can be as simple as a bowl of ornaments

4. Corral some gifts in pretty baskets so they are not just around under your tree

5. Lite a festive candle so your guest feel the spirit when they get home

Thanks for reading!

xo,
Marcela

PS: Due to a busy week, I had to change to only 7 Days of Clean.

Ornaments

Hello everyone!

Every year I make something new for our Christmas tree and I have adopted this tradition to give something to my friends so they can add a new ornament to their tree each year as well. 

This time I loved the idea of doing something with the clear ornaments they have at Michael's. I poured faux snow and a piece of three, just like I did last year, but this time I added gold dots to it and I think they look great!

I first tried with craft paint and didn't work, then I tried with a gold sharpie, but didn't like how the strokes of paint would show.  So I finally tried with a craft pen and I love how they look!  Then I put each ornament in a red box with green grass and added a lipgloss for my friends. They all loved it and I think they looked so cute! And some of these pretty boxes flew all the way to South America for the girls in my family.

You'll need:

- Clear ornaments

- Faux snow

- Gold Craft Pen

- Faux tree branches

- Ribbon

- Cardboard box (optional)

- Faux grass (optional)

Step 1: Make dots with craft pen on random places 

Step 2: Add faux snow

Or viceversa :)

Step 3: Add a piece of faux tree branch

Step 4: Add colorful ribbon

Step 5: Place some grass in the cardboard box, the ornament and a lipgloss

Hang it on your tree

Enjoy the view

And there you go, a super easy ornament that will make a great gift for friends, colleges, and every girl you know.  

Do you like to make new ornaments to your tree or do you prefer the ones that are ready to hang?  I'd love to hear what your ideas are!!

Thanks for reading!

xo,

Marcela

Organizing Christmas Decorations: Part 2

Hi everyone! Hope you all are having a great week so far!  I finally put my tree away on Sunday, so sad to let it go!

As I mentioned before I usually put ornaments in ziploc bags and sort them by color so that way I know exactly what is inside and how much I have... I've been tempted to leave them in their original packages but found they take too much space...

By accident, last year I bought Net-Style lights, at first I didn't like them but when it was time to put them away I loved them, just fold the net and put back in the original boxes!

I put everything that has to do with our Christmas tree in one box: ornaments, lights, tree skirt, etc. So that way, next Christmas I can grab this one box and start decorating our tree...

And I got other boxes for specific items.  One for Decorating-not tree related-items, table runners, etc...

 Another one for Presents: all sorts of tissue paper, ribbon, bags, etc...

 And one for Crafts: punch holes, glue, glitter, felt and everything to make pretty things...

And we are ready to put away in shelves.

'Til next time babies!!

Do you have a system to store your Christmas items?  Share yours with us!!

Thanks for reading!

xo,

Marcela

Organizing Christmas Decorations

Hello everyone! Hope you all had a great start of 2013!!  Now that the holidays are officially over is time to put everything back, meaning put our tree down :(  We usually do that on Jan 6th (King's day), so  I will start putting things away during the weekend!
Here are some great storage solutions I found on the web. I personally like to store most of my ornaments in ziploc bags, gallon and sandwich sizes depending on the size of the decorating item and then place them on a plastic bin.  I'll make sure to show you some pictures next week after I put my tree down!

This boxes from The Container Store are great for more delicate ornaments and love the fact that don't take much space.

Via The Container Store

Via Real Simple

What a great way to repurpose what you already have at home...

Via Martha Stewart

Via Real Simple

A special box for your wreath...

Via The Container Store

Via I Heart Organizing

I definitely need a gift wrapping station. This are great solutions..

Via The Container Store

Definitely this over the door storage is on my list this year!

Via I Heart Organizing

How do you store your ornaments and Christmas decorating items?  Do you put your tree down on a specific day?  Share your storage solutions with us!!

xo,
Marcela

Our tree...

Last Friday I showed you our little naked tree here.  During the excitement of decorating it my (almost) ten-year-old looked at me and said "Mom, is not about the decorations but instead about enjoying the moment while doing it".  I was speechless and could not say a word.  I certainly did enjoy decorating our tree and I hope it looks as nice as the time we spent doing it!

Since I can remember we've had a traditional tree with red, gold ornaments.  This year I wanted to do something a little different and went for a white theme. We used some of our old gold ornaments from last years and added some new ones.

I couldn't resist this red cardinals, aren't they cute?

The white poinsettia flowers I made using this pattern.

I reused little branches and added some red!

Pine in a bowl that I got as a present many years ago add the yummy Christmas scent to our living room

Thanks for reading!

xo,

Marcela