Thursday, January 10, 2008

holiday wrap up



Well, we have had a very busy holiday this year. This is the first year in a very long time that I didn't fully particpate in the holiday shopping experience. I baked a lot of cookies, made a lot of meals and did a whole lot of the crafts instead.

On Thanksgiving day we watched the movie Elf and it really inspired me to want to create a similar atmosphere this season.
Because of our East Coast trip we really didn't have much time to really go whole hog into decorating the house but for New Years eve I got a second chance. Some friends of ours asked me to co-host a party. I really wanted to transform the main room of the party so I invited my friend Heidi over for an evening of snowflake cutting and champagne drinking and below are a few photos of us in action. I have to thank Wikihow and Highhopes for having such easy to follow instructions for making the whole project work.




After about 5 hours we had enough snowflakes and garland made to really make an impact at the party. I allowed myself a budget of $20. to add some shiny store bought garland and snowflakes to complement the handmade gems that we already had. I found boxes and boxes of garland and what have you at Walgreens the day before new years eve and get this....everything was .25 a piece! What I am saying is I was able to buy a ridiculous amount of garland and assorted holiday action for pennies. (love it!)

The day of the event my friend Stephanie and I showed up 8 hours early to start setting up all the lights and holiday items and after about 7 hours we were done. Here are the after shots of the decorating marathon.





I think it turned out really great! I have to give a big shout out to Bob here for letting me put a million staple holes into his ceiling. I will get over there this week to patch all of that. (i promise)


After the party I brought home a few cute snowflakes and some fancy garland so that Richard and I had a festive house for our post holiday Christmas. We exchanged presents and ate too much and had a great time. Richard surprised me with a Gocco printer for Christmas...the cool one from Japan. I can't wait to start using it. Look for awesome Gocco printed tote bags in the next few days. (thanks Rich! you are the best!)

Happy new year everybody!




3 comments:

charlotte said...

happy new year to you. the snowflakes are so cool!

Anonymous said...

everything looks great!
did u use a tutorial on those more complicated looking garlands?
Awesome job!

day at a glance said...

Thanks lottie! It was so fun to do I highly recommend it.

To answer your question Val by the time we got to the garland we were in the zone and were able to figure it out on our own. I think a lot of stored kid memory came in handy when trying to remember how to do it all. Thanks for your comments! :-)