Monthly Archives: December 2013

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas from Portland!

I haven’t had this blog very long, but I’ve already been so blown away by the response!  It’s made me so happy to see the likes, shares, and repins!  It feels so rewarding to share things that people genuinely seem to be looking for.  I find myself loving the writing process each and every time I write a new post,  and I hope I can continue to provide useful, relatable articles through the New Year!

Thank you to anyone who has taken the time to read this lil ‘ol blog – it means the world to me!  I hope you all have a wonderful and safe Christmas and New Year’s Eve!

This year, Daniel and I will be spending the holiday in Portland, just the two of us (three if you count our cat, which we do!).  We were fortunate enough to spend Thanksgiving with Daniel’s family and Christmas last year with mine.  While we will both miss our families this holiday, we are also both looking forward to having a quiet Christmas to ourselves sans traveling!  As our relationship has progressed, we have been having fun sharing our families’ traditions and coming up with new traditions of our own.  That’s actually one of the fun things about getting older, I think, is starting to create your own traditions like your parents did when they were your age!  Since we’re on our own this year, it’s the perfect opportunity to try some new ones out (and see if they’re awesome enough to make a tradition)!

A couple of years ago we started making ourselves fancy dinners on Easter, and we decided to do the same on Christmas Eve this year.  I haven’t tried these recipes out yet, and I will definitely blog about my results after, but I wanted to share them now anyway in case any of you are looking for ideas.  We toyed with a few different options, you can see my massive amount of pinning on my Christmas recipes board, but we narrowed it down to either making lasagna/stuffed shells or a pot roast with a couple of elaborate side dishes.

We chose to make a spinach and proscuitto lasagna, and pair it with a simple salad and garlic bread.  As much as I really wanted to go all out with our dinner, we’ve both been pretty stressed out trying to get everything done for the holiday, social commitments, and work.  So we decided to take it easy on ourselves and do something a little easy.

Based on some of the reviews, I plan to cut out the salt because a lot of people complained the lasagna was too salty.  Proscuitto alone should provide enough flavor.  I also plan to use full fat mozzarella and ricotta cheese, mainly because I’ve used reduced fat in lasagna before and it didn’t turn out well.  I will also be adding more spices, herbs, and garlic and I’m going to double the recipe as well.  We like lots of leftovers in this household!

Also, because I’m a little cheesy, I’m totally going to make a Christmas tree out of bell peppers to top our lasagna with!  Oh, the things you find on Pinterest!

Some of you may remember that Daniel and I went wine tasting in Forest Grove, OR, and purchased a bottle of “Holiday Magic Wine” (gluhwein) from Shafer Vineyard Cellars.  We decided to save it for Christmas Eve, so we will be having that with our dinner!

We will most likely be purchasing a dessert to cutback on stress, but I’m still toying with the idea of making this peppermint bark cheesecake.  It just looks so amazing!  I may have to keep the ingredients on hand in case I get a second wind after our holiday party is over!

Even if we don’t bake a dessert from scratch, we will definitely be making homemade hot chocolate to sip on while unwrapping gifts and watching Christmas movies!  This is a great basic recipe – we will either add bourbon like the recipe suggests, or we may add tequila and cayenne pepper to make it Mexican hot chocolate!

Well, that takes care of Christmas Eve, now on to Christmas Day!  Truth be told, I’ve always wanted to have a lazy Christmas day, but never had one… it’s always involved traveling in some way.  I’m pretty excited to stay in pajamas most of the day and watch Christmas movies with Daniel, we may even go see a matinee that opens on Christmas day (which Daniel’s never done before)!

I wanted to have a fancy breakfast this year too, but didn’t want anything too crazy so we could sleep in and have a super relaxing day.  I grew up eating french toast far more than pancakes, and yet in my adult life I never seem to eat them anymore!  The up side of that is… it makes the dish a bit more special, therefore making it a great option for Christmas morning!  I’ve never tried this method of baking it in the oven, but I decided I’m going to try it, since it would be quick and everything would be done at the same time.  I’m also going to bake bacon in the oven for the first time, which apparently will produce perfectly crispy, no-mess bacon!  We shall see!

To top it all off, we will be enjoying cranberry mimosas!  It’s simply 1/2 cranberry juice and 1/2 orange juice.  I love how festive it looks!

Well, these were just a few of the recipes I found, be sure to check out my board for more ideas for your dinner and breakfast Christmas recipes!

I can’t believe Christmas is only a week away!  If feels like everything having to do with the holiday has been a scramble this year, and wrapping presents is no different.  I’ve mentioned before that I love to make gift wrap just as meaningful as the gift I’m giving, so I always put in a lot of time and energy when it comes to wrapping.  I usually find most of my ideas and inspiration on Pinterest (surprise, surprise), which you can see on my board.  There isn’t an extreme about of pins, so here are some examples of presents I’ve wrapped in the past.  Enjoy!

I sometimes like to hint at what could be inside the wrapping, and this present was a CD!  All I did was print out free sheet music of Jingle Bells onto some pretty resume paper I had, then I attached a few small bells to ribbon and tied a bow.  This was one of my favorite wrapping ideas, and I loved how it came out!  You can usually find bells at any craft store, especially during the holidays.

Daniel and I have always loved Disneyland ever since we began dating, and we ended up gravitating towards Minnie and Mickey (as most couples do).  I usually like to throw in something of them when I’m wrapping gifts for Daniel.  I found this brown gift bag at Target and wanted to make it a bit more personal.  So I found this super cute photo of Minnie and Mickey, printed it out on cardstock and made a gift tag!

Another year I used the same photo as the main event!

I often reuse wrapping from packages, such as brown paper from Amazon shipments.  This penguin tissue paper came in a pair of shoes Daniel bought from Penguin clothing company.  I thought it was way too adorable to throw out, and it ended up being the perfect size for a small gift I had!

Sometimes all you need is a variety of ribbons and bows to make standout gift wrapping.  I especially like this basket weave technique because of how clean and modern it looks.

I made this big bow with some wrapping paper scraps!

Here are a few more examples of things you can do with ribbons and bows!

I found this fun plaid wrapping paper at a 99 cent store!  I’ve often found great wrapping and trimmings at discount stores, and Daniel and I always take a trip to Target after Christmas.  The sales can be amazing, we’ve found things as low as 60 cents!  It’s a great way to stock up for next year!

Sometimes I like to choose a theme when wrapping, you can see here I chose brown paper and red ribbon as my theme.  This gave a very nice elegance to my presents, and I thought it could work for both men and women.

I also like to play with different color combinations.  I did green on green here!

I was going for more masculine colors when I did this brown and gold combination.

At some point during our relationship, coloring books became a “thing” for us.  One year I was giving Daniel a gift certificate, but I wanted to present it in a meaningful way.  So I decided to make my own envelope using a coloring book page (featuring Minnie and Mickey, of course)!  I used this template and it turned out great, take a look!

This would also be great for homemade cards!

Well, I’m happy to say that I only have a few gifts left to wrap, and I will hopefully be done before the weekend!  I hope all of you out there are finding time to relax amidst the holiday rush, and hopefully this helped you find some gift wrapping ideas and inspiration!

I’m sure many of you saw my original post for this project, but I wanted to re-share it with you all, because it would make a great DIY Christmas gift for your girlfriend/boyfriend or wife/husband.  It’s easy, quick, and inexpensive!  But it has so much meaning behind it, I know anyone would love to receive it.  I know Daniel did!

Here’s what you need:

• 2 pieces of Matboard, both at least 12×12 inches
• Mod Podge (or any glue you prefer)
• Sharp scissors
• A heart stencil
• 12 printed maps
• 12×12 picture frame
• Cardstock, or any thick paper (optional)

Obviously this project is all about the maps, so the first thing I did was figure out how I wanted them to look.  I did this DIY right before moving to Portland, so I was working on limited time and a small budget.  Because of that, I personally chose to use Google Maps and print them out at home.  I also chose to use Google Maps because I wanted to control the zoom of each map and what would be seen within the heart.  You could also use an Atlas, Thomas Guide, or look for old maps at a thrift store!

Because we were about to move from Los Angeles to a new home in Portland, I chose to include a map of the neighborhood we dearly loved but had to leave behind.  You can use any heart stencil you’d like – as for me, I didn’t have one (remember that whole uncrafty crafter thing?).  So I just searched for an image of a heart I liked and printed it out on cardstock, thus making my own stencil!

I stenciled and cut out each heart, and before I knew it, I had perfect little sentimental maps laid out before me.  This is the moment when I got really excited because I knew the project was going to turn out just as I had imagined it!  At the widest part of the heart it measured 2 1/2″, and from the top point to the bottom point it measured 2 3/4″.  This size worked perfectly for me based on 12 hearts and a 12×12 frame.  You’ll want to adjust the sizes depending on how many hearts you’re planning on using.

Next, I pasted each heart on a piece of matboard with Mod Podge and then cut out each heart again.  The reason I did this is because I wanted the hearts to have a 3D effect.  I used a pair of scissors to do this, and even though they were REALLY dull, it was still fairly easy to cut through the matboard.  With sharp scissors it should be a breeze, but use whatever cutting tool works best for you!

I tried to get fancy and penciled in a mathematical grid onto the matboard to try and ensure all the hearts would line up perfectly.  It…mostly worked.  The grid was totally wrong, but it still helped me eyeball them into the right placement!

I pasted each heart onto a 12×12 piece of matboard using Mod Podge (you will most likely have to cut your matboard down to size), and weighed it down with heavy books for about 48 hours to make sure the edges wouldn’t curl up.  As for placement, I arranged the maps mainly by how they looked, not by chronological order.  I didn’t want two mostly blue hearts next to each other, same with the green, I also wanted to make sure our neighborhood heart was kind of in the middle, and because a lot of the places we visited were in California and on the East Coast, I tried to vary those from each other as well.

After that, all that was left was putting the finished project in a frame!  I really liked the idea of a white picture frame, since almost all the frames in our house are black.  Apparently white frames aren’t very popular.  I searched for a LONG time to find the perfect white 12×12 frame, and still didn’t have that many options.  In the end, I decided to go with this frame, and I am more than pleased with it.  It’s not the highest quality frame I’ve ever seen, but it doesn’t look cheap and feels very sturdy.

So, here it is, my completed DIY Places We’ve Been Heart Maps!

Here’s a side-by-side comparison of mine and the original inspiration on Etsy.  What do you think?  I really loved how it turned out.  In total it only cost me about $20, easier on my wallet than $500!

Bonus:  The Gift Wrap!

I love to make gift wrapping just as meaningful as the gift itself, and I thought I’d share what I did in case anyone is looking for some wrapping inspiration.

All I did was take brown packing paper (which came from an Amazon shipment), and with a black Sharpie wrote the lyrics from our song in cursive (in case you’re wondering, our song is “I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You” by Elvis Presley).  Simple as that!  This was originally a gift for our anniversary, which is why I chose to use lyrics from our song.  That could also work for Christmas since it’s a romantic gift and a romantic holiday, but you could also write Christmas lyrics to make it more festive.

There you have it!  I hope this tutorial gave you all inspiration to make your own DIY Christmas gift!

I am so excited to finally say that Daniel and I have our Christmas tree up, and our house is all decorated for the holiday!  It finally feels like Christmas time!  We usually get our trees from a lot near our house, but this year we decided to go to a Christmas tree farm.  I mean, we are in Oregon after all!  I did some quick research and found three farms, all about 20-30 minutes outside of Portland.

One I found was the Sauvie Island Farms, which we decided not to go to because we went to a pumpkin patch on Sauvie Island durin the fall.  We figured it would be fun to go somewhere we haven’t been before.  Our other two options were Quail Creek Ranch and Plumber Pumpkin Patch and Tree Farm.

We chose to go to Quail Creek Ranch because it looked beautiful.  Take a look!

Unlike Plumber Farms, basically everything was free at Quail Creek Ranch (except the trees, of course)!  They provide saws if you want to cut your own tree, but they will also cut them down for you free of charge too.  They also shake, bail, twine, and help tie your tree to your car for free as well!  That was all I really needed to hear to make my decision.  I guess I’m a sucker for the word free!

They also serve complimentary hot chocolate and cider by a big, warm bonfire!

We decided to cut our own tree, since I had never done that before, and Daniel hadn’t in a really long time (ok, maybe Daniel did the cutting).  Plus, now that we’re Oregonians, we wanted to do it the lumberjack way!  There was even some snow on the ground, so it really felt legit!

Quail Creek Ranch has a variety of trees – Douglas Firs ranging from $15-$25, Grand Firs ranging from $20-$35, and Nobles ranging from $50-$100.  We found our tree after searching the farm for about 30 minutes, and we chose a douglas fir this year.  Ours was over 4 feet tall, so it was $25 – not too shabby!  Way better than the $80 we always had to spend in Hollywood!

Everyone at the farm was very friendly and helpful.  All the little complimentary touches really added in making our experience wonderful.  If you haven’t gotten your tree yet, I highly recommend visiting Quail Creek Ranch!  And don’t forget to grab a candy cane on your way out!

Tip:  They don’t really have much of a selection of tree stands, so you will want to pick one up before you go.  We got ours at our local Fred Meyer!

Here’s our tree all decorated!

We have a tradition of buying a new ornament each year, and this year it was a donut!  What are some of your traditions?