DIY The best Christmas Tree in ALL the lands!

 

Do we have the most aweome Christmas Tree in all the world?

Why Yes! I think we do.

Now, to be fair, I cannot claim all responsibility for this genuis idea,  it was the brother, who is currently visiting us in London, who looked at our brand new bare tree and said, "You have so many 'craft-supplies' lying around here - you must be able to quickly whip up some Tree ornaments! In fact, you should just Washi Tape your tree."

Now, it is NO secret that I LOVE Washi Tape. And by "LOVE", I mean - Husband gave me 100 rolls of washi tape as a wedding present and it was the BEST. THING. EVAARR (video reactions included). I have washi taped business cards, lever arch files, advent calendars, Save the Dates, Bridal party requests, and Wedding invitations, I would washi tape myself new outfits every day if I could. So when it came to potentially Washi-taping our very first "husband-and-wife-Christmas-Tree", ahem, of course.

It was super simple! All we did was take all my (precious) rolls of washi tape and fit them onto the branches of our tree! They look SO gorgeous all together and the tree looks beautiful, but also modern and trendy! If you wanted to get fancy, you could theme the colours of washi tape that you want to put on your tree. We just went ALL in with ALL the washi tape!

The only other decoration on our Christmas Tree is something my aunt sent us - which is a little heart frame with one of the very few wedding photos that we have (sad bride) and it's hanging right at the top of our Tree.

ME: WOW! This looks so awesome! We should decorate our Christmas Tree like this EVERY year! And each year we should get a bigger and bigger tree and buy MORE washi tape decorations for it!
Husband: um...

Whatever, I personally think it's a fabulous excuse to buy more washi tape.

A little while ago we posted some "cheap n dirty" Christmas decor ideas along with Michelle and Freya and this fits perfectly into the "budget decor" mix because I already had all the washi tapes - all it took was hanging them on the tree!


We have a string of lights on our Tree - and it looks so pretty at night...

I also wrapped Warren up in Christmas lights, because it's our first Christmas together as husband and wife - and isn't that what you're supposed to do?

Season's Greetings everyone!
Hope you all have a very festive season!

Thank you all for all the love and support in 2013!

x

Cheap and Dirty Christmas: Easy DIY advent calendar

A little while ago I got into a twitter conversation with Michelle from MY creative and Freya from Nishaantishu about some Festive DIY ideas. Following that convo - we decided to challenge ourselves to creating some "cheap n dirty" Christmas decor ideas. Ya know - for people on a budget who still want to make their nests a festive little cocoon.

We had decided to post all our DIY ideas yesterday (yesterday for me happened to be "one of those days" I spent most of the day out and wasn't at my computer longer than 20 seconds to be able to post it all - so am doing it today - sorry ladies for the delay!). Anyway - here is a very easy budget friendly Christmas advent calendar DIY!


What you need:

• Numbers 1 - 25 (I have a download at the bottom of the post if you would like)
• Advent calendar "activity slips" (also included in the download)
• 25 envelopes
• Things to "decorate" your envelopes
• Imagination and fun activity ideas

First print out your advent number and gather whatever you are going to use to decorate your envelopes - we decided to use printed out photos from our wedding (the ones we do actually have - that didn't get attacked by an EVIL DOG) and some paper print outs of "Christmas-scrapbook papers" that I designed a while ago. (Super cost effective)

(And also washi tape - obviously)

You could also use - Christmas wrapping paper, doodles, last years' Christmas cards ribbons or anything else cheap or collected from around your home.


Next get sticking - stick one number onto each envelope and then fill the rest of the space with your photos/washi tape/ ribbons/doodles/words etc.

  
Next print out your Advent activity cards - we made the calendar together on Friday night and it was such fun! We decided to come up with 5 "activities" together and ten each of our own as a surprise that we can do together.

The good thing about creating an activity advent calendar is that you can completely tailor it to suit your budget. The majority of the tasks can be completely cost free and you can also include one or two more "special things" depending on how much you want to spend. I can't tell you too many of our activities - because the ten I created are a surprise for Warren and the ten he made, I have no idea what they are!

(Above: one of our combined tasks)

Once you have all your task lists - turn the envelopes and activities over so that you can't see any of them and then put one activity into an envelope at random. Once you have an activity in each envelope arrange them all on the door in a "Christmas Tree" formation - (as you can see from the first pic). It helps to have a variety of horizontal and vertical envelopes.


As I mentioned - yesterday ended up being a bit CRAY CRAY - so we didn't even get the chance to check out advent 1! Above is our "advent activity" for tonight, number 2 (as made by The Warr). We will have to catch up advent activity 1 at some other stage of the week. But for tonight - we shall be dancing around our lounge to our wedding song.

If you'd like to download the numbers that I created for this calendar as well as the "advent activity" squares - you can grab them HERE.

You can check out Michelle's awesome Star Garlands and Cookie Cutter Mobile and Freya's Christmas garland too!

Also - I didn't even get a gap to post my usual "7 things Sunday" yesterday so I've decided to do it now -


7 AWESOME things from this week

1. The moustache is gone
2. The moustache is gone
3. The moustache is gone
4. The moustache is gone
5. The moustache is gone
6. The moustache is gone
7. The moustache is gone.

REJOICE.

If you'd like to share any cheap and easy Christmas DIYs with us - please do! #cheapdirtyxmas

Date Day | Winter Wonderland, Hyde Park

As a post "first market" surprise - The Husband had organised for us to go ice-skating at Winter Wonderland in Hyde park yesterday. I have never been to a Winter Wonderland and was absolutely BLOWN AWAY - by the MASSIVENESS of it all.



Our first port of call was a mug of steaming hot Mulled Wine because DELICIOUS. And our second port of call was another mug of steaming hot Mulled Wine, because OBVIOUSLY.

There is SO much to see and I can tell you right now, that after 7 hours there yesterday we didn't even see a quarter of it all. I have made The Warr promise that we are going back!


There are so many delicious foodie options to choose from - with quite a heavy German/Bavarian influence - lots of sausages, bratwurst and things with un-pronounceable names such as Schweinshaxe. We settled on a very conventional plate of fat-chips as fuel before our big ice skating debut!

Warren: Are you trying to hide my moustache in a black and white filter?
Me: Yes.

Ice skating was SO much fun- it made me feel like a kid again! And bonus of the day - I didn't fall once! (Granted, I was clinging onto husband's sleeve for the majority of the hour.)

   

yeah you guys! Look at me go!

How cool is this fake snow?!
I know. 

Am thinking of shipping a container-load back to South Africa.

 

We wondered around the arcade style games and markets for ages and then met up with some mates of ours for a drink and some nosh at the Bavarian village.

(Can't believe that it was so busy and such a massive performance for a Sunday night.)

 

Toast your own Marshmallows on this giant open roaring fire - 

we are DEFINITELY coming back to do this!!

 

Our friends were crazy enough to go on this ride - The man and I watched from the safety of the sidelines - with another mug of mulled wine. 

We had such an awesome day! Cannot WAIT to go back for more Wonderland fun!

Viva la Christmas Winter in London!

__________________________________

PS - full market post to follow - 

thank you so much to everyone who came to support - 

muchos gracias!

{Gift Wrap} Brown Paper and Prints

I was about to post some pictures of my Valentines Day Gift Wrap when I suddenly realised that I havent yet blogged the Christmas Gift Wrap I wanted to share. Fail.

I have two excuses for this:

1. The Warr and I celebrated Christmas in February because we weren't in the same continent in December. Christmas in February is different from "a belated Christmas in January" and it's very different from "Christmas in July!" It just throws everyone off.
2. Wedding. Wedding planning makes your brain a little woooo-hooosy. You forget about the normal functioning of life. You forget about things that you would usually have done. You think you have already done the things you would usually do. Your brain goes to mush and you have severe lack of sleep which inhibits normal brain functioning. But that's a post for another time.
   (and FYI, I totally spelt inhibits "inbihits" until I went back to check it. Point in case.)

Anyway,

Back to Christmas!

Boys. They are such TRICKY monkeys to buy presents for. 

Question: What can you get a girl for Christmas?

Answer: A lovely perfume, some sparkly earrings, things to add to her gift-wrap and stationery drawer, any fancy (read: expensive) facial or body care; lotions, masks, body scrubs, moisturisers, a spa treatment voucher, a handbag, delicious candles, pretty underwear, any jewellery, glossy magazines, make-up brushes etc

Question: What can you get a boy for Christmas?
Answer: Socks or a car.

hmmm.

A little while back, The Warr and I were wondering around a department store and we came across the most amazing store display - a little corner with a cozy couch/sofa next to a (fake) crackling fireplace, a warm thick throw over the arm of the chair, an amazing soft faux-fur rug and the most incredible wall paper that looked like the whole scene was in a wintery forest. 

Me: Oh that looks SO amazing!

Warr: I know! It looks so cozy!

Me: Imagine it with some delicious red wine! Or some delicious hot chocolate!

W: Exactly - and with an awesome game of backgammon on the go! We neeeeed this in our future house!

Me: I totally agree. But I don't know how to play backgammon.

Anyway after this little encounter I decided that for Christmas, I would get Warren a little collection of things to make up this little "winter scene" for our future home one day. So instead of getting him "things" I got him more of an "experience". 

First I went online and gathered some pictures that would remind him of the "winter scene" we saw. Most of these pics came from my Pinterest Boards - I curate a variety of "random" boards for these such things {warm and cozy; festival; summer etc}. You never know when they might come in handy! (You can follow my pinterest boards here)

Once I had collected and printed all the images I wanted I wrapped up my gifts in brown paper and attached the pics with washi tape in shades of wintery blue. (See what I did there? Smart.) I then tied some of them up with purple twine.


I also made a personalised card to go with the gifts which.. in case he hadn't made the connection with the (quite obvious) pictures.. also explained the idea behind the gifts.

I included in the "winter scene" Christmas gifts:

• a warm throw blanket
• a bottle of delicious red wine
• a DVD
• cute little cheese markers from Poetry
• a backgammon set 
• and a few other little bits and pieces

We decided to celebrate Fake Christmas at a Moroccan style restaurant called Doukan. The food was delicious - we shared a starter platter with hummous, dipping sausages, a spicy lentil mix {which definitely has a fancy name that I can't remember), baked cheeses and Basilla Fasilla - a sweet and savoury chicken with almonds and cinnamon in a pastry parcel.


For mains The Warr had Seffa Meklouba: a sweet and savoury lamb on almond couscous - served with tomato jam and a spicy lamb consomme. (lol. I don't even know what consomme is - I totally got that straight off the menu). I had the beef tagine... They were so yummy!


And I made Warr wear a Christmas hat in the middle of the crowded restaurant. And he did it cause he loves me. (And also, he didn't want to RUIN CHRISTMAS.)


Warr gave me some awesome stocking presents (yay me!) and one of them was an Absurd Word tabletop game. We played at the table. And everyone in the restaurant watched us playing games and unwrapping presents in our Christmas hats in the middle of February and they all thought we were very strange. Obviously.

And then we ended off our evening with a very scrumptious apple crumble  -

because WHY NOT?!

it's Christmas!

{and now warren has to teach me how to play backgammon}