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our holiday home

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Hello my sweet friends. I’m sure most of you are now ready to for the big weekend celebrating ~ arent’ cha? We have a little bit more to do around the house… but Christmas is popping up here and there in very simple subtle ways.

I took many more shots around the house today, from the outdoor decorations, the front door wreath, and a few more dressed-up nooks inside our cosy home… but guess what? I sat down to upload my photos and my card reader just went dead. Hmm…. the hubby is on an emergency run (right? do you believe that? ;) but until then…. when I do get a chance to post more photos of our holiday home  (or any photos at all) you still get a little peek into our home ~ and into my new kitchen…. [UPDATED : I got the card reader! ;)] ~ here are the previously missing shots of our Living Room dressed up just enough for Christmas.

{ yes, I still technically have blank walls since the reno.}

I’m still deciding what should go up, but since we were having guests over I wanted to create a ‘finished’ look. I think I achieved just that with a temporary creative wall feature just for the Holidays.

I took an existing wall frame I already had and hung 3 stockings on top with a combination of twine and organza ribbon for a soft and elegant but still rustic look. I also added a few straw snowflake decorations ~ and voila, it gave the living room that finished look after all. I can deal with the two nails in the wall later ;)

The kitchen still isn’t fully finished but it’s fully functional we are really enjoying it. We are still waiting for shelving, accessorizing and stools ~ hm… I don’t think we’ll make it before Christmas – but it’s OK – this was never a ‘rush’ job. I do hope you like the little glimpse – isn’t it very similar to my inspiration post?

My new love, is this pretty little dessert stand I picked up at the local thrift store. So very pretty and it keeps begging for more cookies to be put out ~ not wanting to disappoint the little sweetiepie, I happily oblige – it is Christmas after all, even a dessert stand deserves to be happy, right?

Ok, so there is more things I love, but who wouldn’t in this case love a warm cuddly wooly blanket to get wrapped around you? It’s a must. Is it not?

On our dining table at the moment, I set out a simple wooden tray with nature-inspired things. I have a cute wooden birdhouse I already had, and placed pinecones chestnuts and a few other seeds/ nuts I already had. I placed one large candle and then some tealight candle holders with red votives in between the decorations. And to finish it off a sprig of spruce added a splash of festive colour and completed our nature tray.

A few other things I love at the moment are pomegranates and clementines ~ they are to get eaten up but they work as great decorations as well.

And I do have to say that I’m really enjoying our Christmas tree this year ~ it has even more handmade little pretty things, I only bought the new horses (that Miss G was holding in yesterday’s post), other than that it’s decorations we’ve had for the last 13 years or so and just kept adding to it.

One of our very special decorations ~ pulled out for the first time this year, are these white butterflies ~ would you believe they are the same decorations we had on our wedding day? (our wedding décor post is here if you want a peek) I kept them wrapped safely in a box (yes, for six years) with a few Christmas docorations and brought them up by accident ~ my daughter saw them and just fell in love. She completely insisted that we have to have them on our tree! So there they are enjoyed once again thanks to one little girl who’s already been in my heart the day we married. She’s brought back such lovely memories of our wedding with these gorgeous butterflies – why did I have them boxed up for all these years? Somehow, the butterflies will need to stay around ~ they bring too much happiness around here ;)

So our Christmas tree, is loosing its ‘perfect’ catalogue look ~ we’re adding more handmade things, more special decorations, mementos from the past, and we’re enjoying its beauty not because it’s picture perfect but because it’s special to us.

There is more I want to show you from our little home…. stay tuned, I may update this post if things work out soon with the card reader ;)

In the meantime, Thank You for being here reading these words – I know it’s a busy time for everyone and it’s nice that you take a moment to check in ;)

I would love to hear about how you decorate for the Holidays. If you have a blog and have written about it, please leave a link in the comments below ;)

May you have a wonderful Holiday Season filled with Love, Happiness, Health, Hugs and Laughter! xo Ella


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holiday happiness

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It’s only 5 days till Christmas, and things around here are surprisingly slow and relaxed…. A good house cleaning, meal planning and grocery shopping is on the ‘to do’ list. But things are not really all crazy around here. I am enjoying the quiet slow-paced living with just the right enough energy to move along and get things done.

This is a bit of a follow up to my ‘happiness is’ post but in photos ;)

Our Holiday Happiness is…

  • watching Christmas movies curled up on the sofa
  • my girl playing with Christmas tree ornaments
  • yes, those cashmere socks make their appearance – they have to be red and they have to be cashmere ;) (I’m telling you ladies, it’s insane luxury (you should add that to Santa’s list)
  • my girl reading, or actually pretending to read and singing out loud ‘baby it’s cold outside’ my favourite song….
  • my little sister happy with her boyfriend
  • pomegranates and clementines

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  • daddy and daughter car racing on our new BlackBerry PlayBook (another early Christmas gift – and priced way better than the iPad ;)
  • crafting designed for the little hands
  • playing a few tunes on a cardboard guitar ~ Santa takes too long to come ;)
  • eating gingerbread cookies while playing dress up
  • and you know things get festive when my girl gets a sip of Coke!

So things are a little quiet around here…. it’s Holiday time and Happiness time.

There’s time for watching movies, crafting, talking, laughing, playing games… there’s no rush to get to the mall, wasting 30 minutes just to park the car, filling the shopping carts with things people don’t really need.

Things haven’t always been this way a few days before Christmas… we’ve joined in on the crazy madness of gift buying, experienced first hand that giving is not really all that joyful but more stressful. So, you know what happened? It just got to be too much! With a family of about 20 members ~ it got too much in the mind and in the pocket and also became too competitive. Then I started my cycle of health problems ~ I just couldn’t put up with anything anymore – not even Christmas with all its materialism. We had a family meeting, turned out a lot of people felt the same way and just decided to not do gifts!

It was that simple. We made up our own rules ~ gifts for the kids only. Because it’s nice to see kids open up gifts ~ that is the only real gift to us ;) And my husband and me still exchange gifts (although this year we’re doing an exception because I already got my gift – the kitchen! We also give small hostess gifts when we go to visit our friends and always have something for little kids when they visit our house.

Growing up, we celebrated St. Nicholas day on December 6th, with small gifts for all the kids. Then we celebrated Christmas Eve with a big but quiet family dinner and Christmas Day was celebrated with another dinner usually at someone else’s house. We had our tree decorated with sweets and gingerbread heart cookies to pick from and eat – those were our gifts. That’s how we celebrated before and that’s how we celebrate now.

Simply, quietly and happily. This is our Holiday Happiness!

ps. I find gift-giving lovely and happy and I really don’t object to it – it’s a beautiful tradition, but it’s just not for everyone, and at this point in our lives, it’s just not for us. We may re-visit the idea sometime soon and find ways to give with love. For now, we give time, hugs, kisses, home made cookies and share in making a few dinner dishes and desserts.

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I hope you are also finding ways to slow down and enjoy a season of peace and happiness.

How do you find Holiday Happiness?

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roundup : handmade holiday

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1. Pine cone garland tutorial on the Two Shades of Pink

2. Photo wreath from Country Living Magazine

3. Picture Perfect Pillows from Country Living Magazine (Photo: Seth Smoot) via Craftgawker

4. White Pinecones also from Country Living Magazine

5. Wax Pine Cones from The Magic Onions

6. Pinecone Bauble Tutorial from Silverpebble

7. Felt ball garland tutorial on the My Sparkle

I wanted to share some beautiful Christmas/ Holiday tutorials that I came across. I think these ideas are still easy enough to pull off for most DIY’ers ~ give it a go if you’re not doing too much this weekend ;)

10 days left. Yeah! We slowly bring Christmas decorations into our home ~ so this week finally some magic has been happening ~ oh and these twinkling lights and sparkly things are really putting me in the mood to add more handmade decorations! ;)

Are you making some decorations yourself? If so, please leave a link in the comments below (even from your archives), and I might do one more round up next week and I could include your projects ;)

Happy Holidays! xo

ps. sorry sorry for all these late pm posts ~ I have so much to share with you still ~ but I need a few extra hours in the day ;D xo

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diy : faux fur stocking

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Hello my friends. It is 10 days to go till Christmas! Are you excited? I am sure you are…. ;) We are busy busy busy with things around the house (after a kitchen renovation – you can just imagine the work that still needs to be done, yes even 3 months later ;) and then there’s shopping, and catching up with my awesome baby sister and getting to know her ‘mate’ ;)

That’s right, good times are happening ~ we all dressed up our Christmas tree last nigh while listening to Christmas carols of course, and drinking Cranberry Peppermint tea – that my sister, the mixologist, created.  And my daughter was very busy counting on her fingers the number 5 – which represents the number of people now living in our house ;) Fun!

But now let’s pause this excitement for a moment, because I want to share with you a fun little gift I made for my big sister, the one with the little boy, and the one who is very stylish and basically is a modern mama indeed.

Her December Birthday was coming up the other day (sorry, little sister missed it as her flight from LA got delayed), but it happened that same day, would you believe just a few hours earlier. Well, I was really stuck on what to get her ~ I saw some cool faux fur stockings the other day and I instantly knew she would love them. But wait, what do I get? A set of two large, grown up stockings? Obviously that would not be proper to exclude their little almost-two-year-old son. So I had an idea, dug around in my fabric drawer and pulled out some grey toned faux fur strip that I purchased a while ago (yes, sometimes I just get excited about doing some craft, get the supplies, and then they just sit in one of my drawers – so it’s kind of a normal thing that when I need, let’s say, faux fur, I just open up a drawer and there it is! ;)

I decided to make a little stocking from the faux fur and make a really cool modern stocking for the chic mama as a gift.

You can easily find a small roll of faux fur in most craft stores or even department stores, and of course by the meter in fabric stores. I worked with what I had and I was a little limited with the size of my stocking ~ but it worked out just fine.

Materials: faux fur fabric, (as much as you need for the size of your stocking, I used a 4″ craft strip x 1 yard and it was enough for a small stocking), fabric scissors, needle and thread, chalk or fabric pencil to mark your shape., a small piece of elastic or shoelace for the loop on top.

1-2. because I worked with a fixed width of 4″, I needed to add to make my curve from extra pieces. 3-5. mark equal parts, so you create a matching front and back, and cut.  6. pin front sides in.

7. stitch all around. 8. poke in the top and slowly unfold. 9. add a small piece of black elastic to make a loop. 10. all done.

Here are all the 3 stockings with the baby in the centre.  And then my little nephew already enjoying his fun new furry toy ~ before Santa will fill it with goodies come Christmas Night ;)

I would have loved to take credit for all three, but I did end up buying the two large stockings. Sometimes, being creative isn’t about the sweat and tears of starting a full big project from scratch. Sometimes my ‘to do’ list is a little much and then I end up disappointed that I can’t get through all my projects. I’ve learned to keep the list a little smaller as I get older but I still do create.

Give yourself a break sometimes, and if you want to create ~ yes, do create and make handmade gifts ~ but sometimes, be realistic and  just do what you can. It’s ok if you can’t do things from scratch, what’s really lovely I think, is working with purchased gifts sometimes and personalizing them somehow with either embroidery, or adding some finishing touches that really set it apart and make it special ;)

How are you doing in the ‘making gifts’ department? Do you make your own gifts?
Please share your ideas on finding or making the perfect gift ;)

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baking traditions

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The Holidays have zoomed by ever so quickly this year – or I should say last year. My goodness, see what I mean?  Well, there is a few things I want to share with you that is very special to us. One is a little baking session with the girls in our family. Well, at least it used to be girls – now we have a handsome little guy to help us bring some magic ingredients. I think the magic ingredients that the kids do bring each time is LOVE.
This time, the number got quite small, my little sister is living in Cambodia volunteering, my mom had to work, and the other ladies in our family don’t participate in our family traditions unfortunately. Between my sister and I, we had 4 recipes we wanted to pull off. Only 2 got done that evening. Which is still huge efforts with little kids making us work harder ;) We stayed over and enjoyed some morning tea with a few favourite cookies.

Here are the Recipes:

Folded Angels (traditional recipe)

Ingredients: 1.5 cups shortening, 1 sp sour cream, 1 packet of yeast, 1 egg yolk, 3 cups of all purpose flour, 1/2 cup icing sugar for icing, 1/2 cup of plum butter.
Directions: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Combine the yeast with the sour cream and leave in a warm place for about an hour. Mix the shortening, yolk, flour to combine. Add the sour cream with the yeast. Combine well to form a dough like texture (use more flour if you need to). Roll out the dough to about 1/8 inches and cut into squares. You can eyeball the size of the squares but we do them about 2 1/2 inches. (you can lightly draw out the squares on the rolled out dough and plan out how many can fit) To form the angels: cut the square corners inwards but not right to centre. Add a small spoon of plum butter into centre. Fold the top two inner corners into the centre (to make the head) press into the plum butter, and two corners from the sides to make the hands – press gently into the plum butter, enough so they stick or else they will open up when baking. Bake for 20-30 minutes (depending on what size your squares end up). Makes about 3 dozen cookies.

Gingerbread Cookies (gluten-free and vegan)

Ingredients: 2 3/4 cups gluten-free all purpose baking flour, 2 tablespoons ground ginger, 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves, 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg, 1/2 teaspoon sea salt, 2 teaspoons baking soda, 2 tablespoons ground flax seeds, 1/4 cup water, 3/4 cup coconut oil, 1/4 cup maple syrup, 1/4 cup unsulphured molasses, 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
Directions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Sift together gluten-free flour, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, salt and baking soda. In a separate bowl, whisk together flax seeds and water until it becomes slightly sticky. In a third bowl (or in my case I used a blender), mix coconut oil, maple syrup, molasses and applesauce. Incorporate the flax mixture into the third bowl. Once fully mixed, slowly add the flour until it is thoroughly incorporated. Drop the dough by teaspoon onto an ungreased cookie tray. Bake for 10 minutes. Cool and serve. Makes two dozen cookies.

Our tradition may sound like we’ve done it for ages, but really the first time we thought of baking together was when my Gabriella was 4 months old and it was her 1st Christmas. I felt stuck at home and my sisters thought it would be fun to come over and bake. We kept saying, how come we’ve never done this before? We have to do this every year!…. and a tradition was born.

Do you have any family traditions that you do over the Holidays? Please share, and if you’ve written about it (it doesn’t have to be baking) leave a link in the comments below ;)

Have a lovely day.

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