Party on

Happy Friday everyone!

We have been busy working on getting ready for a Christmas party each of the girls are going to have for their friends.  It has been a bit of added stress during a busy time but I admit that it was my idea.  We did this a few years ago when we lived in Carmel.  I would really like to get to know the girls' friends better and this is the perfect way.  K is quite busy with soccer practices several nights a week, play practice and piano so she really doesn't have a lot of time to have friends over.   I have actually MET all of the girls that are going to be coming to the party (many of them at church-LOVE THAT) but it has been in passing with most of them.  So K's party is tomorrow and L's is next Saturday.  I know her friends a little bit better but it will still be fun to see them in this environment.  You learn a lot about girls when they are in a group, that is for sure!

Anyway, I thought I would share a few of the ideas I found with all of you.  The girls and I made small gifts for each of their friends that will be here.  I found this recipe for creating your own lip gloss.  We used the first recipe but tried the last one.  Because it is mostly petroleum jelly, we felt it was too slimy. We actually cut the petroleum jelly back to 1/2 tsp. in the recipe.  You can find the paraffin wax and coconut oil at the grocery store. I found some small containers at Amazon and then we added labels to the top.  

We are also making necklaces out of decorative stones I spray painted white. The girls are then going to paint them to look like peppermint candies. We are going to wrap them and then attach them to a black cord necklace.  I will take a picture as soon as I can.  My sample turned out looking pretty cute.  Then we are going to have a hot cocoa bar (add your own cinnamon candies, marshmallows, sprinkles, etc) while they do a small gift exchange. We end the party with the movie Elf or a game if they want instead.

My sweet friend Audrey is the master of holiday decorating and always shares pictures of her home all decorated for the holidays (and I am not talking JUST Christmas!)  She suggested I take some pictures so I thought I would share a couple with you. Our mantle decked out for the holidays.  I would really love something more Christmas-y  to replace my Greek map during the holidays. Mmmm...may need that to my list. :)

And then there is my table in the entry. That bowl of pine cones provides a wonderful cinnamon smell as you walk into our house.

Of course I can't leave without sharing a project.  If you are not too swamped with Christmas preparations, we would love for you to join us for the newest challenge over at Challenge Me Happy!  You could win a great prize from Artfull Crafts.  Make sure to stop by and check out the awesome color combination Annelie gave us for this challenge and the wonderful layouts by all the other designers.  I have to say I am absolutely thrilled about how this photo of K and my mom turned out.  We were at the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago waiting to get into one of the programs when I snapped this photo.  The lighting was terrible and the resulting photo was not great.  There was this awful yellow glow over them.  But thanks to my amazing Adobe Photoshop program I was able to really fix it up.  So here is my layout for the challenge.

Have a wonderful week and thank you so much for stopping by!!!!