Holiday Gift Idea's

This year I have two holiday gift idea's to share. The first one is a gift box that I put together for a lovely colleague of mine and the second one is related to all my holiday baking.

You may recall my gift idea from last year, so the first idea follows along the same lines.

My colleague is actually on the same training team I'm on and I consider us to be pretty good work friends. We laugh, we share, and our love for Starbucks seems to be growing together. We both have a thing for London Fogs (or Earl Grey Tea Latte's as Starbucks calls them), so I based her gift on that fact.

I bought a pretty pink gift box from Target for only $4.99 and then filled it with items she needs to make a London Fog at home. She is also new to baking so I included some home made cookies and her very first cookie scoop (she laughed at that one). Here's how it turned out.

 

 

The jingle bells on top of the gift is from Target.

The second gift idea was for Eric's daycare provider and included a lot of baking on mine and my sister's part. We typically have a baking day at my place every Christmas but unfortunately the year the weather spoiled our plans so we had to do our baking on our own. We made cookies, squares, chocolate bark, and shortbread. All delicious, since I tried at least of couple of everything :)

I then picked up a cute container from the dollar store, added some tissue paper and filled it with goodies. I also attached a really cute label I got from Sweet Metel Moments. Rehana (our day care provider), absolutely loved it and it was all home made so it's very touching for someone to receive gifts like this. I'll post some of the recipes we used soon!

 

The other good thing about these gifts is that they are great gifts for any time of the year and for any occasion.

Happy gift giving!

Holiday Home Tour 2013

Good morning, and welcome to our home!

I am pleased to give you a tour of how I decorated for Christmas this year. I didn't get to do as much as I had wanted to due to my husband travelling, but I am happy with what I did manage to get done. I hope you enjoy.

Front Entrance:

 

Our front entrance is all about simplicity. I do the garland and red bows on the railings every year and also add a wreath to our front door. This wreath is new this year since a leak in our garage ruined the other one we had. This one is from Target. I also added a nice potted plant in front, which is from Canadian Tire.

Our Living Room:

 

 

I decorate our mantel every year and try to do something different each time. This year I added these beautiful dear I picked up at Costco. My sister Shannon gave me this home made snow globe on Christmas day (she's very crafty) and it is a nice touch to the mantle.

Then there is our tree. We actually put it up by our patio door because it has the most space available. We then like to put all of the Christmas cards we receive on the bookshelf beside it.

I didn't get to do much else around the house this year, but I did manage to put a few small items in our basement. We have a big screen TV there so I just put a couple of items on either side of it on the TV stand. 

 

The first photo is a black decorative bowl with sparkly balls inside placed next to a picture of our nieces and a foam tree that Eric made last Christmas.

The second picture is a grey vase with sparkly floral pieces. I think placing photo's around it give it a really nice touch.

The last thing I'd like to share is our dining room set-up that I put together for Christmas dinner. It turned out beautifully. We had 10 adults and three kids over for Christmas dinner. It was lovely.

 

I hope you enjoyed this small home tour. I am already excited about going bigger and better for next year.

Happy New Year!