Celebrate: Happy Birthday!

Yesterday while most of the world around her slept my newest little niece was born. She is a joy and I can't wait to spend more time with her. Heart full of love today!

December In Pictures - Christmas

*For this month's in picture I decided to focus only on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day - enjoy*

P.S. You can follow me on Instagram: @elizabethpfink

Christmas Day

Christmas Bells by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow "I heard the bells on Christmas Day Their old familiar carols play, And wild and sweet The words repeat Of peace on earth, good-will to men! And thought how, as the day had come, The belfries of all Christendom Had rolled along The unbroken song Of peace on earth, good-will to men! Till, ringing, singing on its way, The world revolved from night to day, A voice, a chime A chant sublime Of peace on earth, good-will to men! Then from each black accursed mouth The cannon thundered in the South, And with the sound The carols drowned Of peace on earth, good-will to men! It was as if an earthquake rent The hearth-stones of a continent, And made forlorn The households born Of peace on earth, good-will to men! And in despair I bowed my head; "There is no peace on earth," I said; "For hate is strong, And mocks the song Of peace on earth, good-will to men!" Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:  "God is not dead; nor doth he sleep! The Wrong shall fail, The Right prevail, With peace on earth, good-will to men!"

Merry Christmas Friends! May your day be filled with the ringing of peace on earth and good-will to men! 

Give: For the Hostess with the Mostess

Christmas is only a week away and I have one more gift guide for you. This one is an important one, it is for all the lovely ladies that open their homes up to others during the holidays. All of these hostess gifts are under $20 and can be picked up easily at local stores.

1. Serving Dish - I really like this Three Part Dish from Target
2. Slippers - Who doesn't love a nice pair or slippers on a cold winter night and With Polk-A-Dots the best!
3. An Interesting Christmas Ornament - Something like this fancy Humming Bird should do the trick
4. Champagne Flutes and a bottle of Bubbly - Perfect for a small dinner party
5. Tea Box - Even better fill it with your favorite teas, bonus it could double as a jewelry box

Enjoy all those holiday parties! Wear a pair of Christmas earrings for me!

Dispatch from Chirstmasland

Here it is the Christmas home tour, I know you have just been dying to see it! I did end up pulling together an advent calendar using bottle brush trees and jars. I love adding as new jar everyday.

As I mentioned last week this year I choose to do the house up in pinks, white, gold and silver. I also really didn't want to buy anything new and I knew I already had Christmas decor to pull off the look. In the end I did pick up a few vintage ornaments from the thrift store for 10-35 cents each, maybe $3 dollars worth.

For the table tops (dining room, coffee and side tables) I followed four rules; something brass, something pink, something glass and something white. Ummm I love that brass deer so much, I kinda want him to hang out on my nightstand once all the Christmas decorations are boxed up.

A few other little details come from hanging the wreath I made for my apartment door, way back when. Dragging out the pink light up church, also from my apartment days and finally gifts wrapped in silver and gold (and pink and brown bag).

So I'm all ready for Christmas, now all we need is snow!

Okay one more tree shot before I go.

P.S. You can see my tree and many more sparkly beauties over at Nat The Fat Rat.

Celebrate: Pink and Metallic Christmas

Here is a little sneak peek of what you have to look forward to on Monday in a post I'm calling Dispatch from Chirstmasland (catchy, I know). In the mean time, you can check out my Pink and Metallic Pinterest board.

Happy Thanksgiving!

As I run out the door to share a meal with 60 of my closest relatives I wanted to take a moment to wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving. I recently heard Ann Lamont one the radio talking about her new book Help, Thanks, Wow in which she writes about what she considers to be the three most basic prayers all people say; the desperate plea for help, the involuntary uttering of thanksgiving (she says that this prayer is really known as "thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you") and the often inaudible expression of awe at the created world. So this morning as I was thinking about what I would write to wish you a happy thanksgiving, it seemed better to take a chapter from Annie's book and in place of a list of all that I am thankful for (it would take all day to read) I wish you a day where you can give thanks for all the ways your needs have been met and you have been rescued from your trials and for every way you are amazed by workings of our glorious God!

Celebrate: Cozy & Bright Baby Shower

It is no secret I love a good party! And I really love putting on a pretty shower. I think it has something to do with being from a big family where there is always someone getting married or having a baby. It also means that we are all a little over pastel purple and baby pink (who isn't?) so for the up coming shower we're hosting for my sister in-law we are going for a slightly brighter pallet.

Okay start with the invite, I just love this orange heart "Baby Love" invitation from tinyprints, it is cute and girly with out being syrupy sweet. So with an invitation chosen I thought the theme to build around it was Cozy & Bright!

Step two, select a few decorations, I like to go simple and homemade. For this shower I'm thinking something like these colorful paper chains and a sweet cardboard tube heart (see also pompoms).

Next add a few fun details like heart straws and crazy sprinkle cake.

Finally find prizes or thank you gifts that people actually want. I like the idea of giving out tiny brightly colored cactus.

What do you think? Wanna come? Or do you think it is blasphemes to not us pink for a baby girl?

Celebrate: Trick or Treat Party

When it comes to Halloween I am firmly in the fun night for kids to dress up and get free candy camp. And I happen to live in a great Trick or Treating Neighborhood so for the past few years I have hosted a low key Trick or Treating Party. Better than a big costume Halloween party the Trick or Treat party is just about relaxing and passing out candy to cute becostumed kids!

Decorating your house is key. I am not really into creepy or nasty stuff, so I stick with Spiders, Bats and Orange Twinkly Lights. Also I personally find Spiders and Bats terrifying (especially bats, oh the swooping - though look at their cute faces) you can draw inspiration from the homes above the bats are fun with out being crazy over the top and I'm obsessed with the giant spider taking up residence at this townhouse.

 This year for my pumpkins (which I am carving this weekend) I am going to go with something like these sweet pumpkin fairy houses.

After the house is all spooky and fun it is time to get some grub together. My recommendation is to stay away from sweets (their will be plenty of candy), stick with popcorn, spiderweb pizza and a mummy or two.

For some added fun I like to have masks or fun headbands for the grown ups to wear while they are out walking the kids around or at home passing out candy. Just add some spooky music and enjoy your night!

So are you going to be entertaining any trick or treats next week? I'd love to hear about your plans for all hallows eve!

P.S. World's cutest bat costumes!

Merry Merry Merry!

While enjoying a wonderful day with my family I wanted to take a moment to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and remind us all of the promise that is fulfilled through the most wonderful gift of ever given. I can think of no better expression than these words from my favorite Christmas Hymn: O Come O Come Emmanule.

O come, Desire of nations, bind
In one the hearts of all mankind;
Bid Thou our sad divisions cease,
And be Thyself our King of Peace.

A very pinterest Christmas

I have been pinning Christmas-y things over on Pinterest for, well, ever, I think a Christmas idea might have been my very first pin. For almost as long I've had this Pinterest Christmas idea rolling around in my head. So friends today I share with you three Pinterest inspired Christmas projects I've been working on over the last month. To get things started I found this picture of a glittered village with custom dyed bottle brush trees (originally from here).
Then I added some "pinspiration" from this image (found here). I loved the jars so much that a complete idea was formed.

I started by bleaching, dying and spray painting some craft store bottle brush trees. I used this post as my guide to tree dying.

For my little houses I used the great template from Little Glitter Houses four via this post from A Field Journal.
And here they are all mixed together with jars, that I had around the house and my large collection of vintage Readers Digest books (I have never read a single story from one of these books, but they have such great colors and patterns on their covers that I find myself pulling them out over and over again).
For my last project I used this picture of Anthro bobbles as my jumping off point. I'm going to go ahead right now and let you know I'm not all together happy with how they turned out.
I picked up a six pack of clear glass bulbs at the craft store (I broke one so I ended up with five), for one, I just emptied a two packages of sequins and for another I stuffed it full of the Highligh fake snow stuff (it is really more like Easter grass). For the other three I coated the inside with paint and here is my problem; I used glitter paint and it did not coat very nicely, but I'm sure they will be fine hung on a tree.
Finally if you just can't get enough, you can check out my Holiday Ideas board.

Have you been working on any Christmas projects? Inspired by Pinterest or not I'd love to take a look so leave me a link and I'll check 'em out.

P.S. sorry my pictures are so crummy, it is just so dark in my house these days. I can't wait until we are on the other side of the Winter equinox and coming into the light.

It's beginning to look a lot like . . .

We have had our first real snow of the season, it was the perfect kind of snow, you know those big beautiful flakes that stick to tree branches and make the whole world look a little more magical. Love that, just love it. Meanwhile things are starting to look fairly Christmas-y around my little house I've put up my new white tree (squeal! so cute!) I'm going to share a few other Christmas project this week - for real I finally feel like I'm coming out the other side of this cold from hell two and a half weeks later so I think I can finally get my act together to take photos when the light is still good (so hard when it gets dark at about 5 o'clock). But to hold you over I thought today I'd pull together a little list of fun Christmas things.

1. Remember when I was all: "I'm putting together gift guides for guys" and then did nothing? You don't oh good, but incase you do remember and are still hoping for a little shopping insterpation, I'm hoping to meet you halfway. I'm not going to pull together the gift guides, but I will share the Pinterest boards I was using to organize things. So here, here, here and here you go.

2. While we are on the topics of gifts I wanted to point you to a wonderful gift idea, one that is so great I only wish I had someone on my list that I could buy one for. Not only are these Hearts4Hearts girls dolls very cute a portion of the sale of each doll goes to work that World Vision is doing the country that the doll's character is from.

3. And you know while we are on the topic of World Vision, if you are stumped on what to get that person who has everything maybe the gift of an animal, an education or clean water to a child in need. I receive the World Vision catalog every year, but this is the first year I have gifted anything. (And for a gift that would be good anytime of year, my cousin Lydia and I were just talking about how this little goat stuffed animal and the gift of a goat to a child in the babies name would be a great baby shower gift.)

4. The Girls with Glasses Show has put out another Chirstmas song/video this year, it is cute, but I still really love this one from last year:

5. Later this week I'm going to post my 12 favorite Christmas movies. The Flight Before Christmas will not be on the list, after helping my mom decorate and clean on Saturday my sister and I watched this movie, because we were just to tired to find something else. It is the worst ever!

Flowers in Her Hair

If you remember in September I slipped away for the weekend with a few of my closest gal pals. Craft Cabin wasn't just a chance to spend some quality time with my nearest and dearest it was the kick off to four years worth of 30th birthdays. That's right our little quartet will all be thirty by the end (well really middle) of 2014 and the next birthday is coming up fast. My beautiful cousin Hannah will be thirty on the 1st day of 2012. With her birthday being smack dab in the middle of all the holiday frenzy there will not be any January trips to lakes or long walks on the beach with best friends, but that doesn't mean that a low key little bit o' birthday love can't have some festive touches. So I knew when I saw these amazing flower "party hats" over on Oh Happy Day that they would be the perfect addition to a little Thai dinner party. Don't you agree. I'll be sure and post a few pictures of my creations in action when the big day comes. Do you have any fun celebrations coming up? Any plans to force your friends to eat dinner with huge blooms flopping a top their brow?

P.S. I have been working away on a bunch of Christmas crafts, my dining room table has turned into Santa's little workshop!

Happy Halloween

A few crummy pictures of my little house in all her Halloween semi-glory. I really did try, but I waited until it was to dark out so everything just kinda looks orange, thanks to the orange twinkle lights.
I'm going to take a few more tonight, when the actual trick-or-treaters are around, but then Halloween will be over, oh well. Better luck next year, hu?

Pom-Pom Magic

In late June we had a wedding shower for my brother Sam's fiancee Kelsey at my parent's house. Once we settled on a Friday evening event out on the veranda I was set on decorating with crape paper streamers and tissue paper pom-poms.
We used these Martha instructions and flattened one side so we could tape them to the brick wall. Over all I loved the look, but word to the wise sizing the pattern down to make the smaller poofs was not as easy as you might think. The key was fewer sheets of paper, we decided that six sheets worked best.

Plus once the party is over you can wear one as a hat. See how cute Phoebe is!