Mantelscape

For the first time ever, I styled my mantel for the holidays. I've had most of this stuff for years but I usually just toss it all up there. This year, I wanted to do something special. I pulled out all the white and silver.

Z and I made the trees. It took me about 45 minutes to wind and hot glue the yarn around the tall tree. I might add another layer or some color next year. We glittered the other cone with super chunky glitter.

The deer is my favorite. I got it last year at Crate and Barrel I think. I was with my mom in Manhattan and after seeing the Rockettes. We walked all the way up 5th Avenue (?) looking at the lights. On our way back down the next street (Madison?), we shopped for a long time. The jingle bell garland is from there too.

Last year I found the perfect cylinder vase for the jingle bells. The plate with the birch trees and single cardinal is from TJMaxx. They have the best holiday stuff.

This is a bit of the top. My vintage favorites mixed with the Martha Stewart Santa tree topper from back when she was just out of prison and wasn't too good for Kmart. Oh why doesn't she love us poor people anymore? I liked buying Martha stuff at Kmart. There is no Macy's near here.

Oh, and just so you know, I think I'm using the word Mantelscape somewhat ironically. I really don't take myself that seriously.   Edit: just realized the typo in the original post. Mantle is actually a correct spelling but not the more common one. Oops.

Holiday crafting commences

We are like little elves these days. The most fun for Z to help out with was this button tree. At first I was afraid to let her handle the pins but then I couldn't stop her. She was grabbing and sticking those buttons into the foam like a crafter possessed. It was awesome. She even forced her daddy to join in.

We got the idea from this pin on Pinterest (if you know the source, please let me know so I can link back). I found the cone at Goodwill and using it was a huge mistake. It's florist foam and already disintegrating and getting everywhere. I cut a circle of felt to set it on but when the holidays are over, we are going to have to pull all of these out and save them to do again next year. We'll use a styrofoam cone from Michaels. We used an entire box of floral pins from JoAnn's and that seemed just about right for this 12" cone. I have no idea how many buttons we used.

This garland was inspired from something I saw on Flickr (she used fabric). We have this little nook that is usually piled with books and a box of tissues but I cleared it out to make a space for our Playmobil advent calendar. I just cut a piece of fleece I had in the bin to look snowy.

We just cut scrapbook paper and glued the trunks on. I let Z pick out the order of the trees and dots. She glued the stuff onto the dots but otherwise I had to do the crafting. We used hot glue to get the dots to stick to the ric rac. It was pretty quick and fun to do. I think it fills out the space nicely.

We've been making lots of holiday decorations. There are crafts all over the house in various stages of completion. I love it.

Holidays

We have been in super craft mode around here. Since we don't have Thanksgiving at our house, we sorta pass that one over and head straight to Santa because Santa's got elves. Of course we are working hard on the yearly elf costume (see above: 2008, 2009, 2010).

I also recently discovered how addictive Pinterest can be and we've been gathering supplies to make lots of ornaments and decorations (email me if you need an invite). We already made a cute garland and some ornaments from tins (I'll post this as soon as we get a sunny day). Here's the board if you want to check it out.

The Christmas Tree Skirt Tutorial that I wrote up last year is still very popular. It's very easy -- just a few quick seams and I even uploaded a printable pattern.

I developed an easy mini (ornament-sized) stocking tutorial. I will share that soon. I made over 20 of these last year for Z's class to decorate. They were a huge hit.

Finally, I will be adding a week of posts to the Play Dollhouse Guide. If there is something you want to review or are interested in, please let me know. The info on the furniture and houses as far as scale goes has not changed. In fact, many of the sets I reviewed are still available. We play with ours all the time and the only thing that has broken is the refrigerator door.

The elf on the shelf will be coming to stay with us this week!

Travel Tips: Keeping it Cheap(er)

Day 1 of Travel Week is here!

While I'm not going to post about it as often as I'd like (I have a full-time job and only so much vacation), TRAVEL is super important to us. When we go on trips, sure, we like to have fun and relax but really, we want to see the world -- almost all of it. Unfortunately, we don't have unlimited resources so I try to get the best rates possible. And why start Travel Week after Labor Day? Because that's when the off-season begins and the best deals are found (most of the time, consider stuff like hurricane season, holidays, etc.).

So here are some "rules" for finding good rates:

1. Be flexible. Since I teach, we can only travel in the Summer. That sucks because it's super crazy expensive to fly to Europe in June. But it's cheap to fly to the Caribbean because it's so hot. When I search for airfares, I make sure to use sites that let me put in a wide margin of time so that I can select the cheapest times/days to fly.

2. Take your time. I spend at least 2 weeks searching for fares and doing research before making a commitment.

3. Be prepared. If there is something that you really really really want to do on a trip. Make sure you book ahead (if possible) and try to do it early in your trip. That way if a tropical storm hovers directly over your vacation rental for 3 days and washes out all the roads and the rainforest that's only 20 minutes away (see photo above), you'll have already been there, done that, instead of checking out a waterfall on the side of the road the day you need to head to the airport.

4. Find a good forum. You can get the best information from people who have already been to the places you want to go. Unfortunately, there is no one site for the entire world. You have to search around for some good ones by location. I found Tripadvisor to be great for Puerto Rico, TTOL to be an excellent resource for St. Martin, and I've long been a fan of the Lonely Planet's Thorn Tree Travel Forum. Spend some time reading posts before you start asking questions and get to "know" the frequent posters.

Sites I love:

Kayak has this amazing feature called Buzz that lets you see the top 25 locations and also the lowest fares to places. They have a new search called Explore that is looking very promising and I can't wait to try it out. We've chosen our destinations based on the cheapest flights for several years now and that method hasn't let us down. Of course Orbitz, Travelocity, and Expedia have their own features and you can decide which one is best for you based on how you like to search. I prefer Orbitz because they have an excellent flexible dates search (limit 30 days, but still good).

Vacation Rentals by Owner (VRBO), HomeAway, and Cyberrentals all seem to be the same website somehow but each (like the fare finders above) has their own little pros and cons. One has a better amenities limit, one has unedited reviews. Again, it takes some time and a good map. The thing about staying at a vacation rental rather than a hotel is that you're not going to have someone changing your sheets everyday or all that other good stuff. On the plus side, you will save a lot of money and have the use of a kitchen. We save a lot of money when we travel by buying groceries and I really don't need someone changing my own toilet paper.

Since travel is so important to us, we are as frugal as possible the rest of the year. We don't buy DVDs or CDs, we don't go out to eat very often, we buy used cars and rarely, among other things. I can't remember the last time I paid full price for a piece of clothing and I have extreme guilt when I buy a new piece of furniture. Right now we're living pretty much on one income but we make sacrifices in a lot of ways to be able to see little slices of the world once a year. Crazy I feel compelled to justify all that but anyway. One day I want to be able to travel even more -- like for weeks or months at a time.