Merry Christmas!

Our 2012 Christmas Card

I had the hardest time finding a card meant for peeps who are expecting on the usual sites:  Snapfish, Shutterfly, Tiny Prints, etc, so I decided to just make our own.  Enter PicMonkey with its collage feature. I made a 3-frame collage with our picture in the center, and their background print in the other two frames, saved that and uploaded again to the regular picture editing site to add in text and a little overlay in the corner, and voila, a Christmas Card made just for us.

Merry Christmas y'all!

Purely Ornamental

So...I have a confession.  I'm kind of in love with our Christmas card.

I mean, right?  We used Shutterfly to make our cards and were so pleased with how they turned out.  And we went with wedding pics for our Christmas cards because

1. The pictures are awesome, not gonna lie.
2. It was pretty much the biggest thing that happened to us this year.  Obvi.
3. A lot of our guests couldn't make it due to a hurricane showing up the same weekend (another story for another day), so we had a lot of requests for pictures.  Ask and ye shall receive, y'all.

So that being said, I was a little sad today while taking down our decorations, since I also had to take down our Christmas Card display, including our first card.  I know it is something we'll always want to remember, but what could I do that would be better than wrapping it up with all of the other 2011 cards?

It was then that I remembered some inspiration from one of my favorite wedding websites...Weddingbee!  It's basically crack for any bride planning a wedding, and during our engagement I was always jonesin' for mah 'bee fix.  Part of the my self-prescribed treatment for planning withdrawal is to continue to visit weddingbee on occasion, especially to read a post by a fellow recently-wed lady.  It was in such a treatment session I saw this honey of an idea:

Making an ornament with mementos from your wedding!  This is still something I'd still like to do but today I decided to just make an ornament from our beloved Christmas card.  And it was easy like Sunday morning.

You can buy these empty glass ornaments at any craft store.  I got mine at AC Moore for $3 for a box of 6.  

And the directions are right on the back!  (I love how they have to state that the "anything you like" is not included.)

Then I just cut up our card into sections, rolled the sections up so they would fit through the ornament opening, added some ribbon, and put the top on.  The final product was this:

Now we'll be able to look back on our card every year when we put our ornaments up on the tree.  Now I'm kind of in love with this ornament.  One last Merry Christmas from the Walters!

Two UNC ornaments in the background, too, gotta love it.

Because it's still Christmas until Epiphany

That's what Betsy (my mom) always told me.  We kept our decorations up and turned our Christmas lights on all the way until January 6th every year because you know why?  It's still Christmas until Epiphany.  The twelve days of Christmas isn't just a song, people.  As such, while not specifically mentioned by my mother as a rule of the holidays, I am still allowed to make a Christmas project post today. 

This being our first married Christmas, we received quite the influx of cards, much more than our mantle...okay, not mantle since we don't have a fireplace, but ledge of our of stained glass window could hold.  I wanted a better way to display the cards so we could get their full effect and not look like a hot mess piled on the window ledge.  Any ideas, Martha?

Ooh, splendid.  Where do you come up with them?  However, we don't yet have a decorative mirror downstairs (not to mention a that buffet table I still haven't made out of matchbooks).

Nope, I needed something else but with high visibility so we could enjoy seeing all the faces on the cards on a regular basis.  And then I had...well, I just can't help myself on this one...an epiphany.  The downstairs bathroom door!  Outside of the door, though, don't be weird.

With also a lack of tinsel garland, I went with what was still sitting out from wrapping presents, good old ribbon.  And I didn't want to punch holes in my cards so I just used mini clothespins that are about $.99 a bag at the craft store.  Here were my supplies: 

Why, yes, that would be a UNC magnet on our fridge.  Go Heels!

• Scissors
• Tape
• Ribbon
• Clothespins

I just cut a long piece of ribbon and wrapped it around the bathroom door, taping it a few places here and there so the weight of the cards wouldn't bring it down.  And then I just secured each card with a clothespin. 

Voila, the final product:

Our Christmas card:



Wedding pics by the fab Rachel Barker at Millie Holloman Photography



Not bad, right, Martha?  Well, it was basically free and super easy and didn't end up falling off the wall in a pile like my other previous card display attempts so I am one satisfied Tar Heel. 

Happy Epiphany to all! 

Getting my link on:

IHeart Organizing