Yay! It’s almost Christmas! I’m sure many of you have your home decorated for the holidays and today is the perfect day to snap some photos and share for Living Creative Thursday. This is a day where we share creative ideas, meet others in the blogging community and get inspired!

If you follow me on Facebook and Instagram then you might have noticed me talking about my niece’s new home that her husband built himself!

I got to visit this summer and take some before photos. I’m happy that Jaclyn sent me some recent photos of what she has done with the place now that they have moved in. For a girl on a budget and who decorated it all herself, I think she did a fabulous job! Their new home is gorgeous.

To keep with Living Creative Thursday‘s theme today of ”Holiday Home Tour & Decorating Ideas”, I’m sharing a few before and after photos of Jaclyn’s Holiday decorated home.

I spy an Elf on the Shelf in the kitchen!

One of these days, after it’s totally finished,  I’ll give you a tour of the whole house. The outside is beautiful too!

Here are some photos I took this summer of the home in progress. Can you believe they built this themselves? My husband is doing good to add a dimmer switch to a light fixture. We didn’t get the handy gene in our family!

This is the back of the home. Not too shabby.

This is the view of the backyard from the top deck.

Wrap around back porches, beautiful rolling hills, the country with lots of cousins, wild kittens, horses and motorcycles… I am ready to move in! Yeah I can work from anywhere, you won’t mind me and my crazy kids would you Jaclyn?

When the home is not decorated for the holidays, she uses yellow as an accent color. I love it!

I asked “What would you put on this wall?” a few weeks ago on Facebook and got some great suggestions. Please leave a comment if you have some good ideas.

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It’s school Holiday party time, your kids favorite time of the year! We have had so much going on with school musicals and other events that I wanted to do the easiest thing possible for classmate’s and friend’s Christmas gifts.

I absolutely LOVE the party favor bags from my Party with Amy Locurto line from Pebbles. I use them for so many things!

The light blue and red polka dot bags coordinated perfectly with my Free Printable Snowman Holiday Party Collection. So last weekend, my daughter and I whipped up some quick gifts of candy for her friends.

This easy DIY gift idea is not a lot of time or money and makes such a cute present for a friend of any religion or culture. Plus my tags are free for you!

Last year I filled bags with cookies and attached the larger tags along with a paper straw for milk!

Along with the two sizes of tags, the Snowman Printable Party Collection also comes with water bottle labels, a poster and cupcake wrappers.

These fun printables are perfect for gift giving or a last minute holiday party!

–> Download the Free Printable Snowman Holiday Party Collection.

Party Favor Bags and more Party with Amy Locurto papers can be found at Pebbles in my Pocket.

Want more printable designs?

I’m excited to now have a special section of my blog for those of you who want even more pretty designs each month! Right now, enjoy a limited time offer for an Exclusive Living Locurto Membership.

Click the button below to learn more about how it works. I’m working on new designs right now. I hope you’ll join the fun!

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A few days ago, my daughter woke up to find our Elf on the Shelf, Peter, holding an Elf on the Shelf look-alike cookie!

There was much discussion about why he had brown eyes and who actually made the cookie. Was it Mrs. Claus or Peter himself? Was it full of magic?

We came to the conclusion that it WAS Mrs. Claus! If Peter had baked them, he would have made his elf cookie have blue eyes just like him.

And of course it was magic!

I begged for one bite of the magical cookie from The North Pole.

She laughed. Then took a bite and laughed some more.

After a few more bites and me obviously bugging her with more begging, she thought about it for a long time.

It was the ONLY cookie from The North Pole. Full of magic and probably made by Mrs. Claus herself. What’s a girl to do???

She must REALLY love her mommy, because I ended up with an itsy bitsy teensy weensy corner of the cookie!

I guess a little magic is better than nothing.

Thanks to Elizabeth at Lizy B Bakes for making one more day of Elf magic in our home! Visit her blog to see more of the cute Elf on the Shelf Cookies.

Enjoy more Elf on the Shelf Ideas…

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Making Christmas cookies is what you do when you are stuck in your house for 4 days during a crazy Texas ice storm. At least, that’s what we did at my house!

Baking not only made me feel better after an exciting trip of mine was canceled, because the airport was pretty much shut down, but also entertained the family. Luckily I was able to reschedule my trip for next month and I stocked up on chocolate before the ice storm!

One of the chocolates I bought was a big bag of mini Rolo candies. After making Peppermint Santa Hat Sugar Cookies, I decided to stuff some of my favorite chocolate chip cookies with a Rolo.

Because I was down about my trip and several fun local Holiday events being canceled, I added dark chocolate chunks and red and green white chocolate chips. The more chocolate the better.

Chocolate always makes me feel better. Yum!

These were made with my super Soft Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe that makes the cookies thick and not flat. I love this recipe!

I thought adding holly sprinkles on the Rolo made them extra festive and cute. Too bad we ate them all up! They would have made adorable gifts. That’s if we could have gotten out of our driveway to deliver them.

I hope you enjoy this easy to make, delicious Rolo Double Chocolate Chip Christmas Cookie recipe!

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Peter, our Elf on the Shelf, surprised my kids a few days go after school dreaming of summer on the beach!

We found him lying in the sun trying to get a tan with sunglasses and a cute beach towel from The North Pole. After the big Texas ice storm, we don’t blame him for enjoying the sun when it finally did come out!

Peter also drank a little too much syrup one night. He had that syrup all over his mouth for a few days.

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Printable Elf Sized Sunglasses and Beach Towel from the North Pole

• Download the Printable Elf sunglasses and beach towel along with more fun Elf on the Shelf ideas in my Exclusive Membership Area.

• For use with the Free Adobe Acrobat Reader. For personal use only. * Members Log In Here.

Looking for another great Elf on the Shelf idea with a free printable?

Check out the Magic Seeds from the North Pole idea here with a free printable Letter from Santa.

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