I’m taking time off to enjoy the holiday season with my family, get caught up on some shopping and maybe one of these days I will mail out my Christmas cards. Right now, I’m still trying to find some presents I hid a while ago and totally forgot about until now! ha.

Decorating a gingerbread house is one of our favorite family traditions. My friend Belinda makes us one each year with her secret gingerbread recipe and it’s so yummy!!

If you don’t bake, or have a friend like Belinda, run out and get one of those ready made kits today! We had an absolute blast decorating our house. Plus it took the entire afternoon and they never got bored or whined once. I know… it was a Christmas miracle. ha!

Belinda also gave me some dough. We’ll be decorating cookies today, drinking hot cocoa (even though it’s 75 degrees here in Dallas) and watching Christmas movies tonight.

I hope you’re having a wonderful holiday as well! Postings will be irregular here until the New Year as I’ll be digging through closets and looking under beds for hidden gifts.

Find more inspiring ideas for gingerbread houses here.

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Also, be sure to check out Printables by Amy! Find easy and affordable digital files to download and print at home or at your local quick print shop. Each product is custom designed by Amy, a professional graphic designer. Amy makes do-it-yourself projects a breeze!

Kate from Centsational Girl gave her step-daughter a DIY room make-over. You just got to see it! Here are a few sneak peak photos… don’t want to ruin the nice surprise! WOW!

Go visit her before and after photos here. I wish I had this room! It’s sure giving me inspiration for my daughter’s big girl room.

Be sure to join Amy on Facebook for more fun!
Also, be sure to check out Printables by Amy! Find easy and affordable digital files to download and print at home or at your local quick print shop. Each product is custom designed by Amy, a professional graphic designer. Amy makes do-it-yourself projects a breeze!

I’m happy to introduce you to Emily.

Emily is a young mom of two adorable children and has a love of crafting, photography, decorating and enjoying the simple life. She blogs at Remodeling This Life and if you haven’t read her beautifully written posts about everyday living, you need to head over there right after reading this post! She always inspires me:-)

Now I’ll hand it over to Emily and her awesome idea!

DIY Wall Art

I found myself armed with an old canvas, lots of scrapbook paper and some mod podge so I decided to make some wall art for my daughter’s room. I wanted to do something whimsical and fun but my 5 year old can draw better than I can, so I had to find something online to help me. I discovered these templates at Martha Stewart’s website. There was one for an owl and one for an elephant.

We all know Amy loves owls, and you don’t know this, but I will tell you now that I love elephants. So it seemed the perfect project to do and share here today.

This could not be easier to do. The craft at Martha Stewart called for using art board. I had canvases so I used those instead. You can get canvases at goodwill usually because people paint on them, hate the painting and then give it away. It doesn’t matter if there is something ugly painted on the canvas. You are covering it all up and making it new again.

1. I started by putting scrapbook paper as my background. Had these been blank canvases, I wouldn’t have had to do that and they’d look a little less busy, but that’s okay.
2. Then I used the templates that I linked to above to cut out my owl and elephant parts. If you are smart, which I am not, your animals won’t be backwards when you do this. Mine were, but that’s okay. My elephant is facing the wrong way. You probably never would’ve known if I hadn’t told you.
3. When you have all your parts, start laying them out how you want them, then put mod podge on the back of each piece, then mod podge over the top of it so it’s secured to your canvas forever.
4. Now you just have to do a couple coats of mod podge over the whole thing and let it dry.

In less than an hour, you’ll have cute art to hang in your child’s room!

Thanks Emily! I love the owl!! Be sure to visit Emily at Remodeling This Life for more inspiration.

You might also like:

• Indoor Fun With Edible Paint
• Homemade Gift Bag – Sewing Craft
• 5 Chalkboard Paint Crafts for $2 or Less
• 6 Crafty Spring Ideas

Be sure to join Amy on Facebook for more fun!
Also, be sure to check out Printables by Amy! Find easy and affordable digital files to download and print at home or at your local quick print shop. Each product is custom designed by Amy, a professional graphic designer. Amy makes do-it-yourself projects a breeze!

I love meeting up with other bloggers and have made some wonderful connections with local Dallas girls!

A while ago, Laurie of Tip Junkie and Holly of  June Cleaver Nirvana hosted a DFW blogger meet-up at Holly’s home. Little did we know Holly is a gifted decorator with an insanely gorgeous house for us all to oooh and ahhh over!!!

Here we are seated around her gigantic round dining room table. Don’t you just love the curved couches?

After dinner, we got the grand tour! Thanks Holly for opening up your beautiful home to us. You are one talented lady! I want a house like yours when I grow up:-)

Okay, now go take the tour! You will be so inspired by Holly’s creativity. She’s amazing!!!

Click a photo to browse through the slide show or click on “View with PicLens”.

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[View with PicLens]

I hope you enjoyed touring this home as much as I did! To see more of Holly’s home visit this post about our DFW meet-up.

Be sure to join Amy on Facebook for more fun!
Also, be sure to check out Printables by Amy! Find easy and affordable digital files to download and print at home or at your local quick print shop. Each product is custom designed by Amy, a professional graphic designer. Amy makes do-it-yourself projects a breeze!

In celebration of my blog birthday week, I thought I’d bring back some of my favorite posts with easy tips! Enjoy a blast from my past…

Decorating with fruit

White Sky Photoshop Tutorial

Easy to Roll Out Pie Crust

Homemade Play Dough – A Good Summer Bordom Buster

Time Saver Tools for Blogging & Social Media

Visit Works for Me Wednesday for all kinds of other great tips!!

Be sure to join Amy on Facebook for more fun!
Also, be sure to check out Printables by Amy! Find easy and affordable digital files to download and print at home or at your local quick print shop. Each product is custom designed by Amy, a professional graphic designer. Amy makes do-it-yourself projects a breeze!