'tis the season...

Life is even crazier than usual during the holidays.  I'm not sure how much blogging I'll be doing in the upcoming weeks, I'll be pretty busy having fun, but I'll try my best to post a few fun projects.

I've got lots of homemade Christmas gifts in mind.  Here's hoping I'll have time to get them finished in time!

Right now I'm in the midst of getting this house holiday ready.  It looks pretty bad right now, but I'm hoping for a major improvement by the end of the week.

Yesterday I made the big trek to Ikea (with baby in tow) and we came away with some good stuff.  I'm not always a huge ikea fan, but I'm pretty happy with my most recent finds!  I didn't find the battery powered lights that I was after but...

here are the goodies that I did find!

{1} striped wrapping paper ~ this is just too festive to resist.
{2} striped ribbon ~ this looks like a larger version of baker's twine ~ I was so sad that they were almost out.  It might (almost) be worth another trip to ikea.
{3} plain brown wrapping paper ~ my go to for gifts all year ~ I've got some new holiday plans for this paper.
{4} twinkle lights ~ I was on the hunt for the battery powered plain strands which were already sold OUT ~ these little snowflakes are pretty cute too.
{5} tree topper ~ for $1.99, I couldn't pass it up ~ it doesn't quite match my decor, but I've got a couple ideas in mind.
{6} simple red striped kitchen towels ~ you can never have too many kitchen towels + they're festive + they'd be perfect to throw in a hostess gift!
{7} garland ~ I love that this garland is thin ~ It will actually fit on my mantle.
{8} tablecloth ~ vintage looking red and gray stripes ~ might have to keep this out all year. 

I've got a few more stops on my list, but soon enough our house will be ready for a visit from old St. Nick.