Tacky Christmas Party...for two!

My bestfriend from high school is a senior this year so I hardly ever get to see her while I'm in college. Therefore, everytime I'm home we get together. Since I was in 9th grade and she was in 7th we've always had tacky christmas parties. However, the next year she invited all of our friends again and none of them showed up but me. They all had legitimate reasons for their absence and instead of being discouraged we actually had the time of our lives, just us two. I'm not really sure where or when our friendship started  but I think it was this particular party that made us inseparable. From then on we had our normal tacky christmas parties, but just for us two while we sang Shania Twain's "Party for Two" (below).

How funny is it that they swing on a chandelier, one day I want to attempt that same stunt. Anywho, fast forward four years later and we're older, more mature, and wiser...but we are doing the same exact thing. We bought (separably) some new (just kidding...thrift store) tacky sweaters and got together to fix a Hello Kitty holiday cookie house. 

Because we were alone we couldn't take a picture together so we settled for two picture put together thanks to picstitch.

My ugly sweater actually came from the back of my mom's closet, she hasn't worn it for years. I paired it with leggings, some santa socks (hidden by my shoes), and brown boots. I didn't add jewelry, I thought the sweater was loud enough haha.

Kinda wish I had done this funny sweater instead, I found it on pinterest and thought it was just the funniest thing I've ever seen. 

 Our cute Hello Kitty holiday cookie house turned out soooo cute. FYI- it's called a holiday cookie house because it's made from sugar cookie, not gingerbread. I'm guessing because they wanted it pink?

My life is made now that I found these straw glasses at Wal-Mart! I can't take them seriously I've nearly spilled my drink on me every time I've used them because they're so funny! In the first picture I made my best friend, Tess, try them. In the second is the actual glasses in the packaging, how cute is that little boy on the cover!?

Happy Holla Days!

25 days of christmas: decorate cookies

One of our activities for our 25 days of christmas was to decorate cookies. My brother didn't like this idea and my boyfriend was surfing the web so I did them myself. Before anyone feels bad for me just a little bit, don't be, I was pretty excited to be able to make cookies by myself. I say this because boys don't usually make or decorate cookies cute so I could do whatever I wanted.

My supplies: sugar cookie mix, condiment bottles, andes mints (for another post), vanilla icing, chocolate morsels, and candy sprinkles.

I got these cute cookie cutters at a local flea market for a dollar and I was thrilled. They are just too adorable; there is a santa holding a bag, christmas tree, star, bell, and gingerbread man.

Making a mess! I forgot that flour helps everything not stick to the dough so I had a time until I figured it out.

I love baking so much, however I can NOT work a icing bag at all. It always comes out the wrong end, or the icing won't go in the bag at all, or I just can't find all the parts to start with. I obviously needed a solution. On pinterest I saw this cool idea, why not put icing in a condiment bottle so it makes a perfect line!? Also, another plus is it doesn't make such a mess. The bottles are really cheap at Walmart maybe 90 cents give or take.

getting started!

End Results: people, santas, trees, bells, stars, and one candy cane.

Hello MTV, and welcome to my crib...

Remember when MTV actually had decent shows like cribs and pimp my ride, or maybe I just thought they were cool when I was in middle school. Any who, our little gingerbread house for our 25 days of christmas activities turned out precious. We decided to get the "Rudolf the Rednosed Reindeer" (the classic Christmas movie) kit from BigLots for $10 and put it together. However, coming from someone who likes to have lots of candy to choose from when decorating; it didn't have but two candy selections: sugar balls and gumdrops, gummy characters, and two teeny candy canes. I wouldn't recommend it for someone who has kids that are really into going crazy with different candy selections. Although the gummy characters were cool, they were just too heavy and fell every two seconds. But besides the lack of candy, it turned out cute!

Breakfast for dinner!?

One of our many activities for 25 days of Christmas was breakfast for dinner and the boys were so excited to pull this activity from their candy bar. I mean, who doesn't love breakfast for dinner?! Our spread consist of bacon, pancakes and syrup, sausage, and dad's self proclaimed "best scrambled eggs ever that grandma used to make." Boy was he right about that, they were great! NOTHING beats a southern breakfast, especially when you don't have to wake up early.

Who's ready for Christmas? Me! Me! Me!

I've never been so excited for Christmas in a while, maybe because I'm home from school all month. I wanted to cherish each day of December leading up to Christmas. As I waited for my Christmas break to start I went online and got enough ideas for each day. However, the activities are for my boyfriend (20), brother(14), and I (19) so I needed to make them age appropriate and exciting. To add more incentive to participate: I wrote each activity on a piece of paper, cut them out in strips, and taped them to fun sized candy bars.

 The list:

• ·         family game night
• ·         start a new tradition of making Christmas ornaments. Imagine trimming your tree when your kids are teenagers and looking back at those little ornaments you made so long ago!
• ·         Participate in Angel Tree or another charity drive where you and your family get a chance to give to others.
• ·         Movie night with favorite Christmas treats. Actually, Christmas movies all month long!! :-)
• ·         Drive around and look at lights 
• ·         Visit a Living Nativity.
• ·         Decorate a gingerbread house.
• ·         Play bingo with dollar store prizes.
• ·         Make a Christmas card for a soldier. (If you don't know a soldier you can mail a Christmas card to Holiday Mail for Heroes, P.O. Box 5456, Capitol Heights, MD  20791-5456)
• ·         Bake a Christmas treat and visit an elderly relative or church member who needs encouragement.
• ·         Make snow globes
• ·         Drive around and look at lights 
• ·         Hot chocolate and smores party
• ·         Breakfast for dinner
• ·         Drive around and look at lights 
• ·         Drive around and look at lights 
• ·         Have a cookie decorating party. 
• ·         Let the kids open a present on Christmas Eve -- new pajamas! Not only is this a fun tradition, but it ensures they will be dressed in cute pjs for Christmas morning pictures. :-)

       If you haven't noticed already, I don't have exactly 25 activities to add flexibility with our schedules. My boyfriend works, attends the nearest community college, and volunteers at our local fire department; my brother has school and basketball practice or game every night so we aren't able to do it every night. Also some of the activities can't be picked at random because the last one is reserved for the 24th and a few depend on town activities (for example, live nativity, and parades.) Lastly I have put "drive around and look at lights" four times because we can drive in our own town and the towns around us each night.

Burke's Outlet

I've never been to a Burke's Outlet but I ran across one during a day trip. The biggest excitement of my trip was finding these wonderful shoes.  

 These cheetah print high heels were only $24.99. A pair of these Carlos Santana shoes would run about 80.00 dollars and I got them for way less than half.

                        To find a Burke's Outlet near you the website's store finder is linked here.

DIY: De-potting

             Have you ever tossed your makeup and wished you could have gotten more product but just couldn't get it out. Urban Decay is a higher end makeup line found in Ulta and Sephora. They are notorious for making "Urban Decay Primer Potion" and their "Naked" pallets. Before, primer potion came in a potion bottle like in the picture below and it was the hardest thing to get all the product. They have decided to change to the bottle but you can still do this DIY with any makeup. You can cut in a tube with scissors and saw a plastic bottle with a knife. However, do NOT try getting into anything glass, if its in glass it would have come out.

Find a "travel size" jar to fill up with product. I just happened to run out of a MAC paintpot so I recycled the jar.

            Cut the bottle with a knife or simply cut a tube with scissors. Use the wand to get every ounce of makeup left over out.

The finished product. I would have thrown the primer potion away because I thougjht it was out. However, by opening it I quickly found that there was plently left! Cheap, easy, and saves money.