How to decorate for Christmas when all of your Christmas decorations are lost in your storage unit over 1.5 hours away

Long title, but you know how that goes.

Ok, so not sure if I told you all but... we went to the in-laws for Thanksgiving. I was so excited because when we first moved to Texas that's where we rented out storage unit, and I would be able to get my Christmas decorations out of the storage and take them back with me.

Well after we ate and before we went to see the new James Bond movie with the family, The hubs and I went to the good ole storage unit to fetch my WONDERFUL Christmas decor. We get there and all of my classroom and scrapbooking boxes (HEAVY, HEAVY, HEAVY) had been placed in front of all my Christmas boxes (I hope, we never found them). We moved a few boxes and peaked in what we could and couldn't find them. I was crushed, I mean REALLY crushed. I needed to then figure out how to make my home feel festive and Christmasy without braking the bank. Tough, but I clipped coupons and really hunted and here is what I came up with... so far.

I bought this cute snowman at a craft fair I went to a few weeks ago, $10. The mat underneath is from IKEA $1.50 (I love living so close to an IKEA). The candles and holders I already had.

Thanks to Pinterest I found a GREAT and super easy tutorial on how to make stockings, so that is exactly what I did. I made the 2 small ones first using their pattern and realized they were just too short for the ledge of our counter (since we don't have a fireplace), so I tried my best to create a larger pattern, and came up with the two larger ones. I need to iron them out a bit but I'm pretty happy with them. I bought the fabric at JoAnn's and it was 50% off. SCORE!

On our entertainment center, I bought some pretty greenery that was 50% off (and ended up being $4 at JoAnn's) along with the little items I stuffed in there (all 40 cents a piece),some lights from Big Lots $1.50 and the pinecones are from Walmart. They had a big bag for $3 and they smell like Christmas. The rest of the bag is hiding in the small rectangle basket on the bottom shelf there. The little Glitter Noel and HoHoHo signs are from the dollar section at Target.

The little mini tree sits on my computer/crafting table. I bought it at Big Lots for $7 and the star was also from BL and was $1. The ornaments I already had and bought on clearance from Anthropologie (my favorite store) after Christmas a few years ago. Under the tree are some blocks (my favorite kind of blocks... who else had them as a kid?) that spell out GingerBread.

Couldn't leave out the bathroom. I have a Beach-wood Whale that usually sits in our beachy themed bathroom(we are a coastal family, and lived by the ocean before moving here). Well I was at Home Goods yesterday and found this Nativity make out of beach-wood. PERFECT! I love it and bought it! I have two battery candles that hide behind Mary and Jospeh so it give a nice glow.

We are going to get a real tree, YAY, but are waiting until we can find a Christmas Tree lot because it's not the same buying it from the local grocery store.

So for a little money I have managed to bring some Christmas spirit into our home and I can't wait for more!

Where has the time gone

I have been MIA lately, due to well, me just not having the time, but I'm back in the swing of things.

I got a sewing machine for my birthday in October and have been obsessed in trying out new projects! Many of the things I've been testing out are Christmas gifts and can't post them yet as I don't want wandering eyes to see them. But as soon as I ship them out I promise you a MASSIVE, "What have I been creating post".

So, somehow my Christmas Decoration Boxes got stuck behind A TON of my school/teaching and scrapbooking boxes in our storage. Our storage unit is about 1.5 hours away from us, so when we went to my in-laws we thought perfect, we'll pop in grab em and I can decorate our new place (new since March) when we get back. WRONG, my loving hubby when moving our stuff to a smaller unit just shoved everything in, mainly because the boxes weigh a ton, and we weren't able to get to the boxes in the time we had to grab them, especially since we were in our nicer clothes. BOO! I did however find my box of ornaments, so that's a plus!

With that being said, I needed to figure out how to decorate for Christmas without breaking the bank or rebuying things I already have. So I went got some Christmas fabric (that was 50% off) from a local craft store and made some stockings. Thank you Pinterest for the idea.

It was SUPER easy to create with my wonderful sewing machine. The only thing I didn't like doing was cutting out the fabric. I need one of those cutting wheel things and the pad you lay down under your fabric... you know what I'm talking about. They are pretty expensive, so... until I can buy them, I'll just have to cut them the old school way.


Next Joann Fabric and Craft Store is having a 50% off everything Christmas sale that I'm going to go to and possibly pick up some greenery to lay across our entertainment center. We'll see how that goes.

Until next time I will leave you with a photo of Pudge sitting on the bed watching a video of himself when he was a puppy.