And when all the details come together....

you have a great time! This Christmas was really special for many different reasons; one of the main reasons was for the first time in a while Fernando's whole side of the family was together and wanted to all come and spend the holidays in our new home. We really had a nice holiday and are truly blessed.

we EVEN had some snow, just to add to the magic of the whole holiday weekend.

and hey what's Christmas without a pirate in the mix. LOL

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday this year and many happy ones to come. That concludes the Christmas 2010 portion of my blog.

Now onto the NEW YEAR!!!

Some more of the Details: Christmas Table Setting

For our Christmas Eve dinner I tried out two different centerpiece place settings. One I had been planning all along the first one you see here but the other I wanted to try out just to see how it would look. I think the second one would have worked well if I had had a white or blue table cloth but it was just not working with what I had.

This first table setting is very rustic and I love it. I had purchase a bag of pine cones last year at and after Christmas sale so they were muy cheap and then I got the round faces this year I used fresh cranberries and floated them in water with a tea light candle in each vase - totally worked and very easy to put together.

Here's option two - again could totally work but just not with the color scheme I had going. Also I had been planning to make pom poms with each person's name on them for everyone's place setting and have that be the place card but in the end that did not happen.


Ornaments could make a great place card and I may try that next year since I bought some clear glass ornaments I could work up something cool with those, like perhaps putting each person's picture in it... ohhh already planning.

Here is what made the final cut - I added a few more candles than I had previously designed and I think it looks/looked great. Simple yet beautiful. I was pretty impressed with myself.

The details in preparing for Christmas 2010

I'm sure you're all Christmassed out but let me back track a few days and go over some of the details that went into our Christmas this year. One of the things that Fer and I really wanted to do since we were having the whole family come to stay with us this Christmas was have a wall of stockings hung waiting for everyone that was going to be here. We felt that it would be such a welcoming statement to them when they entered our home. I hope they felt that way.

Since buying 9 stockings with their names embroidered on them or even just the initials could run a pretty penny we decided to purchase simple traditional stockings and then I would make the initials for each stocking... somehow.

I found in Microsoft Word a good "block type" font that would be easy to cut out of cardboard and work with, so I printed everyone's initials in like a size 250 font and traced those letters onto cardboard.

Then I covered them in glue and glittered them. :) Green for the boys and red for the girls.

Love glitter.

And here is the finished product. I attached the letters with fabric glue directly to the stocking. We hung all the stockings with good ole command hooks - got to love them. Hung easily and took them down easily.

So there you have it. Stockings for the whole family 101. :)

2010 Christmas Card in the Making

Once again Zico was the main focus of our Christmas Card, he's such a cutie and such a cooperative model. Here's a quick look at all the photos that I took and that it takes in order to find just the right one.

Here's the winning picture. I just love it, he's such a fluffy little guy.

Here's how the final product turned out, isn't it great. I ordered the cards from Costco which I've been doing for the past few years, for $15 dollars you get 50 cards plus envelopes - that's the kind of deal that works for me. :) Can't wait to work on our Christmas card in 2011 should be fun.

4 Days till Christmas

Stockings are hung, guest room is ready - 4 days till Christmas...bring it ON! Later on today or tomorrow I'll post a photographic tour of our home all decked out for the holidays this year and also some details on the stockings and holiday art.

Some Changes Going On

Last night I made some changes to our Christmas tree - I didn't like the colored lights anymore so I took all the ornaments down and put up white lights NOW I'm much happier. I also added some more silver and snowflake ornaments to the tree to help balance out all the red. Okay now (for the most part) I can relax and enjoy it. There may be one more change I need to make we'll see. How is your Christmas decorating going at home?

And just for a cutie pie picture update, look at this little guy. Could he be any cuter? In his little sweater all snuggled up in a pile of blankets. Looking very distinguished.

It's Getting Chilly Out There

Well it's beginning to feel more and more like Christmas time because of the very cold temperatures outside. By the time you read this post it may be even colder in the Savannah area - it's supposed to possibly drop below 20 degrees. INSANE - stay bundled up and keep warm.

Make Your Own Pom Poms

Well if you haven't guessed or figured it out by now I'm on a pom pom kick this holiday season. Here is a quick little tutorial on how to make your own pom poms out of yarn.

I used my handy dandy Martha Stewart Circle Cutter to cut out the templates to use to make the pom pom.

Here are the simple templates you'll need to use in order to make a pom pom.

Then wrap the template all around with yarn, you'll notice that Zico Biscuit was watching this pom pom making process very intently. It was hilarious he kept trying to grab the ball of yarn and run off with it.

And voila here is your finished pom pom. There is actually two more steps I need to show you - one is cutting the yarn around the template and the other is tying all the yard with another piece of yarn. Stay tuned for an update and a flurry of pom poms to hit the scene.

Have a great weekend, whip up a pom pom or two.

Pom Pom Wreath

Well the little Pom Pom tree has a buddy now - the Pom Pom wreath, don'tcha just love it. I can't get enough of Pom Poms this year. I followed the same procedure making this wreath as a I did when making the tree - just a styrofoam wreath form, lot's of pom poms and hot glue.

How is your holiday crafting going?

Holiday Subway Art

A few days ago I came across the blog eighteen 25 and saw this awesome Holiday Subway art that the gals of eighteen 25 were giving away for FREE, how awesome is that! I have been wanting to make or buy some subway art for our house and this is just a cute way of incorporating that type of art and something for the holidays in our home right now. You can find the post about that download here.

Here's how it looks framed in our kitchen:

and a picture of Zico Biscuit in his Santa sweater - looking at me like what are you doing?

Some Weekend Baking

How was your weekend? I did a lot of decorating, a lot of organizing, some shopping, a lot of watching decorating and cooking shows and a little baking. I was hoping to whip up all my Christmas cookies this weekend and freeze the dough for later baking but that didn't happen, oh well. But I was watching Ina Garten's Barefoot Contessa on Sunday and was inspired to try this pound cake recipe. It uses Buttermilk which was great since I had some that I needed to use up, but I don't remember ever using buttermilk in a pound cake recipe before. It came out delicious, not to heavy, very light and fluffy. We indulged in one and froze the other for use during the holiday.

Hope you had a great weekend.

Christmas in Savannah

Here are some recent pictures from the downtown Historic District of Savannah, GA all dressed up for the holidays. In a previous post I told you that we've moved and that now the Savannah area of a Georgia is our new stomping grounds and I hope it will remain that way for a long time. We love it here, it's a smaller town feel but has everything we need. One of the things I really like about Savannah is the fact that there's always something going on to keep one entertained.

This particular weekend we went down to the Historic District they were having a festival called Holly Days. In one square they were carving ice sculptures, in another (somehow) snow had fallen and piled up for kids to be able to run around in and make snowballs. :) And then on Broughton Street they had closed down part of the street and had an ice skating rink for people to skate on. It's just so fun and so nice to be a part of all of these activities.



I hope you're enjoying the holidays in your neck of the woods. We also managed to make a stop at Leopold's Ice Cream Shop for the first time when we went down for the Holly Days. It's a traditional old ice cream shop and it's delicious. All the ice cream is homemade. I had butter pecan and Fer had cinnamon. YUMMMY.
Have a great weekend.