Lovelies in my Life : Decorated for Christmas {+ a DIY}

I thought I'd share my recent DIY attempt, a ornament wreath. I'd pinned several of these wreaths recently and thought they were just so gorgeous and surely had to be simple enough to create. I picked up this wreath form from Goodwill, though it had some hideous attachments at the time that I quickly pulled off (just $1 though). And then I had a good collection of pink and white ornament balls from many moons ago (pre-kids) that I thought would be perfect for this project.

Instructions:

Hot glue the ornaments in a circle, starting with the smaller balls in the inside of the wreath. Continue with a line that lays gently against your inner circle. Finally, add a circle of ornaments to the outside. And you're done! Easy as pie.

Seeing as it was a bit of a crafty morning with a couple of us girls, I thought I'd share this darling pom pom wreath that our friend Callista made to hang in the window of her kid's bedroom. Isn't that cute?

And while I was photographing the front door, I thought I'd continue around the house and share how we've decked our halls this year.

Oh Christmas tree. Did you ever fall asleep next to those twinkling lights night after night? In high school, I eventually decided to string twinkle lights around the top of my 4 poster bed cause it was just too divine to enjoy for only one month out of the year. Christmas in America was so different to what we experienced as kids. So exciting! Our Christmas was in the summer in South Africa, celebrated around the pool. We put up a tree just like we do here, except that Father Christmas came instead of Santa and we wore the most ridiculous paper hats during our Christmas lunch. Made for plenty of great pictures though! And we opened crackers with our lunch too (here's a wonderful example of what these are and why we did it at all). But there was less of a build up to Christmas day, I suppose. I remember our first Christmas in Tulsa, attending plays and singing Christmas trees, going to parties that featured carolers which serenaded us while we dined, hand bell ensembles at church and those fantastic Rhema lights! It was all so extravagant and so unreal. Not to mention the department stores ... those were new to us! The fancy decorations that filled the malls ... it felt like a movie come to life. Our experiences now are a little simpler but still absolutely thrilling. Especially when you have your little boy's hand in your own, eyes lit up as he experiences it all with you. I'm not sure if I'll ever feel completely "adult" when it comes to celebrating Christmas. I think I get as carried away with it all as my little ones do. :)