Top Projects and Events 2011

Hi everyone. I wanted to make use of this year´s final post and create a Top 10 of projects and events.

Ready? Here we go:

1) I bid the bullet and started this blog in June of 2011.

2) I also planned my son´s Birthday on a tiny budget.

3) In July, I freshened up the color scheme of our bathroom with a bold teal.

4) In July,I further experimented with color in our master bath and bedroom.

5) In August, I created this graphic canvas art as part of the Pinterest Challenge.

6) I also shared how I created my blogheader using Picasa, Word and Pinik.

7)  In October, I worked on this time-out chair makeover.

8) In November and December, I wrote about several projects for an art gallery.

9) In December, I also got excited about this year´s tiny Christmas tree.

10) Finally, I shared a cute and quick way for creating present name tags on the cheap.

Now there is only left to say that I wish everybody a great start into the new year. I am excited to continue on with this new and creative hobby in 2012.

Christmas at my parents´ house

We spent Christmas Eve at my parents house with all of our family. 3 Days, lots of food, and lots of fun later I am finally getting a few pictures up.

My parents decorated the real tree with red ornaments, red and white wooden snowflakes and a few bells.

25 years ago, my dad got inventive and made a blinking fire for the nativity set.

The set consists of wooden figures placed under a tree-trunk. My dad created the little fire from match box sticks, parchment paper and an LED-light. It flickers on and off and I remeber we had it since my childhood days.

With Christmas over and only a couple of days until the new year, I am working on a best of post for the year.

Presents are wrapped.

 I used my son´s naptime today, to get all of our gifts wrapped and decorated. This year I got some cheap wrapping paper in a purple and silver color scheme, as well as some dark blue paper. For decoration I got white package wrap and silver decorative ribbon.
Then I had to think about how to add the receiving person´s name on each gift. On pinterest I saw many pictures where people used clothes pin´s for their projects, I decided that this was the way to go this year.





Here you can see the cloth pins I used to write the receiver´s name or a little message.



The gifts didn´t turn out too elaborate, but all of them together look nice.



As it is custom here in Germany, the gifts will only be under the tree on Christmas Eve. Therefore, I put them all back into hiding until in 2 days.



Looks like we are ready to start the holidays, especially since this year I am luckily not one of those stressed out people trying to find last minute gifts.

Linked up here:
- Frugal Friday

No space, no Christmas? - Kein Platz, kein Weihnachten?

Yep, that´s our situation at the moment. We are still in a very small space and there is simply no room to put a tree anywhere. So what´s an Ikea-loving girl to do in such a problematic moment?

Ja, das ist unsere momentane Situtation. Wir leben immer noch auf sehr beengtem Raum und haben ganz einfach keinen Platz für einen Weihnachtsbaum. Was würde ein Ikea-Narr in dieser Situtation machen?

Well, I went to Ikea. As simple as that. Not exactly with the goal to find a solution for my little dilemma, but almost on the way out, there was all the Christmas-stuff on display.

Ganz einfach. Zu Ikea fahren. Natürlich sind wir aus anderen Gründen dort hin gefahren und fast am Ende unseres Rundgangs waren alle Weihnachtssachen ausgestellt.

After going through all the different displays longing for my own tree, I couldn´t believe my eyes when I stumbled upon this:

Nachdem ich mir sehnsüchtig all die Weihnachtsdekorationen angeschaut hatte, konnte ich meinen Augen nicht glauben als ich dies hier entdeckte:

Source

This miny-tree is only about 20 inches tall (56cm) and very narrow. And it fits. Even on a tiny table or a small space on a sideboard or sidetable. To top things of, it was only EUR 12.99 (about 16 USD?).

Dieser Minibaum ist nur etwa 56cm hoch und sehr schmal. Und er passt sogar auf einen kleinen Tisch.

I don´t have to mention that I was thrilled, or do I?

Ich muss nicht schreiben wie sehr ich mich grfreut habe, oder?

Anyhow, I grabbed one of the Feijka-trees (that´s their name), a package with various small, red ornaments and a package with a golden pearl ribbon.

Kurzentschlossen habe ich mir also einen der sogenannten Feijka-Bäume geschnappt, sowie eine kleine Schachtel mit verschiedenen, roten Ornamenten und einer goldfarbenden Perlenkette.

Once home, my son and I started decorating our table top tree:

Sobald wir zu Hause waren, haben mein Sohn und ich angefangen den Baum zu dekorieren.

Maybe, I should say that I tried to decorate and my son ripped everything apart. After some fun and some struggle, we had the tree set up.

Vielleicht sollte ich besser sagen, dass ich versuchte den Baum zu dekorieren, während er alles immer wieder auseinander nahm. Nach einigem Spass und einigem Ärger war der Baum dann doch endlich fertig.

I like how this small tree already changed the flair of an entire (even if small) space.

Mir gefällt besonders gut, wie das ganze Ambiente eines kleinen Raumes mit einem kleinen Weihnachtsbaum geändert werden kann.

The golden pearl ribbon was a little too long for the entire tree, so I just wrapped the end around the tree stump in the planter. That way, I was able to cover up the fake "potting mix" and I added a little more bling to the tree:

Da die Goldkette ein bischen zu lang für den kleinen Baum war, entschied ich mich diese einfach ein paar mal um den "Baumstamm" zu wickeln und die falsche Erde damit abzudecken:
 

Can you see the pearls peeking through?

Hier kann man die Perlen im Topf sehen.

Maybe, I´ll add a pot around the base, or maybe a scarf or something like that.  I´ll see if I find something cheap in the next couple of days.

Vielleicht hole ich noch einen Blumentopf dazu oder benutze einen Schal um den Untertopf zu verschönern. Mal sehen, ob ich hierzu noch was Schönes finde in den nächsten paar Tagen.

Last year, my tree looked like this by the way:

Letztes Jahr sah unser Baum übrigends so aus:

 
Blue, silver and teal. I brought the little angel with me and it is also on this years tree.

Blau, silber und türkis. Den kleinen Engel habe ich mit nach Deutschland gebracht und er hängt auch dieses Jahr wieder am Baum.


Linked up here:
- Frugal Friday
- Show and Share Day 
- Christmas Tree Party

Est. 2009

 Finally I was able to finish another frame more my son´s gallery wall. This time, I decided on making a frame with his name and year of birth using letters available here. There are thousands of great choices and it is a lot of fun to play around with different types of designs.
I simply saved all the letters I liked to a folder and then pulled them one by one into a picasa collage.




My squares ended up a tiny bit uneven, but I like the outcome anyway. Next, I printed the sign onto white paper, which was cut to fit into another white frame. 
Not completely happy, I decided on making another mat from a green piece of scrapbook-paper.
I used doubled-sided tape to attach my sign to the green mat and reassembled my frame:
 


This will fit right in with all of the other frames I have so far and will make a great addition to my son´s room.



The frame with the Zebra is the one housing my new name sign.

Now I just need to wish  a Happy Nikolaus-Day to everyone celebrating it.

Linked up here:
-Frugal Friday
- Show and Share Day

Getting ready for Christmas … the yummy and baby animal edition

 Here is what our family was up to the last couple of weeks:

Meeting a family friend´s 10-day-old Bergamo-Border-Collie-Puppies.


Baking muffins with auntie:



Taking a stroll through the fields and getting the stroller stolen by wild cats …





Can you see the thief all the way in the back?



More baking:



And mess-making …



Ready for the reveal? Here is the after-shot …



Where you expecting any cookies here? Those are gone already. Next time I´ll have to remember to take a shoot of our baking-outcomes.

Either way, the cookies were excellent and the babies are clean again.
On to the next winter activities …. and something hot to drink … and more cookie-baking ….

Thanksgiving wishes

I would just like to take this moment to send my best wishes to all of the families celebrating Thanksgiving today.

Source

Happy eating everyone and enjoy those sweet potaoes and pecans ....

Now for the Key

 Since I am in full-blown gallery-wall-creating-mode, I have another frame to share with you:

I don´t remember where I got this little key from. Only that I found it in between all the stuff I went through for our international move.
Since it didn´t take up too much space in a suitcase, I decided to take it with me.



Together with a few other supplies, I created another little frame incoorporating the color scheme for my son´s room.



I just cut some more of the scrapbook-paper to size, then I added some blue ribbon to the key, and attached this to the back of the frame´s back support.



Here is the finished product:



And here it is among its fellow frames:



What do you think?




Linked up here:
Tuesday´s Treasures
Frugal Friday
Before and After Party

The Money Saving Mom´s Budget

Here is quick reminder that the Money Saving Mom´s Budget is available for pre-order on Amazon. I have been reading her blog for over a year now, and all of the tips I got throughout the last year were awesome. She introduced me to the drugstore game, shopping according to lists, meal planning and much more.

I am pretty sure that all of this knowledge combined in one handy book is great to have.

If anybody is interested in purchasing the "bible of household finances", here is the link:

If anything, it for sure will be worth to pay a visit over on www.moneysavingmom.com because you´ll learn a lot from Crystal and her family´s story.

Displaying a babyshower-invitation

 Next up for the gallery wall: Framing my son´s babyshower-invitation.

All I needed was the invitation, a navy-blue picture frame, and some scrapbook-paper.



I cut a piece of the scrapbook-paper to size:



And then I assembled the whole thing:



Here is my frame among all the other wall gallery items:



I am still thinking about what I will do next, but I´ll let you know when I get there.

Linked up here:
- House of Hepworths
- Before and After Party

Even more Art for the Gallery

 For now, my knit-scarf hasn´t gotten very far (zero rows to be exact), but I did start another project for my son´s wall gallery. First up, here are my inspiration pictures:




I love the simple message of this line - a few words are all that are needed.
However, for my son´s wall gallery, I wanted this to be happier and decided to switch up the colors just a bit:



Here is the my version as I created it in Word. I used Tahoma script in size 90 and bold. Then I centered the words and colored the letters randomly but still following my overall color scheme. 
Next, I printed a copy and went to the store to get a nice large picture frame and a block of greenish scrapbook-paper.



Once my art was framed, I decided I liked this project without the scrapbook-paper. Here is the finished product:




Linked up here: Metamorphosis Monday
                          House of Hepworths
                          Before and After Party