Christmas crafts with her BFF

We decided to get Ellie and her best friend, Harper together to make some Christmas crafts this year. We narrowed it down to one Christmas tree painting and some gingerbread cookies. We were dealing with toddlers, so we knew we couldn't do too much at one time.

 So...here's how the morning went.

Start with blank canvases.

Use them as skates. 

 Paint toddlers' hands and help them make a Christmas tree. I couldn't get pictures of that part because I ended up with paint all over my hands, too. 

 We had planned on having the girls help us make cookies, but they weren't very interested. We let them play with toys instead. 

 The mommies made the cookies.

We'll leave out the temper tantrum details. Trust me, you'll thank me for it.

The finished product! I love it! I can't wait to hang it on the wall!

Christmas Decorations...a home tour.

Once again, I'm doing a link-up with Kelly's Korner. This week it is all about Christmas decorations! I love decorating for Christmas! I'm always sad when January comes and I have to take it all down. I think the house looks so boring once the decorations are gone! Anyway, allow me to give you a little tour of our home. I usually do a little more, but with a 21-month-old, I have to be careful. She tends to be a little curious. 

This is probably my favorite area of our house. This house doesn't have a mantle, so I had to figure out what to do with this garland when we moved here. This was my favorite decoration in our condo, too, so I knew I had to use it somewhere. I made the flower arrangement, and I just stuck the poinsettias in the garland. 

This is our tree. It's hard to tell in the picture, but the theme is snowmen. 

These are our stockings. I love Eliana's cable-knit stocking! I just realized how messy her books are in this picture. That drives my OCD-self a little crazy.

This is our dining room. Are you sensing a snowman theme? I love these plates! They came from Kohls a few years ago.

This is my favorite kitchen decoration. It's a cute snowman plate holder that I got a few years ago! That's also one of my favorite appetizers on the plate. It's a hot pepper peach cheeseball. Maybe one day I'll post the recipe.

This is our newest addition to our Christmas decorations! This is our Little People Nativity Set. Eliana loves this! I am hoping we can use it each year to help tell her the real story of Christmas.

Finally, this is the tree in Eliana's room! It matches the pink in her room perfectly! I'm hoping to add some ornaments to it each year. 

Man, I love Hobby Lobby.

Are you ready for it? A post not about Eliana. Ha! This is my attempt to blog about all kinds of different things. 

Anyway, for a long time now, I've wanted to get new throw pillows for our living room. We got some hand-me-down pillows when we got married, but as you will see in the pictures, they've reached their end. They were fake leather and the covers were all peeling and getting pretty nasty. 

So, it was time for new pillows, but have you seen the price of throw pillows??? I refused to pay that much! My mom loves to sew, so I thought I would see if she could make some. She said she could, but she lives in Florida, and she's been busy working on other projects. Last week she called me and told me that Hobby Lobby sells throw pillow covers in all different colors! I looked online, and sure enough, they had some that would fit the size of the pillows I already had! 

We don't have a Hobby Lobby in our city, but there is one about 30 minutes away. I called them to make sure they had some of the ones that I wanted, and sure enough they did! So Saturday after naptime, the hubby and I loaded up Eliana, and took a little drive to Hobby Lobby. I love that store! I'm not even super crafty, but I still love it! It's probably a good thing that it's 30 minutes away! I also love that they strive to run a Christian company. 

So, this is what the package looks like in case you want to go find some for yourself.

These are so easy!!! All you do is slip your pillows into them! Seriously, anyone can do this! The best part...they were only $6.99!!! I don't even know if my mom could have gotten fabric and materials for that, not counting her time!

They look great on my couch!