DIY Christmas Decoration

 

My room has been completely barren of decorations (other than Day of the Dead and Halloween themed ones I will be keeping up all your round), and I needed a little bit of Christmas, so I decided to make something I could fit on my dresser to add some holiday festivity.

 

 

 

 

 

What you'll need:

1. Cardboard

2. Wrapping paper (four different designs)

3. Scissors and glue

4. Pencils and scrap paper

 

 

Fold a piece of scrap paper in half and draw and cut out a pine tree shape.  (Fun Fact: I used a page from an old Philosophy paper). Use this to outline the shape onto two pieces of cardboard.

 

 

 

 

 

Cut out the shapes...

 

To get the tree to stand up, you need to cut dividers.  One should be cut straight down the center leaving a small amount uncut and vise versa for the second piece.

 

Cut the shapes onto wrapping paper, making sure to do two of each shape.

 

Take the paper and glue it onto the cardboard.

 

 

 

Slide the pieces together, and you now have a multi-sided Christmas decoration!

 

 

 

Thanks for reading! Come back everyday until the 25th to celebrate Blogmas with me!

Unique Gift Ideas

Not everyone has the time to make a homemade gift, and Christmas is only twelve days away, so I gathered up a few things that require no maintenance.

1) Wreck This Journal(s)
I bought the deluxe and the travel sized version. I love these journals because they're entertaining and full of stress relief activities.

2) Organic Beauty Products
I've mentioned Physician's Formula Organic Wear before because I really like their products. Regular drug store beauty products have all sorts of crap that your body doesn't like. Also, go green with ecotools. They're made of bamboo and recycled packaging. Respect the earth, man

3) Awesome Phone Case
You can't tell in the picture, but that's a holographic rainbow kitten on my phone case. It was three dollars at h&m and has made me inconceivably happy everyday since I got it.

4) The Gift of Life
That, indeed, is a cactus. Plants are great gifts, in my opinion.  You get to keep a little part of nature right in your home. Cacti are especially great because they emit the most oxygen at night, so if you keep them by your bed at night, you and your little plant friend can contribute to keeping each other alive.

5) Save the Manatees
Last year, I donate to the Save the Manatees Foundation and "adopted" Georgia, a 7 year old manatee. In exchange for my donation, I received a stuffed manatee. I think this is such a great gift, because not only are you giving a thoughtful gift to someone, you're helping the environment.

Thanks for reading!  Make sure you subscribe via email and come back everyday until the 25th to celebrate Blogmas with me!

Battle with the Internet/ Blogmas Video

If there's anything I would consider having a love/ hate relationship with, it's the internet.  It took me hours to get this short little video onto the internet.  

Aside from that annoying occurrence, I managed to get a decent looking video together with a really cool app called Magisto. It edits videos and makes them look like you know how to make videos look awesome.   I definitely look a lot cooler in this video than I actually am.

Happy Blomgas everyone, and to heck with computers... Until we need them.


http://youtu.be/oEkfv0ItMZM

Top 5 Best Christmas Movies

I made a list of my favorite Christmas songs a few days ago, and I thought it would be only appropriate if I made a list of my favorite movies as well. 

Home Alone

Both the first movie, and Lost in New York are great, and I consider them equally loved in my list. Macaulay Culkin was my first childhood crush. Ya know, before he turned into a meth addict.

The Santa Clause

Tim Allen is amazing.

Christmas with the Kranks

Tim Allen continues to be amazing.

Elf

This is one of the only Will Ferrell movies appropriate for kids.  Honestly all I can say is, if you want to have a good Christmas, watch this movie.  That is all.

Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer

It isn’t Christmas until I watch Claymation.  All of them are really great, but Rudolph is my favorite.  When I was a little kid, I was at my grandma’s house for Christmas dinner and I saw a red light outside the window and it was for sure Rudolph checking to see if Santa did a good job, I’m sure of it.

 

This blog was unintentionally short, and I would be sorry, but… finals.  Goodnight, until tomorrow.  Subscribe? Share? Comment? Take a nap?

Blogmas!

Okay, bye.

 

A Very Harry Potter Christmas

Every year ABC Family has the 25 Days of Christmas movie countdown, and almost always they have a Harry Potter Weekend.  Although they certainly aren’t Christmas movies by definition, they still have some awesome Christmas scenes.  As I’m writing this, I am going to be watching all seven of the Christmas scenes, and picking out my favorite moments of each year.  So if you don’t like Harry Potter, feel free to skip this, but for us Potterheads, let’s get to it.

Sorcerer’s Stone.  Other than the kids being so darn cute and little, I love Harry’s first real Christmas with Ron.  It’s the first time Harry gets real presents from people that care about him.  In the books this is the year that Harry, Ron, Fred and George begin their annual snowball fight tradition.

Chamber of Secrets.  Most of you should know by now that I’m obsessed with two things, my cat and Harry Potter.  Seeing Emma Watson as a cat, when she messes up the Polyjuice potion, is probably the greatest combination a person could think of.

Prisoner of Azkaban.  Hogsmeade, whether you’re reading or watching it, is probably the best place in the world to be at during Christmas time.  When people describe what Christmas should look like, I would think it would be pretty similar to Hogsmeade.

Goblet of Fire.  Here’s a little back story before I tell you what I love about this year at Hogwarts.  About two years ago I was in NYC looking at colleges, and there was a Harry Potter exhibition going on at Times Square.  It was a tour that took you through all of the costumes and props and even let you sit in Hagrid’s chair.  I almost didn’t get to go because tickets were astronomical, but my mom caved and bought us tickets and it was so worth it.  My favorite parts was getting to toss around the quaffle with my mom, and I nearly peed myself when I saw Hermione’s Yule Ball gown.  So that is my favorite part of that year’s Christmas, because every time I watch it I can say “I’ve touched that dress.”

Order of the Phoenix.  One of the best scenes of the entire series that was left out of the movies happened on Christmas day, when the trio is wandering around St. Mungo’s Hospital and they bump into Neville and his grandmother visiting Neville’s parents.  Seeing as Neville was almost the Chosen One, and the killer of the final horcrux, his back story shouldn’t have been lost.  Matthew Lewis, who played Neville, kept asking David Yates when they would film the scene, but the film ran out of time.   Aside from the disappointment of it being excluded from the film it is my favorite part of that year’s Christmas.  After Goblet of Fire it gets difficult to find cheerful times in the films, because the plot gets very dark.

Half-Blood Prince.  The films do a good job to inject some humor into what is the arguable one of the most miserable Christmases of the series.  The awkward teenager romance between Ginny and Harry is the holiday’s redeeming moment.

Deathly Hallows.  The Christmas Eve where Hermione and Harry visit his parent’s gravestones- you know, before they almost get killed by Nagini- is such a beautiful moment.   I will always hold the grudge that the two didn’t end up together, especially because of the time they spend chasing horcruxes without Ron. (Tidbit: Jo made a public announcement with Emma Watson that Hermione should have married Harry.)

That wraps up our Harry Potter Christmas Spectacular.  Join me for Blogmas where I will be posting a new holiday themed blog every day until Christmas! Please subscribe to my blog via email to stay posted and thanks for reading!

Homemade Gift Ideas

Finding things for people can be really difficult, especially if you’re looking for something unique.   The solution for this is to make something.  Buying gifts for people is way more expensive than making them, I know from experience.  Although it may take a bit of time out of your life, the gift giving is so much more enjoyable.  Last Christmas I made a wall-hang for my sister with wooden cut outs of things she likes (mermaids, an ankh, the deathly hallows symbol, a mockingjay etc.)  It was such a fun gift to make and give, that I decided this year I would make almost all of my gifts.   I have created a list of ideas for those who would like to make Christmas a little more special this year.

1.    Jewelry – There are tons of things at the craft store directly tailored to making jewelry for beginners.  I suggest DIY rings, because they look awesome and interesting.

2.    Stuffed Animals- For the little ones in your life.  Most stuffed animals are wildly overpriced and last ten minutes before falling apart.  All you really need to make one is fleece, stuffing, a needle and thread.  If you get creative you can make some really cute animals (like cats, giraffes, llamas, pandas etc.)

3.    Home Décor- I could go on forever and ever about this.  I have way too many ideas and too little space for all the things I wish I could decorate my room with. For me I like mason jars, candles, skulls, animals (giraffes, cats, birds etc.) and really anything weird that fits my color scheme.   I obviously suggest mason jars, as they are all over my room, and you can pretty much do anything with them, and they fit every theme you can think of.

4.    Clothes- A couple of problems with making clothes from scratch for someone else is that, first of all, it’s really difficult to just pick up that kind of skill. Secondly, even if you know how to sew already, it would be pretty conspicuous to just casually get someone’s measurements.  So instead of all that, you can just renovate old clothes.  I like to add peter pan collars to my shirts (See my Personalized Christmas Sweaters blog for reference).  It’s pretty easy, even for beginners.  Pinterest has a plethora of other ideas for renovating clothes if you’re interested.

5.    Food-Last year I made vanilla sugar for my house.  I got a mason jar (of course), filled it with sugar, put a vanilla bean cut down the middle in it, and let it sit for a week.  Gifts like this are great because it’s not just thoughtful, it’s useful.  You can also make vanilla extract, specialty sauces, or anything that you can use over and over (not something that will be gone Christmas day *ahem* pie)

 

 

Thanks for reading! Subscribe to my blog via email and come back every day until the 25^th to celebrate Blogmas with me!

 

 

Things to Do Other Than Your Responsibilities

 

My to-do list is, to say the least, expansive, and nothing stresses me out more than thinking about all the deadlines.  So what do I do? Absolutely anything else. If you're anything like me you're probably familiar with procrastinating as well.

  This list is for those who would like to broaden their procrastination activities, or novices looking for a better way to spend their time.

 

 

 



 

Stress-cry the pain away.

 

 

 

Re-watch the Harry Potter movies for the 394th time.

 

 

 

 Stand on your head.

 

 

Layer on as many shirts as you can (I stopped after ten due to claustrophobia).

 

 

Build a blanket fort.

 

 

Do arts and crafts.

 

 

Hang out with your stuffed animals.

 

 

Take a nap.

 

 

Eat your feelings.

 

 

Balance books on your head.

 

For the record, I didn't do anything I had to do today, and it was brilliant.

 

 

 

Thanks for reading! Please subscribe to my blog and come back every day until the 25th to celebrate Blogmas!