Brown Paper Packages Tied up with Cheetah Ribbon

Are you ready? It's only a few days away! I've been busy wrapping like a fool! I've been wrapping so much, that a few times, I'd wrap a gift, and forget what was in it and who it was for! Have you ever done that?

I wanted to do something fun and crafty this year for my wrap job, so I picked up a roll of regular brown paper for shipping I guess, and a few other fun things to make my gifts special and unique!

{Sorry for the beyond crappy picture quality. These are off my ipod! Blah. I need to get a new camera}

All of this was pretty cheap, and easy!

This brown paper I found in the shipping/mail stuff section in Walmart, it was pretty cheap and the roll was huge! It went much further than a regular roll of wrapping paper.
(He insisted in being in this shot.)

Picked up a few packs of paper doilies at Micheal's. They were under $2 a pack. I got large and small.

Micheal's was also having a sale on ribbon! I grabbed a couple of cute rolls of different greens and cheetah that were pretty cheap. I think they were all 50% off.

Here they are all wrapped up and ready to go!

I used free printable's I found from pintrest for the name tags. You can find similar one's here

So if your viewing this and one of these are yours, you know what they'll look like, but you won't know whats in them until Christmas!

We are traveling home to Pennsylvania today for Christmas! We're are excited to see our families and to meet my mother-in-law's new puppy Bear!

Deck the Halls!

So here are our other Christmas decorations in the itty bitty apartment this Christmas. Someday when we have a house, I know I will do much more, but we already have such limited space, I had to work around what we already had.

Here is our mistletoe! My grandma (Gammy) gave us this adorable glass ornament with a "D" on it! Love! A few sprigs of Walmart magic, and you have yourself some mistletoe!

This precious Eiffel Tower ornament came from my bestie in Florida, Courtney! She sent me the sweetest Christmas present and this little beauty was inside. She knows how much a adore the Eiffel Tower! I seriously love it, and her!

I usually have coral in this, but I wanted to change it out for the Christmas season. I found 2 packs of these little white trees at the dollar store, and thought they would make a cute scene on my coffee table.

Easy peasy, fill apothecary jars and little hurricane jars with coordinating ornaments. These were the left over from my tree.

Ah, this little cutie is from Wally World as well. It matched our other white tree but this is the mini version. It was like $8! I snatched it up and filled it with extra ornaments I had and put it on the bakers rack in the kitchen. It's so cute at night. I also turn it on first thing every morning while I'm making coffee. I love it so much, I may never want to take it down!

I would have loved to have stockings, garland and a wreath, but I really had nowhere to put them, so maybe next year I will work them in. There you have it! The Daly's Christmas decor!

A lot like Christmas!

It's our first very first Christmas as a newly married couple! I was so excited to get a tree up as soon as it was deemed acceptable by society standards. I must admit, it was up the week before Thanksgiving. It was about 10pm on a Friday night when I looked at Anthony and said, "Can we please go get a Christmas tree? Like right now? Please?" The only place open at such an hour, was the one the only... you guessed it, WalMart. Off he went with his make-upless, sweat pant wearing hooded wife in tow. You could probably spot me on the people of walmart, that's how scary I looked. But nonetheless, a Christmas tree we had to have that very night.

I originally had wanted to try something funky like a peacock tree. I thought my heart was set on it as we ventured into Walmart, but alas, Walmart is not known for their huge selection of Peacock feathers.

{Via}

Then, not being able to talk my hubby into a delightful purple tree offered up by Walmart, I laid my eyes on the pretty and fluffy white trees.

I thought it would be a fun, yet chic statement to have a soft white tree. I decided to go with light blue and silver ornaments.

This is a picture I found after I had picked out my white tree and blue ornaments. I think it's so chic and adorable!

{Via}

Here is the actual one that we bought from Walmart for around $40. It's around 6 feet tall.

{Via}

And here is our very first Christmas tree!
I love the white, silver and blue. I found a light blue sparkly star ornament for the topper and we just filled it with white strand lights and cheap-o Walmart ornaments, which I must say, were quite adorable.

Walmart had these precious little white feather balls that just clip onto your tree. Snatched up a few which fulfilled my feather craving after all.

So there you have it! The first Daly Christmas tree. After it was all said and done, it was around 1:30am till we wrapped up. Who knows, next year I may change my mind again and want to change out the colors of the ornaments, or even want a real tree, but this one will always hold a special little place in my heart!

More Christmas decor to come!

Peace and GoodWill to Men

Thanks to the quirky inspiration from Pintrest and other bloggers, I have been wanting to make a cute and creative picture wall. Not just filled with pictures but full of other little creative things as well. I knew that I could do it all on the cheap with a little spray paint and digging around at the two Goodwill's here in my town.

Here is where I drew some inspiration.


{Via}

Here are some ugly frames I picked up at Goodwill


Most of them were around a $1


I can never get enough mirrors!





A cute charger


I picked up a few cheap ones from TJMaxx and laid them all out on the floor to see how it would look on the wall.


And here she is finished!


I love it every time I walk in the door.


It brings in some color and gives some interest to these plain and bland walls.

Undergoing Reno's!

This blog is currently undergoing renovations! I am getting back in the game people! Once the reno's are finished, you can count on a new excited post!

Summer Lovin'

Though it may be 95 degrees here everyday, summer is still ok by me! I love wearing strappy shoes and flip flops and not worrying about lugging around a heavy winter coat! I also love my new outdoor space! Shh, this picture below is of my neighbor's porch since I forgot to take a before picture!

Before:


After!



My mom and my aunt came to visit us and helped us get our porch looking inviting and lively!

The black chairs and end table were a wonderful surprise gift from my in-laws! Love!



LOVE our bistro table. A gift off our registry!



Another summer love I've discovered! Now I'm a huge Rita's fan, but this stuff is just plain amazing! Watermelon Sherbert, from no other than... 711!!!!!! I was desperate for something cool and refreshing, and didn't want to spend the time and the money to go to Rita's, so we walked to 711 right down the street, and found this amazingness in a carton! You have got to try it! It even has candy watermelon seeds in it!

It's light and refreshing!!!

Paint and Placing

This is another before and after project I had in mind. I had really wanted a mantel as a floating shelf in my entryway, right when you walk in the door. I didn't know where I was going to get my hands on a mantle! I came across this picture and wanted something similar.

I love how you could change it with the seasons like in this picture! Ready for fall!



I knew I could probably find one if I spent all my time devoted to thrift shopping, but I had many other things on my plate at the time. So I decided to get creative and come up with something similar!

I came across these curtain rod decorative holders in the attic of my husband's aunts house! What a blessing his aunt and uncle were, letting us go through and pick anything we wanted!

I thought these were perfect! Just a fresh coat of black paint was needed.



She also gave a few of these guys which I loved as well and knew I could find a home for!



And with a shelf that I had registered for, my father-in-law installed the shelf and the curtain rod holders to make it look like a mantle! And there is the little bust that I painted white and of course my dollar store sunburst mirror! Now this is the first thing we see when walking in the front door!



What do you think?