Happy New Year!
I hope you all had a wonderful holiday. Mine was the best I’ve had in years. We spent the weeks before & after with our family, but the actual holiday was just the three of us. It was perfect. We established new traditions (Christmas Eve milkshakes + Christmas Lights tour & finished off the night with a movie–UP) and then spent a nice & relaxing day enjoying all that is Christmas. There were trucks and diggers and a farm that oinked and Nemo and babies and twinkle lights. Sticky Buns & hot chocolate. It was so relaxing. Just what we all needed going into what will surely be a pretty hectic 2012.
My family is in town to help me paint Nursery v2 (YAY!) & we’ve got lots of work to do–but I wanted to kick off the year with my annual Holiday Gift Guide! (you can find last year’s here: 2010 Holiday Gift Guide) For obvious reasons, I cannot share this before Christmas but since none of these special things are specifically intended for “holiday gift giving” I hope that I can introduce you to some fun things for other gifts you need to give throughout the year.
My gift goal this year was finding/making personal things for all the people I love. So here are the goodies! All vendors are linked above the pictures! :)
For some of the special women in my life:
For some special little girls:
- Hello Kitty Bling shirt by Sweet Jam
- DIY Pink & Purple Glitter Tutu– here’s how I make them: How to make a No-Sew Tutu
Lots of our family got custom calendars (unique to them!)
- Calendars by Mixbook–by FAR the best selection of designs & easiest to customize that I have found.
& caroline made her daddy a new pen holder for his desk at work. We spent a day painting (the 4th side is her work of art) and the reminder of her love of elephants (with a pretty bow!) will hopefully make him smile every day. :)
- Pen Holder, my design, made at The Painted Plate
& the gift I am most excited about this year came from my BFF…who knows me all too well! :) She gave me a coupon for a “custom stamp” from Primele–now I just have to decide what I want the beautiful calligraphy to say! :)
Source: primele.com via miss shawna on Pinterest
I am also loving my Air Crazy Popcorn popper…buh bye oil & pan shaking…hello no cleanup air popped popcorn. I highly recommend! Thanks Mom & Dad. :)
Source: amazon.com via miss shawna on Pinterest
& after much frustration…I sent back this video baby monitor (does not work for all Mac households–despite the misleading marketing on the website) and will probably replace it with this video baby monitor. I am leery. Very leery…after 39 minutes on hold…and more bad tech information from their own sales department. & wishing I had the guts to splurge on this one: WiFi Baby. Recommend one that you can skype into or view online? I’m on the hunt.
So there’s my gifting wrap up! Did you get anything you love? Did you GIVE anything you wished you could keep? I wanted to keep everything this year! But giving is the great joy of the season… ;)
Hope you holidays were grand!
