See those sweet, adorable faces?  Those angelic looking little girls captured in photos at their very sweetest and then transposed onto canvas to hang in our bedroom – they’re hiding something.  They are actually hiding a number of somethings.  Care to guess?

Jewelry!  But, I am guessing you probably got that from the title of the post, right?

I was trying to clean up the top of my dresser the other day and the number of necklaces and random pieces of jewelry that I had laying out without a home was driving me nuts.  I tend to buy a few statement pieces each season and some of them are on the larger side (anyone else hopelessly addicted to Charming Charlie?).  I have always had trouble storing them – the small jewelry armoire I have already takes up too much room on my dresser and didn’t have enough space to hold them anyway.  I didn’t really want to do anything out in the open as I try to keep our bedroom clean and uncluttered.  I realized I had a bunch of hidden, wasted space behind the canvases of my little ones and could easily make it work as storage!

This project took me less than 10 minutes and only cost $5.  I popped over to JoAnn’s and got an 18 pack of small Command Strips which were around $5 with my 50% coupon.  (Thank you Joann’s iPhone app!)

Back when we hung the canvases, my husband drew lines to level the nails and when I took the canvases down, I realized that I never got around to erasing them.  (Whoops)  Regardless, it was serendipity as it helped keep the hooks below the canvas itself but as high as possible – you can see from the picture from my pieces are pretty long so I needed as much space as possible.   I still have a few necklaces that hang down below the bottom of the canvas but I just tuck them up onto the “ledge” inside the canvas and they are perfectly hidden.

Super easy, cheap and really practical.  I do keep a few of the necklaces that I wear all the time in the jewelry box but getting the random pieces out of the way has made them much easier to get to and I find I am actually wearing necklaces more often.  I am toying with ideas of how to get my earrings up and out of the jewelry box too – I will update with what I come up with!

PS – I know that the canvases look like they are hung unevenly – I was snapping photos on my phone and from an angle so it looks super wonky but I pinky swear, they’re perfectly even in person!

PPS – I know that the hooks look like they aren’t even and perfectly lined up, that is because they aren’t.  It is all hidden 99.9% of the time anyway and remember my tagline?  I take that very seriously.

Ellie is in love with all things Christmas but like all 4 year olds, she has no concept of time and hates waiting.  She gets that from me.  The hating to wait thing, I totally get time now that I am older than 4.  I knew I wanted to do an advent calendar for her this year but wanted it to be really visual and so when I saw a Santa’s beard calendar/countdown on Pinterest, I was so excited!

The concept is simple – put dated circles on the beard area of a Santa drawing, glue a cotton ball on every day and when the beard is full, Santa comes that night!  This a 4 year old could understand!

I used the Santa from the Doodlecharms Cricut cartridge and added circles from Designer’s Calendar and my favorite numbers from Sesame Street Friends.  I made the numbers random so Ellie has to hunt a little for the correct date.  I used a black marker in my Cricut and Ellie watched enthralled as Santa appeared on the paper:

Ellie colored in the red on his hat and since we did this on the 2nd, Ellie was able to glue on two of the cotton ball beard pieces right away!  This morning, it was the first thing she asked for so I am going to say it was a hit.

I will update with a picture once we have the full beard cotton-balled in!  This was so easy I can see doing this project again next year with one for each of the girls.

11. Complete a 26 things project from sh1ft.org – I had this on my first list but never completed it so I am happy to say that I did it and added a little twist!  The official guidelines say to take the pictures yourself – I used pictures from some of my past weddings (That sounds weird – remember, I am a wedding planner!  I have only had one wedding personally.  ).  It was actually quite difficult but I had a great time doing it.  You can see the completed list over here!  I am planning to give it a shot using personal photos that I do take – I will share that here when I do.

52. Donate blood – My husband’s workplace holds an annual blood drive through the Red Cross and this was the first year I worked up the courage to do it – I am not a needle fan at all so this was a big one for me.  It was actually quite easy – took a whooping 30 minutes and was pretty painless.  I think the worst part was the finger prick in the beginning.

82. Launch new website – I pushed the button and launched the new site for Emilie Duncan Event Planning on November 17!  I love it – so bright and pretty with some great new pictures of recent weddings!

I am hoping to tackle several more items in the next few weeks:

1. Take a class on glass blowing and make a blown glass ornament (Attending a class at Glass Axis)
5. Build a project from ana-white.com (Thinking of this dress up station as a Christmas gift for the kidlets!)
6. Renew my CPR/AED certificate (Taking a class from the Red Cross)
53. Send a care package to a soldier in Iraq (Have two family members overseas and will be sending Christmas packages to them both)
60. Buy toys and drop them off at Children’s Hospital for kids who have to spend Christmas in the hospital.
61. Drop flowers off at a nursing home and ask them to give them to someone who has no visitors
80. Bake a loaf of bread without a bread machine
91. Complete Vendor Conversations with Dress Shops

Wish me luck!

This year I decided to start a new tradition and create an ornament every year with the high points (and some low points) from the past year.  This was so simple to do I am kicking myself for not doing it before now and while you could probably absolutely figure out how to make these on your own, I give you my tutorial:

All you’ll need is a pack of glass ornaments from your local craft store.  I picked up a 4 pack of the larger ornaments from Michael’s for under $5.

Step 1:  Write a line or two about different events or milestones from the year – you can hand write or I used Word because my handwriting looks like I paid a fortune for medical school.  We included happy memories (Ellie starting preschool, Abby starting to walk, our vacations and work accomplishments for mom and dad), unhappy but important things (my mother in law and grandmother in law passing away) and mundane things (how old we all are and how long we’ve been married).

Step 1.5: Drink a little wine and snack on the Cherry Cordial M&M’s you picked up from CVS on Black Friday.

Step 2: Cut each memory into its own strip and roll.  Yes, I used the straw from a sippy cup.  Because you have to use what you have at hand and it was right there.   And really, it serves double duty – the straw can be used in the wine too.

Step 3: Slip the rolls of paper inside ornament and replace the top/hanger.

Step 4: Hang out of curious toddler’s reach because said child is a maniac and will likely think it is an apple and try to eat it.

Step 5: Finish wine and M&M’s and enjoy the Christmas tree with your lovely new ornament.

A few more notes:

*I plan to dig out my Cricut and add the year in vinyl to the ornament so I can differentiate them as we add one each year.

*As the kids get older, I can also see doing one for each of them every year with their personal highlights as well as the family events for them to start their own trees someday but I would try to keep notes throughout the year rather than holding a wine and M&M fueled remembering session like this year.

*I am planning to have Ellie write her name and slip that in there as well – Abby will wait until next year when she can hopefully write or scribble without eating the crayon.

Told you it was super simple.

Emilie’s Pinterest

Expect to see some of the projects from my Craft Binge board appear on this blog!

What is 101 Things in 1001 Days, you ask?  Basically it is a list of things that I want to accomplish, experience and do over the course of 1001 days.  Kind of like a bucket list or New Year’s resolution list but with 2.75 years to finish it.  Yay for sanctioned procrastination!!  This is my 3rd go round – each time I have gotten more and more tasks done and I hope to continue that trend!

You can see my list here on my business site: Emilie’s 101 Things in 1001 Days

My list started on January 1, 2011 and so far, I have 10 tasks in progress and 17 tasks completed including:

Visiting Walt Disney World again

Go on the Canopy Tour zip line in Hocking Hills (that’s me, my mom and my cousin Molly)

Take Ellie puddle stomping

Those are just a few of the items I have completed from my list – you can see the rest over here and I will be posting pictures and updates as I check more items off that list.

Up next on my list is renewing my CPR/AED certification and possibly taking a glass blowing class!  Can’t wait and I hope you will follow along and maybe even create a list of your own!  If you do, please comment and let me know – I would love to follow along with you!

I love these little glass bricks.  They have an opening on one end so I stuffed some white curling ribbon to each one and added the vinyl letters – super simple and super cute on the mantel!

 

A close up on New Year’s Eve and the pile of presents including the nicely wrapped dog bone for our golden Truman the Dog.

I used my Cricut Expression, Gypsy and several different cartridges:
Trees – Create a Critter
Ornaments – Joys of the Season
December and Christmas Day Marker – Designer Calendar
New Year’s Eve Champagne and glass – Simply Charmed
Date Numbers – Sesame Street Friends 
Stockings – Doodlecharms
Gift Packages -Winter Frolic and Doodlecharms
Dog Bone Gift – Create a Critter
Wreath Day Marker – Christmas

Hope you like it – I had a lot of fun designing it and my 3 year old has been having fun assigning family members different stockings and presents every day.  I would say she is excited about Christmas and we are having a ton of fun seeing the season through her eyes – I forgot how magical the holidays could be!
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Parties I am linking up to:

I LOVE this felt pillow!  I feel like I could totally do this even though there is sewing involved – different green felt circles on red felt with a pillow form.  I am sure it will take way longer than I am hoping but I am going to give it a shot!

I think these little placecard holders are adorable – not sure how I would go about recreating them but I have an idea or two that I might give a shot.

Loving this metallic leaf garland but I would do it in silver rather than gold since both my holiday china is the Reindeer line (love!) from Pottery Barn and it is rimmed in silver.  My formal china is also silver so I could use it other times of the year as well.

If you are anything like me, you receive somewhere close to your body weight in catalogs every month! While I am a big online shopper, I am not a huge catalog shopper and I have absolutely no idea how or why I am on so many mailing lists. Consider this a quiet complaint because they are a great source of inspiration for projects to add to the Craft Binge list!

“You Are…” sign from Signals

I am going to make this and give it to my husband for Christmas – it will be perfect over his dresser as a little reminder of how important he is to me every day.  I already have it entered into my Gypsy, now I just need to cut it.  Theirs is 6″ x 15″ but mine is sized to 12″ x 24″.  I will share pictures and possibly a tutorial as soon as it is done!

I also really like these two as well! I can see the Be Bold sign in my daughter’s rooms – maybe without the Be Obnoxious line