December Pinterest Board

Well, my blog posts have been a lot fewer and farther between than I expected, but this new little guy of ours is consuming my every free minute, and I'm loving it!  He will be two months on Christmas Day, and he's already growing up too quickly!  I've appreciated the slower-paced life he's helped me remember.

Follow Brooke @ blissfulroots.com's board December on Pinterest.

I know we're on the downhill side of the Christmas countdown, but if you're like me, you're still in need of some great holiday ideas.  And, having a newborn has put a few of my usual Christmas traditions on the back burner. Well, thank goodness for Pinterest!  I feel like I'm in full Christmas mode as I'm scrolling through all the wonderful images on my December board, even if my usual decor, treats, and projects haven't come to life this year.

You can check out all 115 (and growing!)of my Pinterest boards here.

Hope your December is going well!  Thanks so much for stopping by!  I hope you found a little something worth your time.

Linking up to these parties & Savvy Southern Style.

Thanksgiving Eve Traditions

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  It may seem funny that I haven't posted in weeks, and yet here I am on Thanksgiving morning.  I was up feeding my little one at 6:00, and couldn't go back to sleep.  So, I decided to take advantage of the quiet, sleeping house and pop in for a quick hello.

I was going to just repost some fun ideas for Thanksgiving Eve today, but when I went to copy the HTML to paste in this post, I lost it!  So, today's ideas are a repost, but the post itself is new as of today.

What do you do on Thanksgiving Eve?  Are you out Black Friday shopping?  We aren't ever, so it's fun to have some traditions to ring in the Christmas season.  Here are a few of the things we do/ I want to start doing.

THANKSGIVING EVE TRADITIONS
Unwrap Christmas pajamas
Decorate gingerbread houses
Decorate your Christmas tree
Make your Christmas list
Get out the Christmas music (if you haven't already)
Read a Christmas book
Watch a Christmas movie
Make a Christmas countdown  

These are just a few ideas to get your creative juices flowing.  I'd love to hear what you do to usher in the holidays!  I'm always looking for new traditions!

Happy Thanksgiving to you all!  Enjoy this wonderful day of thanks, and great food!

Thanks so much for stopping by! I hope you found a little something worth your time.

Linking up to these parties & Savvy Southern Style.

…To See If Reindeer Really Know How To Fly Printable

'Twas the night before Christmas.  I think I might like Christmas Eve even a little bit more than Christmas Day.  I love the anticipation of today.  Once Christmas Day hits, its almost like it's already over.  Lucky for us, we do everything with my family the days right after Christmas, so our Christmas continues for a few extra days!

Click to Print

Here's one last Christmas printable for you.  I've been in love with this reindeer from Picmonkey's Santa Land, and have been wanting to use it as a printable.  Then, the other day I was listening to "The Christmas Song", and the line in today's printable totally jumped out at me.  The perfect caption for a beautiful reindeer.

Thanks so much for stopping by!  I hope you found a little something worth your time.
Merry Christmas Eve!

P.S.  Do your kids get a little bit nervous about leaving Santa's cookies inside the house?  My boys do.  We have to leave them on the porch (with the reindeer's carrots).  They love the idea of Santa bringing them gifts, but I'm not sure they love the idea of him sneaking into the house in the middle of the night.  I don't want them to EVER grow up!

Linking up to these parties & Savvy Southern Style. 

Christmas Hymns Playlist {On Spotify}

It's a busy day filled with classrooms parties, teacher gifts, gingerbread men, and packing up to go visit my brother, his wife, and their two adorable kids.  They moved to Atlanta just over a year ago.  We're so excited to see all of them, but they had a little boy in April that we haven't met yet, so we're extra excited to see him!

Here's my last Christmas playlist for the month.  This is my favorite playlist, and is by far my longest!  I have both instrumental and vocal hymns, so you get a little variety. 

If you have a Spotify account you can listen to my entire playlist, if you don't have an account you can easily sign up for free.
Enjoy!

And here are my other Christmas playlists if you missed them earlier in the month.

Click for List

Click for List

Thanks so much for stopping by!  I hope you found a little something worth your time.

Linking up to these parties & Savvy Southern Style.

Merry Christmas Printable

My posts are never very lengthy here at Blissful Roots, and December just keeps getting busier and busier.  Which means my posts are becoming shorter and shorter.  

Click to Print

I'm reminded of my wonderful cooperating teacher my first year of teaching.  She had taught for 20 plus years, but was always at school for at least an hour after her students left, but not in December.  She let (sometimes had to force) herself  leave at contract time (half an hour after school was out) every day in December so she could enjoy the holiday season.  I've always remembered that about her.  Thanks for the valuable lesson, Mrs. Lewis!  So, I let/force myself to leave a bit less time for blogging this time of year, and more time for the holiday and family.

You may have noticed that I like red for Christmas.  I really like green as well, but I have a tendency to use lots and lots of red this time of year.  Well, I'm venturing out, and I have to say I'm LOVING all the green on today's printable.  

This printable would be perfect to print out and attach to one of the dollar store oven burner covers.  You can click here to see my Halloween version of the stove covers.

Thanks so much for stopping by!  I hope you found a little something worth your time.

Linking up to these parties & Savvy Southern Style.

DIY Christmas Gift Box {And Our Favorite Marbles}

I love pretty packaging!  I wish I was organized enough to start wrapping my gifts in November so I could make each package a work of art.  But life is busy, and that has  yet to happen.  So, I'm content with several simple packages, and a few extra special ones here and there.

This package comes from my DIY gift box tutorial (visit this link for the how to on making the box).  If you've visited Blissful Roots before, then  you've probably seen these boxes before (here and here).  They're like my upcycled tin cans.  I've made these for years, (I learned how in the fifth grade!) and once I start making them I can't stop.  They're so simple, and they're my favorite way to wrap up small gifts.

I stopped at my favorite scrapbook store last week and rounded up some darling scrapbook paper (this reindeer paper is from October Afternoon's Silent Night collection).  Every time I see cute scrapbook paper, I visualize it on a tin can, or folded up as a darling box.  I like to be able to see the pattern on the box, so I usually just stamp the name on the corner, and use a simple ribbon, yarn, bow, or pom pom on top. 

I'm using this little box for my boy's marbles this year.  Are you familiar with Mega Marbles?  Well, at least I think that's what they're called.  I've had a hard time tracking down the actual brand name.  Anyway, my boys found some of these marbles last year, and got several packages for Christmas.  They still love them this year, so we're getting a few more. I want to collect these marbles!  They're so beautiful, and clever in their naming.  I'm amazed with how each marble looks exactly like the name!  They come in names like cow, jellyfish, comet, zombie, camouflage, Bengal tiger, monarch butterfly, jungle, sea turtle, and on and on.  Most of the names come from animals, space, insects, fantasy or creepy things- all perfect for little boys, and girls as well.  Here are just a for you to see.  There are many, many more!

Milky Way

White Tiger

Unicorn

Pirate

Aren't they gorgeous?  I never knew marble collecting could be so much fun!  My boys even got a marble mat last year, and know how to play.  They each have their jar of marbles.  Sometimes they trade marbles, and other times they lose a few in a game.  It's been a fun hobby for them (and me).

These marbles make the perfect stocking stuffer, or in my case, small gift to fit inside a DIY gift box.  Oh, and they're not expensive at all.  You get a shooter and 24 marbles for around $3!

Thank you to Land of Marbles for all of the marble images.  And thank you for stopping by!  I hope you found a little something worth your time.

Linking up to these parties & Savvy Southern Style.

Instrumental Christmas Playlist {On Spotify}

I promised more Christmas playlists (click here for my Christmas classics playlist), so here I am with another one.  

I love the holly, jolly festive feeling this time of year, but even more than that, I love the quiet, peaceful feel at Christmastime.

Here's a list of some of my very favorite instrumental Christmas songs.  I love to turn all the lights out, except for the tree lights and play this mix at night.  



My boys fall asleep listening to some of the songs on this playlist (we have the whole Christmas Lullabies CD found on my playlist).  Their room is so cozy on these cold December nights.  The glow from their tiny tree lights, and the soft music playing is the perfect way to end the day. 

Once again, if you have a Spotify account you can listen to my entire list.  Spotify is free, so go ahead and get yourself an account if you don't already. 

Stop in next week for my religious/spiritual Christmas playlist (my favorite!).

Thanks so much for stopping by!  I hope you found a little something worth your time.

Linking up to these parties & Savvy Southern Style.

DIY Cupcake Ornaments

My boys have a little Christmas tree in their bedroom.  Each morning they open a small box that holds an ornament to put on the tree.  The ornaments are small, simple things I've made over the years.  One of my absolute favorites has been these cupcake ornaments.

I saw these somewhere (Pinterest maybe, but it could have been before Pinterest days) once upon a time, and knew they'd be the perfect addition to my boys' tree.  They're so, so simple to make, and who doesn't love little cupcakes (even if they're not edible)?

SUPPLIES

cotton balls

mini cupcake liners

sparkly pom pom

glitter

spray adhesive

hot glue

needle 

thread

HOW TO

Start by puffing your cotton ball a bit.  I like to do this so it fills in the cupcake liner, and doesn't just look like a cotton ball sitting in the bottom of the liner.

Add a strip of hot glue around the inside of your liner, then put your cotton ball in and hold until dry.

Spray your cotton ball with spray adhesive (I've been known to use hairspray before) and then shake glitter on top.

Hot glue the pom pom to the top of the cotton ball, and allow to dry.

Run a needle and thread through the tip of the pom pom, and tie a knot.  This will create the loop for hanging your cupcake ornament. 

  I have a small cupcake liner addiction, so I have quite the stash to draw from.  My boys' tree is red, white, and green, but wouldn't pink, blue, yellow,or any color be adorable?  You can adapt the color combination to fit your tree's color scheme.

And  here it is dangling from the tree.  They're even cuter hanging than sitting!

Thanks so much for stopping by!  I hope you found a little something worth your time.

Linking up to these parties & Savvy Southern Style.

Noel Wreath Printable

When I shared my first Christmas printable (merry and bright) last week I said every printable I'd make this month would probably have some part of PicMonkey's Santa Land or Winterland incorporated.  Well, here I am with only my second printable of the month and I'm already eating those words.

Click to Print

I was so swept up in all of PicMonkey's fun new themes that I'd completely forgotten about this adorable wreath over at iPiccy.  I've had this wreath saved in the back of my mind for months, and I knew once Christmastime hit I'd use it for one of my printables.  

So, today I have an iPiccy printable for you (I'm sure we'll be back to our regularly scheduled PicMonkey printables next week).  I do use PicMonkey more frequently, but every time I venture over to iPiccy I'm pleasantly surprised.  They have a great font collection, and lots of fun overlays.  Check them out if you haven't.

Have a wonderful week!  Hopefully you're taking the time to enjoy all of the festivities of this magical month.  We visited a darling gingerbread house display and our local Creche over the weekend (check me out on Instagram for pictures).  Such great activities to help a feel a bit of holiday cheer.

Thanks so much for stopping by!  I hope you found a little something worth your time.

Linking up to these parties & Savvy Southern Style.