Decorating for Christmas - Blogmas Day 2

Hello Friends,

I hope you are doing well. I have decorated my apartment for Christmas and it is not completely decorated yet, but I want to share with you how it looks so far.  I still want to set up the Christmas village my parents gave me and need some fake snow to put down under the village first to make it a wintry village for Christmas. I have put up and decorated our Christmas tree and it has been so wonderful having it up to celebrate Christmas early. Lately every morning I come into the living room and turn on the Christmas tree lights before I start having my morning coffee and breakfast and doing my morning routine. It feels so heart warming walking in the room and seeing the tree all lit up. At night almost right after I come home, I turn on the lights of the tree to enjoy them in the evening.

I have been enjoying the decorations in my living room as well that I set out around the room.I have some new decor this year. The Santa clause and 'Twas the night before Christmas...' sign are from Michael's and I really love them on the windowsill behind the couch in the living room.

I have these two decorations on our windowsill in the front of the living room and they are the ones I bring out every year.

The shelf in the living room has quite a few decor items on top of it. I love the little Santa Clause decorations and the vase of floral pieces. I love the Christmas tree I got from the Springridge farm store last year. I also set up my vase with the holiday arrangements of the joy sign and the other festive candy cane and cranberry floral pieces. I also like the DIY mason jar tree decor I made last year infront of the photos.

I have a bit more to put up and may share some more photos as I go along. How early do you start decorating for Christmas?

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Thank you for visiting my blog today for day two of Blogmas. I am enjoying Blogmas a lot already and have visited some other blogs participating in Blogmas. It is such a fun time to visit new blogs and see how others are celebrating.

Have a great day!

Blogmas Day 22: Knitted Santa Gnome Ornament

Hello Friends,

I hope you are doing well.  I finished knitting the Santa Gnome Ornament pattern by Red Heart and found on Ravelry. It is such a cute Santa in the end with a long hat. I love how it turned out and it was a fun and fast knit. There is still some time before Christmas to knit one up!

Finished knitted Santa Gnome Ornament

Santa up close

I chose to knit the pattern flat whereas it can also be knitted up in the round. I sewed up the seams after finishing the main body of Santa and the beard and hat trim which are laying to the right of the Santa in the photo below.

The Santa before I sewed the seams and filled with polyester stuffing

Thank you for joining me again for blogmas day 22. There are only 3 more days until Christmas I can't wait! I will be posting everyday for blogmas for three more days. Please join me again tomorrow for a DIY project!

Have a great day

Blogmas Day 13: Decorated the Christmas Tree

Hello Friends,

I hope you are doing well. Tonight I decorated our Christmas tree. We decided to buy an artificial tree after a couple of years of buying real trees. We thought it would be easier not to have to water it and lug it into the apartment and sweep up the needles. I do miss the real pine tree smell though. So far it has been a lot easier and I really like how it looks. It is not fully decorated yet, but I got a lot of the decorating done tonight. I noticed I have a rustic theme going on with my decor which I am enjoying.

The tree is a 6 1/2" Kawartha lighted tree we bought it at Canadian Tire. There are some great sales on trees there right now if you are also looking. 

The tree we we bought 

 I bought some more things from Michaels last night. I wanted to go there to buy a gift and then I got busy browsing the Christmas decor and gift wrapping section. It is okay right now since everything is half off in price. I might make another trip closer to Christmas to see if there are more sales. I picked up these two bags below that came as a set of two. I will use one for gift I got for the secret Santa gift exchange at work. I also bought a cookie tin to bring cookies to work soon. I will share a photo of the tin in a later post.

I bought the sign below it was only $7 pretty hard to not buy it. I like the style with the rope and tin. It is a bit hard to read but you can make out it says "Have yourself a merry little Christmas".

Have you put up your Christmas tree yet? How early do you put it up? Now that we have an artificial tree, I will have it up and decorated before December from now on! haha

Thank you for stopping by for the 13th day of blogmas. Please join me again tomorrow for another blogmas post. Please post a link to your blog if you are also participating in blogmas and I will visit.

Have a great day!

Blogmas Day 7: Decorating for Christmas

Hello Friends,

I hope you are doing well. Today I will share how I have decorated (so far) for Christmas! I say so far because I never know if there will be something else that I might want to buy and also we haven't put up our tree in the living room yet. Earlier this week, I decorated our apartment with the decorations we had already, and then today I added the decor I bought from Michaels yesterday.

The first of the decor is the top of a dark brown shelf we have in the living room. I bought this white tree this year at a farm nearby called Springridge farm. I went with my family close to Halloween and they had mostly Christmas items. I guess they know that there are a lot of people also buying Christmas things there at that time of the year. I love the tree it is so pretty and works perfectly to bring this snowy scene together. I have a reindeer I got at Dollarama last year and a snowy fox I bought at Target when it was still here. I have had the polar bear that is sitting under the tree for many years.

On the shelf below the winter themed display, is a simple Christmas tree, a toy box I bought at a craft show, and a Santa. 

On the shelf in our living room has these two love polar bears, a purple ornament I painted when I was in elementary school, obviously with a little help! and my favorite picture with a good reminder to always be thankful, a nativity scene I bought many years ago, and a Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer themed box my sister made me many years ago.

The elf (not the one on the shelf) but maybe his cousin and a little festive teddy bear always sit right on the windowsill behind our couch.

The knitted stockings I made last year and I have Rudolph and Clarice into the stockings. You can read the post on the pattern I used and how I made them here. 

I have my Christmas pillow I got from Michaels last year. I love it! As I mentioned yesterday I was looking for some other pillows just as cute from Michaels this year but was out of luck.

Here is the picture I bought from Michaels this week that says Merry and Bright. I love the rustic style and the details on the sign. The aluminum pieces at the top and bottom are also a nice touch.

This is how the decorative vase turned out once I put it all together. The piece with the holly is one I had already and the vase. I added the candy cane piece and the joy piece and added the glitter filler and I am loving how it all turned out.  The little dish beside it with the bears on front is one I have had for many years now. I will fill it with candies or chocolates soon for Christmas.

The tree below is in our office on my desk. I bought the pine cone style ornaments this year at Springridge farm and used the hooks I bought from Michaels to hang them up. It is always so special putting this tree on my desk in November and I love to look at it while I am on my laptop or planning.

Thank you so much for stopping by today for the 7th day of blogmas. We are moving right along now with December. I feel like it will go by quick because it has gone by fast already and has been so busy. I will try to savor every moment and I feel like blogmas has been a good thing for me to make plans for the month to make sure I do all of the celebrating, decorating, knitting, and baking I want to do for the season.

Have a great day! Happy Friday

Blogmas: Knitted Stockings Hung Up, and Reading On

Hello Friends,

I hope you are doing well. I am getting very excited for Christmas to come now, which is only FIVE days away! I still feel like I have a lot to do before that day comes. I need to buy some more gifts,  wrap the gifts, and finish knitting a gift. I have a feeling in the next few days I will be doing a lot of knitting and wrapping while watching Christmas movies. On Monday, I finished my final exam for my courses towards my certificate in Office Administration. I will be job searching after the holidays and into the new year. I am happy to be done and can move on to this next stage in my life.

I finished knitting the second Christmas stocking a couple of days ago and have added the loop to hang it up and sewing in some ends and getting them ready to be hung. I also sewed the cuffed down in four points on each cuff so they were still stretchy but stayed cuffed. I originally sewed the whole cuff down but then it was too stiff and I couldn't stretch the cuff out too much. I thought this wouldn't be great if we wanted to put in some larger gifts into the stocking. I was happy that my second attempt worked out better just sewing parts of the cuff. To knit the stockings, I used the pattern Jumbo Christmas Stockings in a Jiffy- Striped by Jennifer Jackson from Ravelry. I am looking forward to filling my boyfriend's up soon with all the goodies I bought him.

 I used Command hooks on the windowsill to hang them up. I used the larger hooks which are more sturdy to hold the stockings. Which is needed especially once they are filled with gifts. The stockings are so big and cozy and I found another way to make them even more festive by putting this plush Clarice inside at the top of the stocking. She looks so cute peeking out the top!

 Here is a view from entering our living room. I love the way the stockings look from this angle and make the room look even more festive and cozy.

My boyfriend bought me this festive bouquet of pine and holly. I love how it smells! I added it to the corner of our living room beside the couch. 

I finished reading My Not So Perfect Life by Sophie Kinsella last Thursday. I really enjoyed reading this book because there were funny parts and sad and serious parts of the book. I really liked that the story line took place in both the city and country. I liked the protagonist Katie, she was funny, creative, and sassy. I would definitely recommend reading this book if you are looking for a quick and fun read. I am currently reading Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed. I am really enjoying reading this one too. I have a feeling it will be a very inspirational and reflective book to read. I am at the point in the book where she has just started her hike along the Pacific Crest Trail and I am interested to see where it takes her emotionally. My progress is 8/10 books read to complete my goal of 10 books read by the end of the year. Once I finish reading Wild, I will be at nine books read. I have decided that I will also be finishing the book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo and that will be my tenth book read. I am almost done reading it. I had been reading it as I was moving through the steps and organizing, but I will work on finishing it up before the new year begins and also finish organizing and decluttering my apartment.

What are you working on and reading this week?

Joining along with Frontier Dreams for Crafting On and As Kat Knits for Unraveled Wednesday

Thank you for visiting my blog and if you would like to keep updated on when I post, please follow me on Bloglovin', Google Followers, and you can also subscribe through email at the top right corner of my blog.

Have a great day!

Blogmas: A Bit of Decorating for Christmas and Knitting Updates

Hello Friends,

I hope you are doing well. I decorated a bit for Christmas yesterday and today and it feels wonderful to have decorations around in the apartment now. Christmas decorations always make a space feel so much more cozy and inviting.
I put up a wreath on the door of the closet at the end of our hallway and then hung up some ornaments and the bow on it. I also added the cute reindeer onto the hook as well to add something extra to the wreath this year.

Wreath on the closet door in the hallway

 I decorated the small tree that sits beside my desk in our office. I added ornaments and garland and the pretty angel on top from Ten Thousand Villages.

Small tree beside my desk in the office

Below is  one of my favorite ornaments on my little tree. It looks like my red car carrying lots of Christmas presents on top!

I just purchased the two green cushion covers below from Dollarama for $3 each and I am really happy with how they look on the couch. I also love the cushion with the writing 'Merry Christmas' on it that I purchased from Michael's last year. So glad I did, I love it! The gray and red blanket is a Beaver Canoe blanket from back in the day when I worked at Target Canada. I remember passing by it so many times while working and thinking when it goes on sale I will buy it! I am glad I did because it is so comfortable.

That's it for now for decorations. I have a bunch of little Santa figurines and other small decorations which I did not both to take pictures of each of them. I have also shared many photos of them throughout the years if you would like to look back here. I still have all of them and scatter them around each year. I will be getting a Christmas tree this Saturday December 9th, so I will be sharing photos of the tree next week. I am so excited to finally put up the tree!

I got to knitting the Wool and the Gang Farrah Billie Jean top again. I had stopped because I realized I made some sort of mistake with the knitting. It looked like a tension issue to me.. I frogged back the work and took it away because it was pretty obvious even in the front of the piece that the stitches in that row were all looser and would look bad in the front piece of the top. I always feel better once I frog the work and just start knitting again. I find I always feel like putting it off and procrastinate a bit on ripping it out hoping I don't have to but in the end it is for the best! I finished knitting the heel flap for the stocking and beginning to work on the final part of the stocking, the foot. I am looking forward to being done and hanging both stockings on the wall for Christmas. I will be starting to knit a couple of secret projects very soon as Christmas gifts which I will share after I gift them.

Thank you for visiting my blog! If you would like to follow my blog to keep updated on when I post, please follow me on Bloglovin', Google Followers, and you can subscribe by email at the top right hand corner of the blog. Also I added a list of other ways you can follow me on social media on the side panel of the blog under the title Find me.

Hope you have a great day!

Blogmas: Finished Knitting Mitten Ornament, Knitting Updates, & Reading On

Hello Friends,

I hope that you are doing well. I have been working on finishing up with my Office Administration courses. They are all done next week which is hard to believe and I have started the job search process and will be looking for a new job in the new year. I have also been busy finishing up knitting my mitten ornament to decorate the Christmas tree. I used the pattern called Mitten Ornament by Red Heart on Ravelry.  I have been working on finishing up that second stocking as well. Today I enjoyed a nice cup of hot chocolate while I was knitting and writing my blog post.

Finished mitten ornament and stocking in progress

Love this mug I got around Christmas last year 

Mitten ornaments on the tree

Obsessed with the cinnamon buns I got from IKEA, there aren't many left!

 I have not knitted much on the Wool and the Gang Farrah top because it is hard to tell from the photo but I think I messed up the tension halfway through because there is a space at the back so I will be frogging about half of this. I need to figure out the technique of how to put a needle through just to before the mistake happened so I don't have a lot of work to do finding all of the stitches again.

Wool and the Gang Farrah Billie Jean top front piece progress

 I did not really post a progress post on the vegan challenge, so I will just update quickly in this post. I did the Challenge 22+ last month for 22 days and it went well. The final day though, I did cheat and had cheese. I enjoyed the challenge because it showed me how many options there are other than animal products to eat and that I don't have to order food with cheese all over it all the time and make some small changes. At this time however, I do not think I will be going vegan anytime soon. I love the whole vegan community and what they are working towards but it is hard giving up so many things that I love. I am still currently vegetarian and am happy with this for now.

I started reading My Not So Perfect Life by Sophie Kinsella again because I got the loan back on Overdrive, I have been reading it so much lately. I am on page 488 of 728 on Overdrive now. It is at a very interesting part in the book right now and I want to read on to find out what happens. This is the best kind of reading in my opinion, when you wonder what will happen next and it interests you. I always think back to the level of obsession when I was reading the Twilight book one Christmas. I remember that Christmas when I could not put the book down it was too good. I would love to be so into a book to that level again. I am also still reading Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed and it is also a page turner. I am looking forward to reading both of these books this month. It seems that books always come in two's for me lately, but it is because I lose my loans, then get them back again when I am already reading a new book then it is hard to juggle both. I am determined to finish My Not So Perfect Life this time before I lose it again. At this rate it is very possible. I am currently at 7/25 books from my goodreads goal now. My newer goal is to try to get to 10 books read this year. This may be possible if I finish some of my outstanding books.

I found this Santa hat in my Christmas things today and had to take a selfie with it! Ho Ho Ho!

I have joined A Blissful Lemon again with another link up. This one is called Blogmas: Naughty or Nice 2017. I am excited to do a link up again. In November I did the NaBloPoMo challenge where I wrote a post everyday. This one does not require us to post everyday but when we have time and it has to be Christmas related. I love this because around this time of the year all I want to talk about is Christmas. Speaking of Christmas, I have started decorating and will be posting an entry this week about decorating the apartment for Christmas. I am getting a Christmas tree this Saturday! Can't wait to decorate it and share photos with you soon.

Photo source

Joining along with Frontier Dreams for Crafting On, and AsKatKnits for Unwraveled Wednesday.

Thank you for visiting my blog, if you would like to keep updated on when I post, please follow me on Bloglovin', Google Followers, and subscribe through email at the top right corner of the blog.

Have a great day!