House and Holidays

Photo from smashingbuzz.com

It's the end of week two of the H+H plan over at Magical Holiday Home. The focus: organizing activities and setting up a creativity area.

This week many of us have been decluttering our creative spaces to make room for craft projects, writing lists, planning holiday meals, signing and addressing Christmas cards, wrapping gifts, everything.  The two areas where I do most of my creating, planning and whatnot are at my dining room table or at my desk in the guest bedroom.  I tackled my desk area a few weeks ago. Let me tell you, my desk area was a job and a half.  PAPER!!!  That's all I'm going to say about that. I know you know what I'm talking about.  But it's all good now. I can actually see my desk lol.

I do have several craft projects I will be working on - all decorations, no homemade gifts this year.  However, I have not been to the stores to pick up supplies needed.  Mainly because I have been focusing on fall projects that I am currently working on. My goal is to have the supplies by the end of this month. By then all of my fall projects will be completed and I can begin focusing on my Christmas projects.  I have to have them done before Thanksgiving weekend, which is when I start putting up my Christmas decorations.

In addition to creating a nice work area, we're working on our seasonal calendars. There's parties, family photo sessions, travel arrangements, maintenance schedules, school plays/concerts coming up.  Having all of that on a seasonal calendar is perfect to avoid missing something very important or worst, double booking.  My seasonal calendar has been done for weeks.  I just update as needed.  And as for traveling, I never travel during any holiday and I don't have any family coming in town.  Besides the majority of my family members live nearby.

Lastly it's time to get that shopping list together.  My list is tucked in my purse and I've already started picking up stocking stuffers.  I've also started my holiday layaway at Walmart.  I have a three page list so the sooner I started the better.  My list has everything from craft supplies, to gift ideas, to baking supplies.  Some of the ladies at MHH are almost done all of their gift shopping.  They were lucky enough to find the perfect gifts for their loved ones throughout the year.  Very impressive. Wish I could be that good.

Week 3: House & Holiday

Wow it's been a few weeks since my last post. Not to mention that three weeks of holiday prepping has passed.  Actually this is the end of week five of the HHP countdown. I'm always on the go so it's been a little difficult to get my posts done.   Although I have not been here I have been working diligently on the countdown and today I will sum up what's been happening with my plans for the holidays.  

Week three was Me & Mine week.  The goal was to focus on the master bedroom, set up an area in your home as a  wrap and mail center, schedule personal care appointments and if you've already started, inventory the gift closet.  In week four, Close to Home week, the focus was the kids room, complete the Seasonal Spruce-Up Exercise, think about Halloween costumes and more holiday prepping.   This week, five, is House Room which focuses on holiday guests you may be having during the holiday season and the guest room, do an inventory of holiday decorations and plan decorating ideas.  Also in this week we decorate for Fall (you can see my fall decor here).  Since I'm kid free and do not expect any guests coming to stay with me, other than holiday prepping, I had two bonus weeks to do whatever I wanted.  So I cleaned the master bedroom and the second bedroom

In all honesty, I do very well with keeping everything neat and organized in the master bedroom. The only things that I needed to do was:

*  wipe down baseboards
*  vacuum and shampoo carpet
*  clean windows/window sills.
*  polish furniture
*  wash curtains at the window
*  and touch up walls with a little paint

I really would like to do something dramatic in the master.  Something like this:

Maybe next year.  Sigh!  Oh well, let's move on to holiday planning part.

For the third (or is it 4th) year in a row I joined the Christmas Card Swap.  Each year I send out and receive cards from my friends at Magical Holiday Home.  I send cards all over the world: England, Austrailia, Canada, Scotland, and of course the United States to name a few.  For this year's swap, I found the perfect cards for my friends at the end of last holiday season.  I really hope they like them. I also bought cards to give out to friends and a few co-workers (pictured below).

Once I get the list of participants, I can print the address labels.  I had to make sure I had the correct addresses of family members as some of them have moved over the past year.  I swear I have one relative who's like a gypsy...always moving!  I can't keep up!  At the end of this month I will start signing and addressing the cards so that they will be ready to go in the mail on December 1st.  It will be great to already have them done.  Especially when there will be so many other things to do to prep for the holidays.

Next, I did a check of wrapping supplies and I'm good in that department.  I have plenty of wrapping paper, some of which haven't even been opened and I cleaned up on gift boxes, tissue paper and gift bags at the end of the holidays last year.  Now if I can focus on shopping for gifts (lol).

And finally...I finished up the weeks doing an inventory of my Christmas decorations.  I purchased a new tree last year and then decided I wanted new ornaments as well.  However, once my tree was up I wasn't quite happy with it.  It looked so naked.  I found a few nice ornaments on clearance last year but I also made a note on my shopping list to look for a few more as well as some ribbon.  I like my trees to look full - pretty - and full.

Tomorrow starts week six of the countdown, Wardrobe Week.  Gotta plan outfits for the upcoming holiday parties.

Week 2 of House & Holiday

  

Actually today starts week 3 of House & Holiday.  I have been so busy (I seem to say that a lot - lol) that I have not had time to post about last weeks tasks.  So here it goes.

Week 2 focused on Calendar & Creativity.  The goal was to create/declutter a space in your home where you will plan for the holidays, work on crafts or use as a wrapping station for gifts.   My designated space is my home office which was decluttered and cleaned in week 1.

On the holiday prep side, we created a seasonal calendar, set up travel plans (if you will be traveling during the holiday season), browse for decorating ideas and recipes, plan homemade gifts and get started on your shopping list.   I set up my calendar back in July.   That's how anxious I was about the upcoming holidays.  From September through December I have noted birthdays, anniversaries, vacations, wrapping parties, holiday events, countdowns, and anything else that needs to be noted.  I have a printed copy that I keep in my holiday notebook and a copy on my portable hard drive.

The only time  I will be traveling this year is in October.  A group of friends and I are spending the weekend in Norfolk, Virginia for NSU's Homecoming.  I can't wait!  I had so much fun last year.

As for homemade gifts,  I have a few in mind. For my mom and a few close friends I am making photo calendars. Those are always well received.  Confetti Bean Soup for my neighbor.  She loves homemade soups.  Kissmas Whisks for a few co-workers. And for my best friend, this ombre glitter vase.

I found this idea on Better Homes &Garden's website.  Her favorite color is purple so I think the purple with lavendar will be really pretty.  She's going to love this! I can't wait to show you all the end result!  Finally there's my homemade cookies for a few folks.  Maybe next year I will try to do more homemade crafts.  I enjoy them so but will need to make more time to complete them.  Perhaps next year I will join the crafter's challenge over at Magical Holiday Home.

Speaking of gifts, I wanted to do some shopping this weekend but it didn't happened. Had to get some work done on my truck so it will be ready for emmissions. Bummer!!!  Except for the young kids in my family, I pretty much have gift ideas for everyone on my list.

I had a crying moment when I came across my nephew Eric's name and had to cross him off the list. I didn't want to do it last year.  I miss my guy so much.  I can't believe it's been nearly two years since he passed.  I find myself shaking my head about it daily.

Okay, I'm not going to get all mushy.  Better stop here.  More holiday fun  to come.

House & Holiday Plan 2014 Has Begun

Week One:  Planning and Paperwork

So this past Sunday kicked off the House & Holiday Plan for 2014.  Each week I will attempt to declutter my home while getting ready for the upcoming holidays.  I was so excited and motivated that I decided to start a little earlier.  Starting with 'control center', my somewhat home office.

One day last week I came in from work, walked straight into the guest bedroom and just started cleaning and decluttering.  I went through the pile of paper that had been sitting on my desk, shredded/tossed what I no longer needed and gathered up and sorted everything else in nice manila folders.  Now all I need is a small file cabinet to keep everything in.  Until then they are neatly stacked on my bookcase.

Next I wiped down my desk, computer and printers (boy do those printers collect dust).  Then Wiped down the bookcase where I store my holiday notebook, recipe books, Christmas cards, etc.  Looks really good in there now.  I can find what I need and everything is at the ready.

In addition to decluttering paperwork, there's the planning to do.  But first, clean out my holiday notebook.   I pulled everything out from last year, stapled them together and placed them in the back of my book.  They will be used as a reference while planning for this year.  I already had the new sheets printed and ready to go in the book: the budget, shopping list, gift list, menu...  So then there was answering a few questions of myself like, How much in total do you plan to spend this year?  What amount will you spend on gifts? What special gifts do you have in mind? What type of food will you be serving Christmas Eve?  And so on.  The only thing left from this week's tasks is to complete the exercise.

Right now I'm feeling pretty good at what I've been able to get accomplish.  Mind you this is only the first week.  I'm hoping 'regular life' doesn't de-rail me too much the remainder of this year.

Getting Ready For the Holidays

Well that's the thought I have in my head. LOL

It's a little busy here. I've been spending a lot of time getting ready for FALL, my favorite season.  You can check out my blog here.

Now I need to get caught up with the two plans I'm following over at Organized Christmas and Magical Holiday Home.  Today is the last day of week 3 for House & Holidays and week 4 for Holiday Grand Plan.

House & Holidays is Me & Mine week where the focus is all about "me".  Plus I tackled the master bedroom, including the closet.  Wasn't much to do, thank goodness.  I just added some fall decorations and fall scented candles.  Put out my pretty comforter and hung up some heavier window curtains.  The nights here have been wonderfully cool.  For the holiday prep part. Yesterday was a quiet day at work so I went over and updated my Christmas card list, designed some pretty address labels and scheduled in my holiday planner some "me" time.  I still need to get my gift closet/area set up.  Actually I need to start gift shopping.  I did take advantage of Walmart's pre-layaway weekend last week.  So I will need to have my closet ready before I start bring gifts home.

Holiday Grand Plan is Master Bedroom week, but I'm only following the holiday preparations part.  I made a batch of peanut butter cookie dough and placed in the freezer. I also made an extra meal for the freezer ( Lasagna).  Already in the freezer are sugar cookie dough and another freezer meal (meatloaf). The last week in November and all of December will be really hectic for me so having  meals already prepared will work great. Just throw in the oven and go.

I'm going to a family cookout in a few hours but when I come back I want to work on my Christmas cards. If I'm not too tired or other things. LOL