Christmas 2014 - I'm still here!

I hope you all had a wonderful time with family and friends over the holidays! Our Christmas 'season' was spread over 4 days, and it's all done now. That's right, 1 night of appetizers and 3 nights in a row of turkey, turkey, turkey! Next year, I think it's going to look different as we'll finally have our own place and can host a dinner. Maybe ham? ;) I'm still hanging around, but blogging has not been on my priority list for December. I came down with a pretty nasty cold, and all my energy was used for work and for buying/wrapping gifts, baking, and just general every day life. January looks like it's going to be a lot slower, so I'm looking forward to that!

Rob and I both have 2 weeks off for the holidays (not by choice). I work in a school, and his company just shuts down over the holidays. It's a little stressful financially, but we also aren't spending a ton of money on groceries for lunches, and the excess gas usage that comes from driving 40km+ each day, each. The first thing on Rob's agenda on his first day off was obviously a nap. Gunner always likes to join us, he's even the big spoon most of the time ;) 

I tried to make all the gifts look pretty, even though I know it just gets ripped to shreds anyways. I loved using Kraft paper with twine and stickers from Thatch & Thistle. I got the scales/scalloped and polka dot paper from Michael's in their $7 bin! It was a great find - many compliments on how pretty it is/was. I was in charge of dessert for 2/3 dinners, and I ruined dinner #1's dessert. I overloaded my arms with gifts, my purse, and the cookies pictured above. To put it all in the car, I put the cookies on the roof and put everything else on the back seats. Well, I forgot the cookies on top of the car and we didn't figure it out until after our 1 hour drive to my sister's...and there were no cookies.

Our first dinner was at my sister's. My nephews LOVE Rob and always ask where he is when I head over there by myself. Rob definitely 'paid' for not being there at other times and got sat on by my youngest nephew, haha! We finished dinner and watched The Lego Movie before heading back home. It was SO nice to have my grandma and grandpa there this year. It made dinner like, 10x better! I made a gluten free apple pie for Rob and his sister for our 3rd dinner. It wasn't touched, so now it's sitting on our counter at home for my dad to eat. 

I tried bringing cookies to our 3rd dinner, and it worked out. Cookies went in the car and on to the counter - no leaving them on top of the car this time ;) Gunner has been loving having us home all day (except those 4 days in a row we were gone from 1pm-11pm) and is getting in to mischief with this extra energy/being awake more. I'm pretty sure he just sleeps when we're at work, so now all he wants to do is play and bring us our dirty socks. 

How were your holidays? 

xo. Nicole

Preparing for Christmas || Supplies

One of the best things about Christmas time is wrapping gifts to give to people. I decided to prepare myself a little early this year, and get some fun things to use for gift wrapping. I love browsing Pinterest for all those wonderful gift wrap ideas, and then waiting too long to wrap gifts, and then just having to use regular ol' supplies. This year, I'm determined!

Thatch & Thistle was having a fun sale, where if you bought a certain amount of products, you'd receive a Halloween treat bag! Obviously this meant I needed to stop everything and shop. Doesn't it?

I added some Christmas twine, gift tags, and some stickers in to my cart!

The treat bag included some fun things! There was twine, stickers, and gift tags! I can still use some of it for Christmas wrapping, and birthday gifts. Our niece's birthday was on November 9, and we have one of our nephew's birthdays on December 4th. These will all be put to good use!

I'm also thinking that I could totally use everything for snail mail! I have a few friend anxiously awaiting some goodies in their mail boxes, and now I have some fun supplies to use. When my husband and I buy our own place next year, there will definitely be a craft room. I can't wait to visit Thatch & Thistle again to load up that room ;) Shhh, don't tell my husband!

Have you started to prepare for the holidays?

xo. Nicole

Homemade Christmas • A Gift Idea!

This Christmas is a bit of a weird one for us! We just got married, moved an entire province, and to top it off, all of my sewing supplies are in storage! It makes it a little difficult to sew gifts again this year, so I compromised with myself and decided to find a different way of making gifts for friends and family.

Oh my gosh, it smelled heavenly when I was making it! I wanted to make cookies afterwards, but I need to go get some gluten free flour first. We had all the ingredients in the kitchen already, so it didn't cost that much to make! I even linked my friend the recipe and she's going to make some, too. She isn't doing so well in the money department this year, so I was glad to help her find something affordable and sweet to make. 

I got the recipe from HERE! She also has a peppermint sugar scrub recipe which looks suuuuper easy to make! I wanted to make that one, too but I don't have any essential oils handy, nor in walking distance to buy. It did require almond and coconut oils, which I found at Save-On foods in the natural skin care section and the natural foods aisle!

This recipe didn't require any essential oils, just ingredients you probably already have in your pantry! It's also conveniently Gluten Free! My husband can't eat gluten in any way, shape, or form and neither can his sister. I'm not sure what putting gluten on their skin does right now, so I didn't want to take my chances. So if you know someone who has Celiac Disease or is sensitive to gluten, this gift will be a good one :)

The recipe says that it makes enough for 2 1/2 cups, which is true! I made 3 batches and it filled 4 mason jars and 4 smaller jars.

Happy gifting!

xo. Nicole

Our First Christmas Cards!

So we've had a couple Christmas' together as a couple, but this will be our first as a married couple! Since we moved a whole province away from our friends and some of our family, and we're newlyweds, I wanted to start the tradition of mailing out Christmas cards to everyone! This year, I sent one to everyone who came to our wedding and then some more people. 

As soon as Allison from Crafted Love posted a link on Facebook about how she was/is designing Christmas cards for people, I jumped at the chance! She has done such an amazing job on our wedding invitations, my blog layout, and now our first Christmas cards! I originally asked for only 25, thinking it would be enough, but I was sadly mistaken. Where Allison sent my cards to be printed, they doubled what they printed and she sent me 50 cards! I was mistaken in thinking we only need 25 cards, as I've mailed them all out and I only have about 7 leftover. I know now for next year!

Allison also started making holiday envelopes! I forgot to take decent pictures of them (they are soooo cute!), but I did get one shot!

I also received some amazing news today! For the past couple months, I've been working in retail and just haven't been happy with it. I realized while working in retail that the only job I've ever had where I've been happy is as a Youth Care Counselor in a group home. So, I've been applying for Educational Assistants in the school system here, and I got offered a position this morning! I will be starting January 6! Things are getting better for us, after all the stress of our vehicles breaking down, being 'fixed', and breaking down again.

Did you send out Christmas cards this year? Please share!

xo. Nicole

Winter Sponsors • Cara!

I have a few lovely ladies who have a place on my side bar right now who have been so wonderful and who started out or have become my friends in the past little while. So I've asked each of them to fill out a Christmas questionnaire for me to spotlight them on A Broke Bride!

The first lovely lady I'm going to spotlight is Cara from The Marvelous Flight of Cara! She is so wonderful and sweet, and we're on the fast track to becoming real life friends. She is going through a tough time right now, so I hope this will help you get to know Cara better and that you also become real life friends!

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Blog • Twitter • Google+ • Instagram

What is your favorite thing about the holidays?

The feeling in the air when you go out in public. Not just the cooler weather (although I LOVE that - I love wearing scarfs, hats, and gloves. I love layering!) but the hustle and bustle of everyone out and about and the Christmas decorations up all over the place. It's so magical!

What is your favorite holiday tradition?

I love that we (the big kids - me and my hubby, and his sister and her husband) all get new Christmas pajamas on Christmas Eve and then we all wear them on Christmas morning. SO SWEET.

Do you have any new traditions?

Dan and I sent out a photo Christmas card this year which I'm SO happy about.

It's a tradition I've wanted to do for quite some time!

And your favorite holiday dish?

Christmas cookies. Does that count?

xoxoxoxoxo

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Thank you Cara from participating in the sponsor spotlight post, and of course Christmas cookies count ;)

xo. Nicole

Homemade Christmas Gift Ideas

This holiday season I have completely lost track of time. Last year I started all the gifts in October and I haven't started this year. Christmas is coming way too soon! It's nice this year, though because a lot of our family are just drawing names instead of buying/making gifts for everyone. This way, we only have about 5 or 6 people to make/buy for! It helps our budget and relieves some of the pressure of everyone expecting something. 

I was so proud of the gifts I made last year, that I wanted to share my favorites with you again! 

For my Aunt and Uncle, I made some fun Christmas coasters! The coasters are Santa hats, elf hats, a reindeer, and then a circle with a Santa hat and some snowflakes on it. For Rob's dad and his girlfriend, I made them some passport holders because they're always travelling (they're on their way to Cuba as we speak)!

I made my friend a headphone case for her little iPod headphones. I added a mustache on to the case, and she loved it! I posted a tutorial that you can see HERE!

I'm not too sure what I'm going to make this year, as all my sewing stuff is in storage, but when I figure it out I'll be sure to post how I made them!

Are you making your gifts this year or supporting handmade? Please share in the comments! I'd love to check it out and see your ideas!

xo. Nicole

Christmas Crafts!

I hope everyone had a good Christmas! It was a crazy time for us, trying to finish gifts and working through the craziness. Excuse my lack of posts! Some serious blog love is coming up in the new year. Now that December is almost over, there's only 5 and a half months until the wedding! That's crazy! Starting in January, it's all wedding. It kinda started today with the lovely chat I had with Allison about how the invitations will look.

Since all the December crazy is over and everyone has received their gifts, I feel like showing off my hard work ;) I made a bunch of coasters for people, some passport holders (my in-laws are always travelling), and then a holiday light headband I made for myself.

Through the process of sewing everything by hand, I seriously improved my skills. I learned how to untie a bunch of knots in the thread and I slowly figured out which stitch goes best when you're stuffing ornaments with cotton filling. I wish I had taken pictures of all the cute ornaments I made, too. I attempted those river rock place mats and they turned out pretty good. As far as I know, everyone was pretty pleased with their gifts :)

I've got a quick tutorial coming up on how to make a headphone case! I made one for my friend for her gift and she loved it.

xo. Nicole

What I've Been Up To...

Christmas is coming so fast this year! Time just flies by every year that I get older and I'm not sure if I like it or not. The past couple days have been pretty busy. I've received lots of paper work from my 2nd job and I've been getting forms and documents together for my 3rd one (and they all have deadlines!) I've been busy doing that and working but I had an afternoon free to volunteer at the local Food Bank (through Starbucks) and make gingerbread houses with my friend.

Volunteering at the food bank is not an experience I will soon forget. We scooped rice, sugar, and oats in to separate bags for the staff to hand out to their clients and then boxed a ton of flour. Volunteering with my fellow Starbucks partners was what made the process fun. We joked and laughed for the whole 3 hours and got so much done. We formed an assembly line to scoop, bag, sticker, and pack the goods and our barista skills came in handy. The Food Bank supplied us with pizza as a thank you!

We were told that the government only supplies the Food Bank with $55,000 a YEAR, but they give out $30,000 worth of food every month. How does that even make sense?

Have you or will you volunteer this holiday season?

Today I hopped out of bed at 8am to be in downtown Vancouver for 9am. I woke up to SNOOOWWW!! I was beyond excited and it makes me feel like Christmas really is here this year. I made my way on the highway to downtown through the snow and checked out the Great Canadian Craft Fair! There were so many cool vendors and a lot of vegan baked goods that I can show my mom (who's vegan). It's really hard to find a lot of things that have no dairy and no eggs in them. I also found some cute handmade baby stuff for my friend who is expecting :)

Yesterday Rob and I laid on the couch all day and watched Grey's Anatomy. Holy cow. I think I was pretty tired because every episode made me want to cry. We're just finishing up Season 3 and I can't wait to see what happens in Season 4. So many little cliffhangers and weird traumas that happen in that show...

What have you been up to?

xo. Nicole

December 2, 2012

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas! Today I went over to my mom's house to finish painting the ornaments that we made (and do laundry). I showed up just as she was finishing putting the tree up! My sister and I decided that the tree looked best with just the lights and garland, so we didn't put any decorations on. My mom did her regular snowman/silver/blue/white theme and I realized how I much I miss it. We turned on National Lampoon's Vacation and ordered take out while we decorated our salt dough Christmas ornaments!

I had such a good time painting the ornaments and spending time with my mom and my sister. I even made a chalkboard one! As this year is the first year that Rob and I have a Christmas tree (and in our own place!) my mom and sister gave me the ornaments that they decorated. 

When I got home, I promptly took our tree out of the closet and put it together. There are some lights on it, but oh boy was that ever frustrating to put together! I decided to make some peppermint hot chocolate (in my elf boot mug) and relax for a bit before bed. 

Rob's not in to decorating for Christmas and he just finished a 24 hour shift, so he's sleeping right now. I think I'll just get him to fix the tree tomorrow as it's a bit lopsided. I am just so excited for Christmas! Tomorrow is going to involve me finishing off some Christmas gifts and cleaning the apartment.

Link me some pictures of how you decorated for Christmas!

xo. Nicole

Thursday + Christmas Crafting

Happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends! I hope your bellies are full of delicious food :) Our Canadian one was last month, and oh boy, I can't wait for Christmas dinner now.

Today included being shaken awake at 9:15am by a man who hadn't slept yet, and wanted to go for a walk. We compromised and went for breakfast and then a walk through Stanley Park. 

Last night, I got off work at 6:30 and came home to make Christmas gifts! I was totally in the creative mood and finished 4 gifts!

After walking through Stanley park on little sleep, it's time for us to relax until work tonight.

Hope today is wonderful and full of thanks!

xo. Nicole