It's Begining to Look A Lot Like Christmas...

...which means I'm in the most amazing mood.

It really is my favourite time of year. Everyone is happy (if you avoid the shops), there are carols, there are Christmas movies and you get to spend time with peeps you like.

Apart from putting up a massive Christmas tree and playing carols nonstop (which is what I've done since Mid-November) I'm also going to be spending my time on Christmas crafts. If I ever had any cool points, I have a feeling they have fallen away.

Since this time of year happens to be the most expensive time of the year, I am looking at cutting down costs and making a lot of shit myself. So I've turned to Pinterest for some help in this area.

First up, I am shamelessly stealing this idea for the table. How cute. I'm planning on getting cheap material and sewing these myself. It's gonna be a pain to find ones the right size.

Then I thought I'd put up these candle jars. I did something similar last year. Except I printed carol sheet music and tied them with some twine. As we're not blessed with cold weather (I love winter so I'm really sad about this) candles on a hot day can be a bit much. So I'm making my way to a cheap store for those flameless tealights.

This is one idea I'm dying to try out but not sure how to pull it off. But not so sure how I feel about the white on brown. I've seen some awesome printables to make your own wrapping paper but not sure if I'm that ambitious. This might work for smaller gifts though in just brown paper. Definitely an opportunity to use that red and white twine I bought in bulk.

This is on my bucket list. I really, really want to make a gingerbread house. I love to bake and most of the time my stuff tastes amazing but my presentation is shitty. I have no qualms about it. I'll never be trending because of perfectly iced cupcakes or perfectly round and iced cinnabons but I know they'll taste good. That's why when I am truly ready aka not so lazy I'll attempt this.

Ex-Oh! Ex-Oh!

Things I Want To Try Out

This smokey eye makeup with glitter. 

I heart a smokey eye and I am obsessed with glitter. But not sure if I can pull off this bold look.

DIY Lace Candle Holders.

Apparently these are really simple and cheap to make. I'm dying to host a party by candlelight and think if I ever did, these would be perfect.

Messy Beehive

So I'm having a bit of a throwback phase. I think a regular beehive is a bit too much but this messy one has the perfect balance of retro and modern. Paired with a skater dress, it would be phenom.

Swing Dancing

Nothing looks as much fun as this. And I've heard about some lessons in Cape Town. But my crippling fear and lack of coordination means I'll probably never make it to the lessons.

 Ex-Oh! Ex-Oh!

Images from here and here.

DIY Fun

For some reason, the office I work in is the worst place for a mug to survive. Seriously, over the past couple of years I've seen mugs of all sizes, colours and with company branding either break or disappear.
I'm not sure what is the reason but this place is where mugs either commit suicide or are put to death.

Now this time, instead of paying a fancy branding company to put our company logo and our names on mugs, we're doing it ourselves. I know that sounds like something awful you'd find on Regretsy but it's a lot more fab than that.

Thanks to Buzzfeed, I found that if you use a magic marker on a mug and then bake for 30 minutes in an oven at 180 degrees, you can personalise your mug. How awesome - and easy - is that.

So armed with all the supplies, the peeps in the office have been busy customizing our mugs.

 

And I couldn't resist.

Ex-Oh! Ex-Oh!