Just Add Stickers

  Well it's here! The final day of our countdown 2025! I opened door #12 today and found the cutest representation of the Stars Hollow gazebo. It's a little jewelery box, so cute and original. The perfect final surprise of the Gilmore Girls advent calendar. All in all I think that the advent calendar was definitely worth the money. The advent calendar itself can be refilled, or just used as decoration. The surprises inside the calendar were good quality and unique. Thank you for spending some time with me during this month. I have enjoyed opening my advent calendars and sharing my surprises and crafts. Thank you for reading along, Happy Holidays!

At the beginning of the Christmas season I bought a Christmas Collage and Sticker book from Grabie. I have just discovered the Grabie craf website. They have beautiful paint sets, paper and stickers. The book I bought was, the Holiday Magic cut out and stick it collage book. We have been using it for so many crafts and with 200+ pages I think we will be using it for years to come, or at least for next year as well.  Some crafts we made are these festive bookmarks. On day December 21st, Little Miss' activity was going to a coffee shop to read Christmas books (definitely her mother's daughter!) I thought that we could all use some new festive bookmarks. We used some of the punch out paper shapes from the book along with some of the stickers with self adhesive laminating sheets. I love how cute they turned out! Only two more sleeps, happy holidays!

We are officially on Christmas vacation! The kids are off from school, all the exams have been written and all the crazy themed days are done! All my Christmas work parties and celebrations are done. It is family time!  The first order of business was to write a Christmas to-do list. Little Miss loves the book 5 more sleeps 'til Christmas (and the show too, but we can't find anywhere to stream it.) In the book, the little boy plans out and countdown the days leading up to Christmas. Our list includes, Christmas baking, reading Christmas books at a coffee shop, looking at Christmas lights, wrapping Christmas presents and our little family Christmas before our bigger family celebrations. We have lots to do in the next couple of days but I am sure that we will enjoy every minute of it! Happy countdown, only 3 more sleeps 'til Christmas!

This week I opened boxes 9 and 10 of my Gilmore Girl advent calendar.  In box #9 was a cookie stamp with a beautiful snowflake carved on the bottom. It says I smell snow on the top with a picture of the snowflake.  I don't think I will use it for cookies because I am not sure if it is food safe. I am thinking that I will use it to make salt dough ornaments.  Box #10, only 2 boxes left! Today I got a pen. It matches perfectly with the Chilton notebook, probably because it's the plaid pattern of Rory's school kilt, which I love! I am very happy with the surprises that I have gotten with this advent calendar so far.  Happy countdown! 

Crafting and painting and beading oh my! We had some friends over this weekend and we crafted up a storm. It was wonderful and now I feel very creative, I was in a bit of a creative slump and this weekend has me wanting to create some more!  Happy Holidays!

I am a little late posting this because life has been lifeing lately. It's that busy time of year when work is finishing up for the and all the Christmas activities are starting. I started writing this post on the 10th and didn't get around to finishing it so here goes.  Day 9 I got two dragonfly napkin rings. They are so pretty and they feel very solid and good quality. Dragonflies are special to me, we used a dragonfly as one of the main characters in our Tidy Planet Adventures book series, his name is Doug and he is a lot of fun.  On day 10 I got this cute coffee cup. I like it a lot but it is very small, maybe it's an espresso cup but in this house it's going to be a doll cup, because Little Miss' dolls like Gilmore Girls too! I have 3 doors left to open, I am making it last by opening an advent calendar surprise everyone other day. Saty tuned and I will share more Gilmore Girls goodies along with some festive crafts we've been doing.  Happy Holidays!

Time got away from us and we didn't open our advent calendars tonight. Instead, I thought that I would share some of Elf's antics this weekend.  Our Elf's name is Elfa and her pet (cat or squirrel, we're not sure which one) is called Sparky. So far they have wrapped Little Miss' door, used my door for bow climbing and taken a bubble bath. Little Miss is getting older and I don't think I'll have many years left playing tricks with the Elf but I will enjoy it while it lasts.  Happy Countdown!

Today's Advent Calendar surprise was a Gilmore Girls pencil case. This fits in perfectly with the notebook I opened yesterday. I also bought some new gel pens and highlighters yesterday. It all looks so good together and makes me want to start my planners and journals right away! Happy Countdown!

Day #5 of the Gilmore Girls advent calendar was a very nice 'Chilton' notebook. I am in the process of choosing the notebooks I want to use for 2026. So far my Happy Planner and Blog notebook are both Gilmore Girls themes, so this one fits in well.  At the beginning of 2026 I will share my planner set up for the year. In 2025, I couldn't decide on which planner I wanted to use. I tried a new one but it was too big and the paper was very flimsy, I found a coloring book planner, which was cool in theory but it didn't have enough writing room. I ended up using a few different ones throughout the year and now I have a pile of half finished planners. Finally, I am just going back to my classic Happy Planner and use notebooks for extra planning. This one will be perfect to bring on the go. My advent tree is starting to look more and more festive. Some of the ornaments that I have gotten over the past couple of days are different colors and sizes of Christmas balls and a cute ...

  It's Day 5 of our countdown to Christmas 2024 and Day 4 my advent calendars. I was glad that I waited to opened this present for when I had time to appreciate it. Day 4 in the Gilmore Girls calendar was a Luke's Dinner sugar bowl. I am very impressed with the quality of the presents in this advent calendar.

This has been a long day, I came home late from work and decided to wait for tomorrow to open my advent calendars.  I did come home to a little present though, the kids and hubby  bought me a cute Harry Potter squishmallow.   It was a nice surprise at the end of a busy day! Happy Countdown to Christmas!

Day 3! We didn't light the tapered advent candles last night, so we caught up at lunch today. Little Miss helped me decorate the little tree tonight. She deliberated for a while on where the best place for the ornament was. She decided that the best place for our little snowman was next to the other figurine ornament.   Day 3 of the Gilmore Girls calendar was a very pretty tea towel, with all the classic icons and quotes. It's so pretty I don't want to use it and risk staining it. I might try to make something out of it, it would make a nice book cover. Keep an eye out for a craft with this material next year. Happy countdown to Christmas!

  Advent Calendar Day 2! Today's surprise was a key chain in the shape of Lorelai and Rory's house.  Keychain Lorelai's house in front of advent calendar Lorelai's house. The second ornament for the tree was a cute little guy, maybe soldier, not sure what he is supposed to be but he's cute.  Happy Countdown to Christmas!

  December 1st is here! Finally! I have been staring at my Advent calendars for days now and I have had this great idea to share all countdown to Christmas fun with all of you! We started by lighting these tapered candles at supper. I placed them in my mom's brass candle stick holders, they were so nice and very nostalgic. The first decoration for my little tree was a cute red Christmas ornament with gold accents.  Day one of my Gilmore Girls calendar were two coasters with the classic I am the Rory to your Lorelai and I am the Lorelai to your Rory.  Happy Countdown to Christmas!

 For my birthday this year I was gifted two very special advent calendars. It's no surprise that I love advent calendars, I share them on my little blog every year. I love the tradition and the ritual of taking time every night to stop and spend some family together time. Counting down to Christmas helps us slow down and appreciate the little moments that make up the season, like opening our calendars all together in the evenings, with the fire burning or opening them on weekend mornings sipping on coffee. This year I have 2 new calendars to enjoy and add to my Christmas decor for years to come.  My hubby gifted me the brand new Gilmore Girls Light-up advent calendar. I've tried to avoid spoilers but one thing I did see was how to turn on the lights. If this is helpful at all for you, the battery tab that you have to pull to use the lights is behind box #7. I love the look and coziness of it, I can't wait to see what's in it!  This beautiful tree was gifted to me from m...

November is the start of craft show season. This year I helped my Mom prepare some vases to raise money at her church's craft sale.  We used vases that were donated along with blue, gold and black vinyl. I love the idea of repurposing vases to make affordable gifts.  We added some tissue paper to make the vinyl stickers stand out. She marked them for 5$ each, to make them an affordable option for teacher's gifts or for grandparents. They were a popular choice at the sale! Happy crafting and happy holidays!

  'Tis the in-between season. Time to (gradually) take down the Halloween and fall decor and start putting up the Christmas decor. I have to admit that I was very tempted to do just that today. It was a chilly late fall day and I was getting into the Christmas spirit. Little Man's birthday is coming up and he asked that I keep the Halloween decorations up for his birthday decorations but as soon as that is passed we'll be on to the next holiday. So for today I made some Christmas crafts with my mom, surrounded by Halloween decorations.  I have lots of activities and crafts in mind for the Christmas season this year, so stay tuned!  Happy crafting!

Hey! If you're looking at making a last minute Halloween lunch, I have the inspiration for you! Little Miss has requested Halloween lunches for the last 2 weeks. For tomorrow I am making monster pizzas which I have showed here before but here are some of the sandwich/wrap lunches from the past week. This is a ham and cheese spider with Halloween bark (think Christmas bark with Halloween sprinkles) and peppers (nothing spooky about them!) Above is a Witch's hat grilled cheese with Witch's brooms. Ham and cheese mummy wrap. My not so secret weapons to make a regular lunch spooky are eye sprinkles and Halloween stickers! Jack-o-lantern cheesy quessedillas with berry skewers and ghost popcorn.  Sandwich spider (any kind will do just use a fork to crimp the edges) with raspberries and apple butterscotch cookies. And last but not least a ghost sandwich with Witch's brooms, ghost cucumbers and apple butterscotch cookies. Hope these gives you some ideas! Happy Halloween!

I am loving our Halloween Town this year. We make it on top of the bookcases on either side of the fireplace in the living room. The white wall makes the perfect backdrop for our town, all the colors and shapes pop against the stark white of the wall.  Over the years we have bought a few Spooky Town houses and a lot of figurines. In the past I have used burlap as the ground which gave a good effect but this year I went with more pops of color and contrast against the white walls, with a Halloween table cloth.  This cauldron creates a bit of ambiance when it's lit up at night. We have a few of these smaller light up figurines that add to the ambiance and bring you attention away from the bigger houses. The graveyard is my favorite little scene in our Halloween Town. We bought the stairs with the grim reaper as an addition to our graveyard  this year. I always think that we have enough figurines and houses but Halloween discount shopping gets me every year!  Happy Hall...

  Happy Thanksgiving! This week was very busy and eventhough I was really looking forward to hosting my family for Thanksgiving, I didn't think about decorating. My decorations were already up for Fall/Halloween and I planned all the food but last night I realized I didn't have an idea for the table decorations. Lately my table decorations have been interactive, giving oeople something to do when they're sitting at the table. At Easter I had coloring page tablecloth. At Christmas I covered the table in brown paper and decorated each place setting with the shape of a plate and the guests names.  I knew that I wanted to have some activity at the table but I didn't have any brown paper left and I hadn't bought a tablecloth. I found versions of the a Thankful tree on Pintrest. I liked the idea and I just happened to have the materials on hand.  I used a metal container filled with with green floral foam. I had used this container for my sister's baby shower and East...