Christmas Planner

Hello! It might seem strange to be creating a Christmas Planner in January, but as cold and wintry it is outside, it does seem fitting. I can fill this out and work on it throughout the year and be all ready for when Christmas 2019 comes around.

For my project I chose to create a Christmas Planner using the Holiday Planner Printable Set. I created the base of the planner with a pocket folder cut to size and then covered with designer paper. 

The front of the Christmas Planner I used a  pre-colored Emma the Skating Elf image from FredSheSaid.

Be sure to visit the Cutting Cafe Blog later today to see the design team's projects in which you can leave a comment to be entered into a drawing to win 3 FREE sets of your choice from the online store.

Winter White Party

Yesterday I had a couple of friends over for the afternoon. I have missed getting together with people the past year. It was a hard 2018 and this year I am determined to focus on those things that I missed last year.

I have been so inspired by youtuber Olivia (Olivia's Romantic Home) and the book "Just Open the Door" by Jen Schmidt. Olivia is always decorating her home to make it special. I used to do that and the last couple of years haven't done much. It is something that I really enjoy and I had fun making my home warm and cozy with candles, snowflakes and anything white and cream I could find in my home. Jen's book talks about just have friends over and stop making excuses. She is so right and I had so much fun and can't wait to do this again.

So back to yesterday afternoon...I kept it small and simple, but great thought went into the afternoon to make it a special time in the middle of a cold and dreary day.

I created an inexpensive, but fun little gift for each of my friends. I already had some white berry baskets I had gotten on sale a couple of years ago from Hobby Lobby. I added some gold polka dot tissue paper, white Kit Kats, white Cocoa packet, caramel candy cane, and hand-crocheted natural dishcloth, and glittery white snowflake ornament and a cute mini clothespin with a white felt snowflake.

For the tablesetting, I used a gold tablecovering, my cream Fietsta plates, a gold and white striped napkin, white mugs on a handmade white on white coaster.

Here is a pictures of the table with the food on it. I served homemade hot chocolate and had marshmallows and red hots for stir ins, powdered sugar donuts, white chocolate covered puff corn sprinkled with gold sugar, and artichoke/spinach bomb with chips. The only decor on the table was handmade white yarn pom poms on chopsticks in a cream vase. I had candles burning around the house and soft music playing on Pandora.

artichoke/spinach bomb

Thank you girls for coming and enjoying a fun afternoon!

My Password Keeper

For the month of January, the Cutting Cafe Design Team will be showcasing planner projects using any of Regina's planner files.

While I do types of planning, it's not the normal kind. LOL I have bits of this and that, that I keep track of. One of those things is passwords. I had them all written in a notebook that is about to fall apart, so thought that this would be the perfect time to put them in a binder. By adding some reinforcers over the holes punched out and some washi tape on the outside edges, this would protect my pages and they would last longer.

Thank you for stopping by and be sure to visit the Cutting Cafe Blog later today to see the design team's projects in which you can leave a comment to be entered into a drawing to win 3 FREE sets of your choice from the online store. 

My Word for 2019

I chose "focus" for my word for 2019.

2018 was a very hard year and so many things that I planned to do did not happen. I have many things that I want to focus on this year, in part those that didn't happen last year and in part focus on things I learned from some of the hard last year that I feel is /are important. I will be sharing these throughout the year.

In the past I have made plans/resolutions/goals for a whole year. While I have reached some of those goals, it seems for the most part I start out gung-ho and then get distracted/bored/unfocused. So this year after reading one of my favorite blogs (thehomespunheart), I've decided to follow her lead and just set monthly goals.

So to keep it simple, I only have a few goals to focus on for January...

focus on:

*completing a declutter challenge for the month of January. There are so many out there, you can just google it or look on Pinterest and you will have many to choose from. I chose to follow this one:

30 MINUTE, 30 DAY ORGANIZATION CHALLENGE. 

*decluttering and organizing craft room (this will take a good part of the year as I would like to completely remodel it as well and this will take time and money that I need to save for)

*friendships: 

          *have some friends over for a cup of tea/coffee "just because"

          *send a card to someone letting them know I'm thinking of them

*my health: I had a lot of health issues that happened in 2018 and are carrying over to 2019, so my goal is to keep better notes of what is going on when and to increase my exercise to 5 days/week

That's it for January...simple, but things that will take my time and focus. My goal is to post in Feb how I did and list some new things to focus on for February.