Holiday Entertaining a la Pier 1!!

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Pier 1 Imports. All opinions are 100% mine.

I think it goes without saying that Pier 1 is the place to go for entertaining—especially during the holidays.    

                                           

Of all the parties I go to, very few of them involve sitting down at a large, fancily clad dinner table. They usually involve wandering, mingling, drinking, and eating. I have decided that my entertaining “go to’s” are the following:

Coasters

I admit that I have a bit of an obsession with them. I notice them whenever I go to someone’s house. It’s my thing. So it’s a big deal for me to have some nice/unique coasters laying around. They are absolute conversation starters, and they’re useful.

          

                 

Stemware

Throughout the year, I like simplicity. I like stemless glasses and clean lines. However, why not mix it up during the holiday season? It’s meant to reflect a time of celebration and festivity, and I love to pull out something more unique and (again) meant to start conversations.

                           

 

                                               

 

      Fragrance

The very first thing I notice when walking into someone else’s home is how it smells. My husband says I have the nose of a Bloodhound. I think he means I’m really sensitive to smell. I wouldn’t think of entertaining for an evening without first making sure all my restrooms and entryways have some great candles or reed diffusers in them. (That includes hand soaps and lotions, of course.)     

                           

                            

Through December 24th, you can make a donation toward Toys for Tots. And if you “like” them on Facebook (here) , they will donate $1.00 for every fan. Pretty cool, eh?

Thank you to Pier 1 for their generosity, and for letting me be a part of this entertaining series. Don’t you worry, though. I came home with plenty of my own goodies. So many ideas for holiday gifts! I’ll show you soon!

A FREE Silhouette!

Talk about one generous company! Thanks to “illness 2010” I’m a little late getting this announced, but I’m sure you’ve seen that a handful of us have been asked to give away another Silhouette machine.  You know, THEE Silhouette machine. The one that I did this(the pictures will take you to the posts)…

  and this…

and this with.

And don’t get me started on the holiday projects that this bad boy can kick out for you! Could you imagine cutting those spider webs out by hand. Yeah, let’s not.

If you’re wondering, “When will I ever get a free Silhouette machine?”, your time is NOW! Here’s what the winner will receive.

A Silhouette Machine (a $299.99 value)

It will include the following:

• Software for Windows XP/Vista, Mac
• Power cable, USB cable
• Two cutting mats (one for thick media, one for thin media)
• One cutting blade
• $10 gift card to the Silhouette Online Store

If you’re wondering, “How can I enter for this free Silhouette machine?”, here’s how!

1. Leave a comment here. Easy peasy, lemon squeazy.
2. Tweet about it and link back to here. Spread the love!
3. Write about it on Facebook linking back to here.
4. Write a big ol’ blog post on it and link back. You know, to here.

Fine print: The winner must be in the US and may only win once (considering there are several hosts).

There’s MORE!

Cyber Monday! Cyber Monday! Cyber Monday!

The giving just doesn’t end! Perhaps you won’t be at Target at 4am like some ridiculously crazy people that I know. Maybe you don’t plan on dragging your mom and best friend to Kohls at the crack of dawn. However, YOU can get a cra-za-zay-zy deal on a Silhouette of your very own even if you don’t win!

Starting at 4AM (when someone will be at Target) until midnight, you can get a Silhouette machine for $199!! That’s a savings of $100! And it doesn’t stop there. Of course it doesn’t. You will also receive--

1 Roll of Cream vinyl ( $7.99)
1 Roll of transfer paper ( $7.99)
1 Home decor CD (Value $55) 

Total ($70.98)

All for ONLY $199!!
That's almost $200 dollar in savings! Keep in mind this is the newest version of the Silhouette. They are now available to Mac users. Awwwww yeeeeeeeah!

Alright. I know this is a lot of information. I do well with bullets, so here we go with bullets.

• 4am on Monday, November 29th
• Visit to get a special code to purchase your Silhouette
• Click on my ad in the top left corner to go directly there
• Enter the code to get nearly $200 off a Silhouette package
• Wrap it and put it under the Christmas tree from “Santa”

I’m signing off for a few days. I’ll be back to announce the winner Monday morning. Happy Thanksgiving!

Inexpensive Teacher Gifts

And when I say inexpensive, I mean chee to the eep. I went to Lowes and shopped their tile department. They had simple white tiles for $.16 a piece. Yup. Six…teen…cents.

The ol’ handy dandy Silhouette machine came to the rescue once again. I found some cute snowflakes that were a pain the bahoony to line up right so easy to place on the tiles! The Silhouette made it SO easy to get these cut out, but the intricacy of the snowflakes weren’t all that easy to place. It took me two episodes of Modern Family—not too bad.

I hot glued some cork sheet to the bottom of each one and wrapped them with some ribbon.  Wal Mart has a beautiful section of wide satin ribbon. I make sure to stock up on it every time I go in. The width of it also helped to keep the tiles from sliding around.

I bought $5.00 gift cards from Starbucks for each teacher. I wasn’t impressed with the envelope they came in, so I turned to my Silhouette once again. Of COURSE they had a gift card envelope to cut! Why wouldn’t they?

Some coordinating paper I had on hand worked out perfectly. I considered punching a hold in it to thread it on with some ribbon, but it stayed put quite nicely. I left it as is.

You ready for a total on this one? Let’s see. $5.00 + $.16 x 4= (pause to ask my husband) $5.64!! Yahoooony!

Make sure you keep linking up to SaS Day! I’ll come back with some highlights later. Also, there’s still time to win the Baby Blvd. giveaway!

Handmade Holiday Review

Courtney at A Thoughtful Place knows how to gift give. I am totally doing this! I love the possibilities of it, and she shows us different ways to use them! Way to go!

By now, you might know that I get weak in the knees when it comes to packaging. I am drooling over these little bags. How simple yet so charming! Beth at It is What it Is used these as a Christmas advent (of course!), but you can use them for whatever you like!

 

Orange it Lovely is a girl after my own heart. Pottery Barn and glitter. Oh, and saving money. Perfect combination! These would be great to attach to my presents to my teenage nieces. The wheels, people! They’re turnin! 

Speaking of high-priced decor on the cheap, Carrie at Dittle Dattle replicated a Ballard Designs monogram wreath. I think this might be my neighbor gift this year. This way, I can drive by their houses and think how cool I am for making them such a beautiful gift. Or I can drive by their houses and curse them for not putting my wreath on their doors.

Uh oh. We’ve got a sewer, people. Stand by. Oh, wait. After reading her instructions, I just might be able to do this. Go see the tree these are on at Running with Scissors. Too. cute.

Oh. My. Word. Want. IT. How charming and simple and delicate and seasonal.  Go to the I Design Box for directions (and a gorgeous horse print on the wall!).

I’ll be back to announce the winners—no, I haven’t forgotten. I’ve got some projects I’m working on, and I’ve got 754 loads of laundry to complete.

What’s in My Drawers

I know I’m trying to be less original and more “findable” with my post titles, but this one was just a natural fit. By drawers, of course, I mean my craft dresser. I knew you’d ask, and you didn’t disappoint.  Ready to find out?

Paint, glitter, glue. Every crafter’s must-haves, right? Bins and tins are my saving grace. I didn’t want to get this room around and just throw everything into a drawer.

Remember when I showed you my ribbon organizer? Well, I didn’t say I had all my ribbon organized. At least all most of it’s in the same place. That’s a good start!

My sewing box (another must-have for me) and my glue guns. Needless to say, this drawer gets some use!

Now that my BFF has moved in, I decided she deserved her own drawer. First the drawer. If it works out, I’ll get her a key to my place.  Lots of vinyl, blades, etc. I also house all the cording I need to get work done.

Here’s a not so brilliant tip. I label all my cords so that I know what they’re for. If they don’t already have a tag, I simply wrap a piece of frog tape like below and write on it with a permanent marker. No more trying ten different cords when attempting to upload pictures to my laptop!

The #1 reason I wanted this storage dresser is for my waiting-to-be-altered items. I tend to give gifts for random reasons, so I always like to have some staples around. Ceramic tiles for coasters, tins for packaging, lots of stationery…blah,blah,blah.

Of course, now that I’ve taken out a lot of the office storage that my other desk provided, I had to leave a drawer for a couple of those supplies. I keep tape, envelopes, cards, hole punch and what not in here.  Now if I could just get my husband to remember that they’re in there.

The middle drawers are a work in progress, but here’s a horrible picture of what’s in there now. I don’t know how convenient it will be for my fabric, but I didn’t want to have visible piles. I also keep my craft table cloths in the top drawer. They’re a must.

So there you go. A look inside my drawers! I’ll stop there. I’m just immature enough to continue going with that one.

See you Friday!

Tile Coasters

How's that for a catchy title? Okay. I've been wanting to make these for a long time, but I'm too cheap to pay full price for...well...anything. I waited ever-so-impatiently for stamps to go 1/2 off, and when they did, I snatched up a bunch!

I went to my local Lowe's to pick up some tiles, and I found some for .14 cents!!! Of course, I didn't pick up enough, but I'll get some more later. This batch was to play around and figure out how bad I am at stamping.

Do you want a tutorial? Well, you're getting one anyway. I started out with .14 cent tiles. You don't have to have those, but it makes it much more fun if you do. I used a bunch of different rubber stamps and a stamp ink called "Staz on". It's supposed to be for non-pourous surfaces--such as .14 cent tile.

Here is my madness in the making. Because I'm a bad tutorializer (yup, made up), I didn't take pictures of the stamp pad or the backs of the tiles.

Basically, I just used some felt dots that I had laying around the house. I guess you could cut some cork or felt for the whole back, but that seemed like a lot of work to me. I cut some cream paper into squares, stamped on them, then rubbed some of the ink from the stamp around the edges to "age" it.

I chose some coordinating ribbon, waved my magic wand, and called it good. This picture's a little blurry, but I thought you might like to see the detail of the script. So pretty.

What to do with a project that cost me about $2.00? Well, there's always those teachers, but I have some secretaries at work who will treat me better than everyone else after they get these. Yes, I'm buying their love. I am not ashamed.