Last week, we threw our joyschool Christmas party - it was great! Holly and I are so lucky to have a fabulous group of friends to learn with. We both love joy school. I only took pictures of our joy school crafts, but we also had free play, a gift exchange, and a cute Christmas-themed snack. Our crafts were decorating mini gingerbread houses and making snowglobes. All the kids were crazy about the candy! Oh, and I'd just like to draw attention to the fact that were were outdoors for the crafts! Love California!

Last week I sent off my second roll of B&W film and I am so happy with the results! I think I'm getting better at working with my camera. Very exciting! I couldn't wait to see how these two photos of Holly turned out. I'm amazed that I was able to capture them. She's so difficult to take photos of and I guess that makes success so much sweeter. These photos are so Holly right now. I love my Holly so much! She's going through another personality blossoming phase and she shines so bright. Holly is a gift to our family. 

Meet my Mr. and Mrs. Ho Ho Ho pillows!

I think they're really fun and cute, which is good, because I've got some history with these pillows. First, I tried the freezer paper stencil version which took 2.5 hours and the paint bled where it wasn't allowed to go. I used a linen blend and I think that was the big culprit. I threw an adult temper tantrum. It was ridiculous.

I had already bought the pillow inserts from Ikea, which was an adventure in and of itself, so I was fairly determined to make these pillow covers, and make 'em right. For round 2, I decided to stick to the medium I know best - sewing - and I ordered some quilting cotton and white felt and waited for arrival. Then it took quite a bit more time to carefully cut the felt out and then to carefully sew it onto the pillows with precision.

And then I thought I would like a white pom-pom trim on the pillows, however, once I sewed the trim onto one of them, I had second thoughts.

So I sewed the second one up without the trim and in the end I decided I liked it better without.

And I figured out why too. The white trim was too much of a contrast to the red fabric and it looked too cutesy to me. I wanted to finish them off right and really like them even if it took a little extra work because I had already put so much work (and $$$) into them. They're done now and happily sitting on my couch bringing a little extra Christmas cheer to our living room. If I were to make them again (as gifts), I would use heat bond and make them applique-style. I think that would be the easiest method (although still fussy) and I think it would look good too. 

The pattern and template for these great pillows can be found in A Hip Handmade Holiday.

Holly and I made these crystal bead ornaments with one of her friends. The only supplies needed are white pipe cleaners and clear, colorful beads. Holly made two and gave one of them to a friend and the other one she made has magically disapeared. So, the one below is the one I made. Pretty talented, right? Holly definitely prefered using the pony beads over the other beads because the holes were bigger on the pony beads and therefore easier to string. This was a fun little craft. I'm glad we did it! I feel like time is running out for Christmas crafts and I'm starting to panic. Also, I've been taking more photos lately, so more posts to come!

My sister-in-law, Elizabeth, recently did a little photo shoot with Christmas lights and she emailed a few of the photos my way. That was it! I was going to do a little photo shoot with Christmas lights! I've "pinned" so many inspirational photos, I just had to do it. I did it at my friends house and took photos of her kiddos too. It was a bit of a disaster! Photographing kids is hard. One is smiling, one is zoned out. One is throwing a temper tantrum, the other is busy playing... I'm just grateful I got what I did. I took 8-10 photos with film and sent that off yesterday! Excited to see how it turned out!

On a sidenote, I'm forever dreaming about a home filled with natural light. Always, always.