A Few Mail-Friendly Christmas Gifts: a house log
It is time for: Secret Santa: Revealed. That makes me laugh because I imagine some man with a deep serious voice introducing a show with that name after Dateline or something. Anyway, since a bunch of you have asked for the Secret Santa dirt (and I could not wait to spill who I had and to learn who had me!) here it is:
I had… (drumroll? anyone? can I at least some table slapping or something?)… House Of Smiths! It was so much lively to pack up two little surprise care packages for her. The first one included two decorative frames from Michael’s that I personalized with some paint in the name of some Christmas cheer (they were both originally dark brown).
I thought the red and the green combo was cheerful and lively for a Christmas gift, so the round one got a few thin coats of the glossy red spray paint that I also used to paint my paper maché reindeer and the rectangular one had such a cool wood grain (it kind of looked zebra-ish to me) that I painted it glossy white and dragged a dry brush with some lime green paint over it to catch simply the raised part of the grain, while the sides remain white (then I sealed it with some spray poly). When I was at Michael’s I also grabbed a little ceramic container that I doodled on with a few permanent sharpie markers and filled with toffee. Mmmm. I heard it was devoured fairly swiftly over there too! So glad.
It was remarkable to me how many commenters guessed that I had House Of Smiths right away (how’d you folks know!). My second little holiday care package was more of a clue, I think. I went with a paint theme. Haha. See… that is a clue. I could not resist these sweet compact paint can containers in the food aisle of Michael’s so I chose to fill them to the brim with red and green M&Ms and write a little holiday message on a paint stick.
I even used paint chips from my weird leftover paint chip bin (yes I have one of those) to cut out little homemade “tree” tags for the top of each can. And in went another little dish of goodies (this time I went with the famed cookies from Ukrops – they are the best!). Any yes, my scissors do say “no John cuts!” in Sharpie. He kept using my good scissors to do things like cut sticky tape. Now he’s banned.
So that is what I gave my sweet bloggy buddy, Shelley. Is it weird that I had so much lively putting these little things together? Oh Christmas, I miss ya already.
As for who had me, it was Tanya at Save The Date For Cupcakes! I was fully surprised by the way (not simply saying that – I honestly had no idea). I in fact had a hunch it was someone else but the postmark on the package shot that down – and being that it simply said NY it was vague sufficient to confuse me sufficient to keep the mystery going until the big ok-who-had-who email where we all spilled the beans.
I already shared my first surprise here (a vivid little silver box with three glittery personalized ornaments):
And my second surprise was simply as sweet! A box of vintage Vanity Fair postcards with another fairly glittery ornament for the tree (feathery wings)! It is so much lively to flip through my new postcard collection – and I in fact think I have a strong project that I can do with them so I cannot wait to see where that leads! You know I will keep you posted.
A big thanks to Mrs. Limestone for organizing this whole shebang and all the other Secret Santa cohorts like:
- Michelle at 4 Men 1 Lady
- Bryn at Bryn Alexandra
- Emily at Emily A. Clark
- Shelley at House of Smiths
- Melissa at The Inspired Room
- Janell at Isabella and Max Rooms
- Paloma at La Dolce Vita
- Jacin at Lovely Little Details
- Nicole at Making it Lovely
- Marian at Mustard Seed Interiors
- Lauren at Pure Style Home
- Tanya at Save the Date for Cupcakes
- Michelle at TenJune
- Sarah at Thrifty Decor Chick
- Laura at You Stir Me
So much lively! Did any of you do any Secret Santa business this year? Did you know who had you the whole time or were you surprised? And how the heck did so many of you know that I had Shelley the second she revealed my frames? I thought it was so obscure and random that no one would know it was me! Haha.
Psst- Check out John’s weird little lighting obsession (and imagine what he’d look like in a Snuggie) here.
Update: You can check out all of our go-to holiday decor finds here – many of which are under $15!
