a diy christmas

This year has been one of many life changes. My love (and may I add, now Fiance) and I are finally back in our own place after many years of living with relatives, many LizzyB Loves projects with some fabulous brides and grooms to be have come my way (and many more to come next year), and other less than happy moments which after they pass, you figure were essential life lessons. These events have made me realize what is truly important in life, as well as made me see that out of every situation a better day will come.

And, what does all this sentimentality have to do with diy Christmas projects you may ask!! Well, out of need comes resourcefulness, right, so as a creative Holiday project this year we decided to make our own gift wrap. Our initial idea was to stamp a design Gabriel, my Fiance (I don't think one can ever tire of saying that!), created and which I would cut on linoleum onto the craft paper.

After thinking about that for a second, we decided to go a simpler way and stencil the design instead. Ummm, better said than done. That turned out to be a bit too much for us as well so out of frustration I started painting over the only design I managed to stencil on the box and I got these very graphic patterns.
 

Combining the two red and purple metallic paints we were going to use for the stenciling, we came up with this accidental outcome for this year's Christmas gift wrapping.

Keeping with the diy approach and using whatever you have available, I followed this fun and easy tutorial via 100 layer cake for these retro gift bows made out of magazine pages. Again, total suprise outcome. I was thinking of buying colorful magazines to make the bows and after a gander through one I just happened to have laying around my house (which is odd, I rarely buy magazines; this one was probably a very old one which was given to me.) I found the perfect color ads to match my red and purple color palette. This one above was made from a Lancome ad with Emma Watson; the perfect purple tones and shades.

I found an ad for every gift to create a colorful palette of bows. This one above was white, but I loved the contrast it created between the whites of one side of the page with the dark grays of the other side. I couldn't decide which side to use.

Any paper is perfect for these hand-made bows. Here's one made with hand-made paper...a scrap I've had for years in my many boxes filled with scraps of everything!

Oh, and to add to the do-it-yourself projects, Gabriel and his companions at 8 a.m. each designed and screen-printed Holiday Greeting cards. He provided our little Holiday project these remnants of their hard work which served perfectly as gift tags (and, the perfect match, again, to our color palette...in metallic, too.)!

Now here is my favorite bow, a full page of red and purple-toned M&M's! Enough said.

As a final note on the diy decor, albeit, our ornaments weren't ALL diy, they're ornaments we've collected throughout the years of living together. Some purple, some red, some silver...ummm, that's where the color palette stems from. We decided that instead of buying Gabriel's idea of the perfect Christmas Tree ornaments (Star Wars-themed figurines) we would just stick everything we had on the tree. It turned out to be the best one we've had. The pretty crocheted white and red ornament you see in the first image in the beginning of the post is a very retro one from a set my mom made when I was very young (oh, they're at least 20 to 25 years old). All keeping with the diy/use-what-you-have theme.

So yes, a very serendipitous Holiday this is turning out to be, but a very well DESIGNed one at that!!

May you and your loved ones have a happy and safe Christmas weekend. Always remember, it's with the surprise outcomes that we can find joy in the smallest details.

{ Images Via :: LizzyB Loves }