Family Christmas Card Ideas, 2015 #Shutterfly

This post brought to you by Shutterfly.// Happy Monday! Can you believe how close we're getting to Christmas? Are you in the holiday spirit yet? Receiving cards from friends and family during the holidays always brings a smile to my face and some cheer to our space, as I display them for us to enjoy throughout the month. This year, I partnered with Shutterfly to create a personalized Christmas card to send out.

For me, the beauty of browsing Shutterfly's selection of holiday cards is that it's a "one stop shop." This is such a busy time of year with birthdays, dance team, Nutcracker rehearsals, school projects, and more. I love that Shutterfly makes shopping so easy with quick ways to search and filter through the many colorful and trendy designs they offer.

This year, Shutterfly has a gorgeous add-on option of lined envelopes, which I think is a lovely little detail. They also have matching address labels, gift stickers, and new ornament cards! Quality paper, pretty detailing on the edges, very sturdy. You can really tie in the whole package with your holiday theme.

My favorite feature is that you can add photos, quotes, verses, greetings, and more to the back of your cards now.

I chose the Beautiful Bough Border design this year. It took me ages to make up my mind, but I decided on this one because I loved the whimsical garlands. The quote I chose to add to the back of our card design is from Dickens.

“Christmas time! That man must be a misanthrope indeed, in whose breast something like a jovial feeling is not roused— in whose mind some pleasant associations are not awakened— by the recurrence of Christmas.”

I took the photos again myself this year, no small feat in that it was just myself and the three kids, wandering the grounds of a local historic home. It's never easy to get a shot where all three are smiling and looking in the right direction, but I managed a couple.

If the idea of holiday cards makes you nervous, I highly recommend letting Shutterfly give you a hand. I consider our cards to be a keepsake that I can treasure in our family album years down the road.

If you enjoyed this post or found it helpful, I hope you'll click your "Pin It" button to add this post to Pinterest, or a +1 for Google+. And I always appreciate kind comments.



 Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Shutterfly, but all opinions are 100 percent my own.

Vintage Stainless Steel High Chair Makeover

If you follow me on social media, you may remember a Salvation Army steal I posted about seeing on Instagram and Facebook page several months back. I passed up on a $25 vintage stainless steel high chair because at the time I didn't know if I'd be able to take it apart to add new covers, and I didn't have the time with the holidays approaching. My mother-in-law surprised me by buying it for me, and today I want to reveal Harris' new-old Vintage High Chair Makeover.

With the holidays past and long stretches of seemingly endless snow days in sight, I started plotting how I could give the high chair a new life. We have a plastic Fisher Price booster high chair that sits on one of our kitchen chairs, but I loved the stainless piece because it had character! And with seven cousins, having an extra baby seat is super helpful.

Aside from a little rust, it was in great shape. The cover was (at one time) white, and had a cool moroccan tile pattern. Over the years, it had yellowed and had a few tears, so I knew it was time for a replacement. Vinyl fabric was going to be a necessity...easy to wipe clean and pretty durable. The problem was that I wasn't finding many patterns or colors in vinyl fabric that were on trend. I also looked in all the local shops for a vinyl tablecloth, and the only only ones I could find were country grape festooned a la an episode of the Golden Girls in 1986.

Until I remembered that I had a cute-ish outdoor vinyl table cloth sitting in my kitchen sideboard. Like, for free.

So my friend Mandy came over, and we managed to unscrew the seats, remove them, use the gross grody old fabric for a template on the back of my new-ish tablecloth, and cut to fit.

Then we folded the fabric over the existing foam cushions and screwed them back onto the high chair.

Wham, bam, thank you ma'am.

Vintage Stainless Steel High Chair. {mic drop}

Of course, the legs need some scrubbing to make 'em shiny again. But I will probably leave the chair base as-is. I want to keep the original character instead painting it. Like most folks, I go crazy for freshening things up with spray paint, but I really liked the vintage look to this guy.

So, to recap...high chair cost me $0 since my mother-in-law surprised me with it. The covering cost me $0 because I used a tablecloth I already had.

Not bad for a free makeover, huh?

My little guy has been pretty happy with it!

Do you have any vintage pieces in your home?

If you enjoyed this post or found it helpful, I hope you'll click your "Pin It" button to add this post to Pinterest, or a +1 for Google+. And I always appreciate kind comments, Facebook shares, and Tweets!

Pancakes and Pajamas Theme Birthday Party

I was scrolling through some of the photos from Natalie's December birthday yesterday and realized that I never shared last year's party with you all! So, forgive the major delay, but today I'm showing off some pics from her 8th birthday party. The theme was Pancakes and Pajamas and we hosted it in our home last December. This is how we threw a budget-friendly party at home for our eight year old:

Including my own girls, this party maxed out at seven little girls. We live in a smaller, 1970s colonial, so allowing Natalie to invite every child from her class just wasn't going to work.

She invited five friends, and they each wore their favorite cozy pajamas! They had the most fun playing in our dress up trunk and putting on fashion shows.

(Invite from Party Invites and More --highly recommend!) 

Party Decorations and Food:
I bought some standard party decor from our local Hobby Lobby so that I could reuse them for future parties. Easy peasy!

The cake was from the grocery store, and I didn't serve ice cream because of all the sugar from breakfast. Drinks were water, orange juice, or milk. We used my mother-in-law's mini mason jars for cups with cute purple and white chevron paper straws. Also served were fresh fruit, vanilla yogurt, and granola. Sides were dished out from a vintage tea cart I got from my Nannie's house a few years ago. We also had whipped cream, flavored pancake syrups, chocolate syrup, classic maple syrup...and frozen pancakes from the store.

Hear me out...I had a baby just a few days earlier. There was no way I was going to whip up dozens of pancakes for this party. I wisely purchased some frozen pancakes in bulk. My mother-in -law cooked them in her oven and brought them to the party for me, wrapped up on a platter. The girls never knew the difference!

Favors:
Favors were the most adorable pajama cookies from a local baker. She was even kind enough to deliver them to my door when I told her I had a c-section and couldn't drive. If you're local, message or email me, and I can give you her information. Each girl also got to choose a nail polish to take home.

Party Activities:
We opted to do a small craft as the girls arrived instead of games. I purchased inexpensive white pillowcases from WalMart and the girls used Elmers Paint Pens to decorate their pillowcases however they wanted. That kept them busy for some time...it was wonderful! After Natalie opened her gifts, the girls had fun with her spa set and painted each other's nails until it was time to go home.

Side note: I was inspired by similarly themed parties from Tatertots and Jello and Hi Sugarplum. Thank goodness I did some early shopping and prepping, because I ended up giving birth to baby #3 via c-section just a few days before the party. And, to complicate matters, the whole fam rushed the baby to the E.R. in the wee hours the morning of the party (which kicked off the whole dairy-free-milk-protein-sensitivity drama).

We returned home just in time for me to pump, feed the baby, haphazardly apply some make-up, and complete the party food prep! So while the girls loved the party and had a blast, it was clearly not a fantabulous, Pinterest-worthy, jaw-dropping, styled party. But that's not why I threw it; so I'm okay with that!

For other party ideas I've shared:

• Barbie Party
• LaLaLoopsy Ballet Party at the Studio
• Hello Kitty Party
• American Girl Party at the American Girl Bistro
• Tinkerbell Ballet Birthday Party
• Cinderella Birthday Party
• Little Mermaid Birthday Party
• Sesame Street Birthday Party
• Budget Princess Party

What's the most fun party theme you've ever planned?

If you enjoyed this post or found it helpful, I hope you'll click your "Pin It" button to add this post to Pinterest, or a +1 for Google+. And I always appreciate kind comments, Facebook shares, and Tweets!

Best Posts from Serenity Now in 2014

Hello, hello! As 2014 draws to a close (can you believe it?!), I wanted to share some of the best posts from Serenity Now over the past year. Some of these were big hits with traffic, and some were just my own personal faves. Please feel free to Pin, share, Tweet, comment, etc. I love it when readers spread the word!

Tips and Tricks for a Newborn and Family Photo Session

LaLaLoopsy Ballet Birthday Party on a Budget

Dairy Free Chocolate Peanut Butter Swirl Brownies

Nursery Wall Art from a Gift Bag

10 DIY Thanksgiving Place Card Ideas

The countdown to Thanksgiving can officially begin! Can you believe it's only a week away? We're not hosting this year, but we will be in town (yay!!!!), having dinner at my in-laws', along with my mom and my sister's family. I thought it would be fun to share a quick round-up of DIY Thanksgiving Place Card Ideas to make your table a bit more festive.

~Gilded Harvest Pumpkin Placecards via Cupcakes and Cashmere

~Clothespin Place Card Holder via Centsational Girl

~Turkey Craft Place Card via DCWV Diary

Family Holiday Card Ideas, 2014 #ShutterflyHoliday

This post brought to you by Shutterfly.// With the holidays here again (crazy how that happens, huh?), I'm doing everything I can to keep the chaos at a minimum so that my family can enjoy this season. Planning ahead is crucial, so I did some major browsing in Shutterfly's line of Perfectly Personal™ Holiday Cards. In one stop, I created and ordered a stylish set of Christmas cards, labels, stamps, stickers, and party invites!

This year's line of holiday cards offers more than 400 different designs to choose from. While that might seem a bit overwhelming, you can narrow your search for the perfect Christmas card by choosing from flat, folded, 3/4 fold, and tri-fold layouts. Shutterfly also has 4 card sizes and various options for trim and paper type, including scalloped edges, brackets, signature cardstock, and pearl shimmer cardstock.

I usually go with traditional designs, but after much debate, I decided to change things up this year and go with something more trendy. Chalkboards and chalk art are popular, so I went with the Very Merry Frames style and I'm so glad I did.

Vibrant colors, thick and sturdy paper, beautiful design. I'll be framing this card to display.

With the flat stationary cards, I love love loooove that you can play with the designs and layouts to personalize them a bit more. You can add extra photos, choose from various trim styles, edit your sentiments, vary your colors, and choose from signature cardstock or pearl shimmer cardstock. I was even able to create a longer, custom Christmas greeting for the back of our cards.

Did you know that you can also order an entire stationary suite through Shutterfly?

Not only did I order an adorable set of Christmas cards, but I also found coordinating address labels, stickers, holiday party invitations, and even personalized postage!

Don't feel like you need to hire a photographer and spend an arm and a leg on seasonal portraits. I loaded up my three little guys one afternoon and snapped some shots at a local historic home. They were dressed in their Christmas outfits, but you could easily go casual with cute boots, jeans, sweaters, and scarves!

Now that the photos are taken, the cards ordered and delivered, I feel a bit of that holiday stress melt right off of my shoulders. I can't wait to spend a chilly December evening sipping hot chocolate, watching a favorite Christmas movie, and preparing our cards to send out.

Shutterfly has long been one of my favorite brands to work with and order from. I always know I'll receive quality products in a timely manner, and they also run fantastic specials throughout the year!

Visit Shutterfly to choose a special holiday card design to share with your friends and loved ones this holiday season. It's not too early to start browsing, and their line of stylish, trendy, and classic cards will not disappoint.

If you enjoyed this post or found it helpful, I hope you'll click your "Pin It" button to add this post to Pinterest, or a +1 for Google+. And I always appreciate kind comments.



 Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Shutterfly, but all opinions are 100 percent my own.