Merry Christmas and happy holidays.

Christmas eve has come to a conclusion for me. My whole family got together at my parent's house for a buffet style dinner, yankee swap and white elephant. My white elephant gifts were pretty decent - some candles and candle holders and Christmas coasters that I am going to turn into a really small door mat or a place setting. Other than that, my Aunt surprised me with something that I have been looking for for about a week now - beer bottle caps! I have been wanting to make some magnets out of them but I don't drink a lot of beer at home, nor do my parents. Anyway, once everyone left I commenced magnet making.

Pretty basic and simple but still interesting, I think. I LOVE magnets and collect them, sort of. I'm not really a collector, but I do like picking up some different/cute/funny/cheesy gas station magnets when I come across them.

Earlier this afternoon, while I was taking pictures of the quilt I made:

I realized that I don't have any throw pillows or anything. So in an attempt to hide my Tempur-Pedic pillow, I quickly stitched together that deep pink patterned pillow case.

It seriously took about seven minutes to make and it adds a nice difference to my small bed, I think. At some point I'll be making more pillows with a little more detail and thought behind them, but for a last minute project, I think this is pretty okay! Except that I didn't iron or wash the fabric... oops.

Yesterday, while rewatching 30 Rock because I love it, I made this simple jar cozy:

and these jar photo frames:

I forgot where I saw these, I'll search for the link later and edit this post when I find it. Nevertheless, I'm all for simple projects that add a little spunk to my room. I stuck a picture of the garden in front of the Eiffel Tower and London at night in the jars. I'm so bad at hanging things on the wall so these jars are a great way of displaying some of my favorite photos without having to try to fit them all on my one magnetic dry erase board.

I'm actually starting to get pretty tired. Christmas day we have a family brunch and then open gifts. You can tell that there is a baby in the family again because there are a LOT of gifts under the tree this year. Before my nephew was born, there were maybe a dozen gifts for the five of us. Now there are at least twenty five, most likely more... But now it's time to get into bed with some yarn until I fall asleep. Happy holidays my one reader friend. ;)

-Dani