'Tis the Season {to diy}

I had a rare diy weekend - not because I had an abundance of spare time but perhaps because I needed a therapy session or was purely just procrastinating from doing the million other things on my list I SHOULD have done instead. Whatever the case, I opened up a nice bottle of Chardonnay and got to work - below is the fruit of my labor.

Cork Christmas Trees

Need:

-Corks

-Screw

-Glue

-Christmas garland/tree branches

Steps:

-Use screw to create a small hole to insert branch (easiest to leverage the hole the corkscrew leaves)

-Cut garland/branch to desired tree height

-Dab a small amount of glue on the bottom of the garland/branch

-Push into hole

-Trim tree to desired shape if necessary

-I also cut a few corks in half to have trees of varying heights 

Total Cost: $0

-I drink a lot of wine so I have plenty of corks laying around

-One of my neighbors threw away an old Christmas tree this weekend and I snipped a few branches off to use as my "trees"

Pretty Packages

Disclaimer - I don't plan to wrap ALL my Christmas gifts this way, unfortunately that would be insane and I don't have that kind of time. However, for a few of my favorite items I will be gifting, I decided to spice up the wrapping and put in a bit more effort than the traditional store bought wrapping paper and bows. 

Total Cost: $10.57

-Roll brown kraft paper, Hobby Lobby $5.99 reg. price (use 40% off coupon)

-'Do Not Open' stamp, Hobby Lobby $3.99

-Tags, Hobby Lobby $2.99

-Brown twine, had

-Black ink pad, had

-Gold washi tape, had

Chalkboard Cheese Board

My friend and I hosted a Stella & Dot party this weekend which was a perfect time for me to combine a few "cheese board" ideas I've been thinking about. 

This is the simplest thing ever. I purchased a roll of chalkboard contact paper and cut a piece to create the single use cheese board below. I bet I will be able to get at least 6 boards out of the roll.

I played around a little bit with what to use to write - settled on permanent chalkboard markers because they showed up the best and I was planning to throw the paper away once I was finished anyway.

My favorite thing on the cheese board was the roasted garlic - slice the top off a head of garlic, drizzle olive oil over it, wrap in foil and bake at 400 degrees for 45 minutes. So yummy.

Can't wait to try this again next weekend for another pre-holiday party.

Total Cost (without cheese & accompaniments): $10.78 *less than $2 a board

-Roll chalkboard contact paper, Hobby Lobby $7.99 reg price (use 40% off coupon)

-Permanent chalk markers, Target $5.99

Sincerely,

Chardonnay

P.S. What's in my glass...

Last week at Kroger a rebate for $3.00 back on (2) bottles of Ménage à Trois wine printed with my receipt. This of course spoke to the inner couponer inside me and I was delighted about saving $$ on even my wine purchases.

This is the remnants of the two bottles I purchased - it is rare for me to open two bottles in a row of the same wine but this was delicious so I made an exception.