Showing posts with label Blogmas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blogmas. Show all posts

Tuesday, 15 December 2015

Christmas Wrapping Ideas

Hello lovely friends!

Christmas is just over a week away (ho ho homygoodness) which means there is still time to get your Christmas shopping done and there are presents to be wrapped! 

One thing we love about Christmas is being able to give wonderful presents to the people in our life that mean the most of us. 

We LOVE wrapping, but we never have a lot of people to shop for, so we like to get creative and make the most of it. At the start of the month Kikki-K had a 20% off for members sale and so we went to town on their wrapping paper, ribbon, and red and white twine. 
We also got some decorative gold bows from Spotlight and gift tags from Big-W. 

(This post is in no way sponsored by Kikki-K, we just love their wrapping paper!)





ONE.

Candy Canes are a great way to add a little something extra to your wrapping, just by sliding in behind the ribbon, or weaving in and out of some twine. 



Get some use of out your cut-offs by making a band of a different wrapping paper to go around the middle, under your ribbon. It add's some great layers, and adds extra reinforcement to hide the gift, as white paper can be a bit see-through at times. 


I really like this one, which is just red and white polka dot paper, with a gold gift tag slid underneath some red and white twine, which I wrapped around the present a few times. I then added a small piece of the OPEN ME ribbon from Kikki-K and a candy cane, for something just a little bit cheeky and fun. 


TWO.

If you have a few little things to give someone, instead of wrapping them all individually, a great idea is to put them in a box. 




We just got boxes form the $2 shop that fits all the items, and wrapped the boxes to make a nice matching and festive gift. (of course, we just love to wrap things and any excuse to wrap more is a good one. You can also just leave the box as is, if you wish.)

Unfortunately, we forgot to show you HOW we wrapped the boxes, but there are some great tutorials online, or you can wrap it like any other box-like present, and either fold the sides like I did (bottom photo) or just wrap it like contacting a book like Grace (top photo). We both did the lids in different paper to divide up the colours and also it just looks super cute, oh my goodness, I am obsessed. 

You can then stack the box on top of another box like we did, or you can leave it as is with a cute ribbon tied around it or even some twine. 

We had some trouble with the gold bows, but we just used a hot glue gun to secure it to the ribbon/twine.

THREE.
Some people like to make round gifts into bon-bons, but Grace wanted to try something a bit different.



 So, with a bit of difficulty, Grace was able to stick down the ends of this tube, and for a simple touch, she wrapped some twine around it a few times and added a gold gift-tag. 

FOUR.
For our last one, I went for a gold theme, with this white and gold tree paper from Kikki-K, gold ribbon (also from Kikki-K) and gift tag. The result is clean and classic.


 HOWEVER, I had such a hard time with this gold sparkly ribbon. The sticky tape just would. not. hold it at the back, and as you can see, it kept drooping rather than staying in place. So, to fix this dilemma (it was frustrating me to NO END), I got out my hot glue gun and just dotted the glue on the ends of the ribbon at the back, as well as on the front and under the gold bow to (finally) hold it in place. 




And there we have it! We had a lot of fun wrapping this year, and I just wish I had more presents to wrap. 

Paper: Kikki K | Ribbon: Kikki K | Gift tags: Big W | Bows: Spotlight (On sale!)

Have you done all of your Christmas shopping? Send us some picture of your wrapping, we would love to see it! 

And on a final note, we would like to mention that Christmas is not all about presents, but spending time (in whatever shape or form) with family, friends and loved ones. 

Have a holly, jolly Christmas
and 
Stay Gold x

Saturday, 20 December 2014

Our Inaugural Annual Christmas Party


Hello all!

For our 19th birthday the other week, we threw a Christmas Party (of course). We are planning on making our Christmas party an annual event. Considering that this is our final year of being official teenagers, this will be a great tradition to go in to our twenties with. Christmas parties are not just work events, they are a great way of getting together with friends and celebrating the holiday.  

So, with the help of Pintrest, a couple of our parent's wedding presents and $2 shops, here are a few photos of our celebration.



Our Pimm's Punch was a great hit with everyone! 


Homemade Peanut Butter, and Hazelnut chocolate truffles


Shout-out to Alice for making peppermint chocolate bark. It was delicious!


Of course, we needed something savoury, and this mix of popcorn, pretzels and Christmas M&M's was popular. Especially when the night ended in a viewing of Love, Actually.








You cannot celebrate Christmas without some festive bon bons! Also, we had our Spotify playlist filled with hours upon hours of Christmas music in the background to set the mood. 



Gotta love this chalkboard from Typo which you can purchase here.

The night was wonderful spent with our lovely friends. It also ended with us watching Love Actually and playing a Love Actually drinking game. #wildnight

Merry Christmas! 

Sunday, 14 December 2014

Twin's Day Out: Christmas in the City



Hello all!

Another Christmas post! (Don't worry guys, there are only 10 days until Christmas, and soon they will be long gone)

So, there are two things Grace and I love more than life itself: Melbourne and Christmas. And the best thing ever? CHRISTMAS IN MELBOURNE. Christmas in any city is wonderful, even for young adults! So, on the morning of our 19th birthday, we took our good friend Alice and headed into the city for some Christmas cheer and everything we did was free/cheap. Hooray!


First stop: Christmas Square! Each year City Square on Swanston Street turns into a beautiful Christmas park. It's absolutely free, in the heart of the city, and my gosh, look at that tree!
Grace (left): high-waisted shorts and sheer shirt both from Savers.
Canvas shoes from K-Mart.
Claire (right): Dress from Cotton On, brogues from Salvos.  








Naturally, as the common/basic white girls we are, we love going to Starbucks for holiday themed flavours, and of course, the Christmas cups. Sorry we're not sorry!


Since Christmas is in the summer here in Australia/Melbourne, Claire's favourite is the gingerbread frappachino. The gingerbread flavour is mighty strong, and it tastes soooo good.


Grace isn't much of a coffee drinker, but since there aren't holiday flavoured teas, she tried the peprmint mocha frapachino (peppermint, her favourite)
Grace's sunglasses are from Rubi Shoes


Town Hall looks like a christmas present and we love it so much. The building itself is beautiful and one of our favourites in the city. This just takes it to a whole new level. *heart eyes emoji*


We were delighted to see that the Myer Christmas Windows were actually Chritmassy this year (just like they used to). The Christmas windows are free! The lines get quite long, but as not only tall people, but as young adults, you can pretty much just walk behind the lines and look over their heads. This year is Santa Clause and the Three Bears. We always knew Goldilocks was actually Santa (wait, what?)


The Myer Christmas Windows are an institution, and as kids, our parents or school would take us into the city and see them every year. Now that we live here, we take ourselves!



Department stores are always super christmassy in their decorations, and Claire believes that there is just something with the shiny white floors, the bustle of people holding numerous shopping bags, the touch of Christmas paraphernalia everywhere just screams Christmas and makes her super happy. We blame Elf  and every other movie with a department store ever. 



Myer also has the Giftorium! Which has a bunch of great Christmas ideas (if not a little pricey) obviously, but we love looking at the Christmas trim shop for decorations, and the gift-giving vibe is just awesome. there is also a Christmas miniature train ride and photos with Santa available for kids!





And lastly, every 15 minutes, from 9pm until 11pm each night, the town hall has a stunning christmas light show! We went Saturday night with the parents and it is truly beautiful. 






We hope you enjoyed this post. You can also see our Christmas in the City adventures on our amazing friend Alice's YouTube channel madasalice! Which we will link here when it is uploaded. Also, please check out her channel! She has just started her own youtube channel and is doing VLOGMAS! Hell yeah.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Tuesday, 2 December 2014

Apartment Christmas Decor

Hello all!

As you can tell from our Christmas tree post, we are obsessed with Christmas, and we couldn't wait to decorate the apartment all jolly and get into the Christmas spirit! So here are some ideas you can use to decorate your own place or room.

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Christmas Bunting: kikki.K $9.95 | Yellow Candlesticks: Bought by Grace's roommate, Teagan, most likely from Ikea. | Orange Vase: Op Shop | Flowers: $1 each at a cheap store
We watch The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon each night at 7:40pm on ABC2




Table Runner: Purchased a few years ago from Spotlight | Christmas Mugs: Spotlight last year, $5 | Tealight, Holders and Red Glitter: Ikea | Notebooks: Typo $16.95 (the gold one can be purchased here) | Santa Tealight Holder: Op Shop $2 | Paper Santa Hat: Purchased last year from either Big W or a cheap store?


Christmas Cat Cushion: Grace got this from an Op Shop from our hometown last year. we love how the tree is made up of cats! It is becoming a new Christmas tradition. "The Christmas Pillow". 





3m Holly Garland: Big W $5 | Christmas Aprons: Big W | Mason Jar Mugs: K-Mart $2 | Paper Santa Hat: Unknown


Advent Calendars are essential. These Cadbury Wishes calendars we got on special at Coles for $3.50 and proceeds go to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. We hanged them on top of the calendar's next to the Christmas tree.
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We had so much fun decorating! A lot of this stuff we grabbed from home, such as the table runner, paper santa hats and our Christmas mugs. As you could see from our post about our christmas tree, we are going for a silver, red, white and gold theme with bits of green here and there. Our Tree at home was aways so random and busy and eclectic and we loved it s much, so this colour co-ordinaion/colour scheme is new to us. But we have found that by having a colour scheme, it makes decorating a whole lot easier and can tie the whole thing together.

We did all of our decorating on December the 1st (aka Christmas 1st!) and that night we had a group skype call with our parents and older brother at home, who were decorating their tree, and then added our Mum's side of the family who were all together and we revealed our trees and "christmas" around our homes to each other. It was all so crazy because we love Christmas so much and everyone was excited and it was just wonderful. We can't wait to travel and spend Christmas Eve/Day with them! Skype is truly an amazing thing.

Leading up to Christmas, we will be doing a range of Christmas-themed posts, as well as a few "regular" posts here and there. Kind of like a "Blogmas". So get excited for that!

I hope you enjoyed this post. Let us know your favourite part or if you have any questions in the comment section below! Also, if you have anything you'd like to see us post about, let us know and we'll try and organise something for you :)

Until next time.

Stay Fabulous!
-C