A Very Merry Christmas 2018 Recap

(Photo from here.)

I love the holiday season. My favorite part of the holidays is definitely the lead up to Christmas because that's when everyone seems to be in a better mood. There's decorating, yummy dinners, holiday treats, spending time with family and friends, exchanging Christmas cards, wrapping gifts, hanging ornaments on the Christmas tree, and just general activities that really set up the holiday cheer. Today I wanted to share a little bit of what we've been up to the last few weeks.

A Christmas How-To: Finishing a Cross-Stitch Stocking

I am so excited to share this that I am interrupting my very belated and very drawn-out recap of Italy to bring you a little Christmas-inspired "How To" for the inquiring mind.

Based on recent experience, I realized that there is little no instruction or YouTube video about how to finish a cross-stitch stocking.

Backing and framing your finished cross-stitch project? Sure.
Whole lessons on how to do various types of stitches? You bet.
How to turn your stocking from aida to actual stocking? Nope.

I realize this a very niche topic and most people will absolutely not care in the slightest BUT for you lucky person out there that found this post after squiring the internet and finding a blasphemous lack of clear instruction for stocking stitchery, this is for you! To be fair, this post is also 100% selfish as I plan to use it for future reference if I ever make another stocking. If it's on the blog I can't lose it!

So here is how you do it.

Travel Day - Naples to Venice + Pompeii Purple Swatch

Ahhh, lord these delays are killing me. Well, let's pick up where we left off, shall we? The next day in our Italian anniversary trip was a travel day (read: a realllllly long train ride between Naples and Venice) so I don't really have that many worthwhile photos for this particular day to share. Notwithstanding this lack of blogworthy photos, I figure since last post was about Pompeii that now would be as good a time as any for some swatch photos of OPI Pompeii Purple....which is distinctly more pink than purple as it turns out....all while sprinkling in some travel day photos.

Plenty of Pompeii + Climbing Vesuvius

Our second day in Naples was filled with a trip to visit what was one of the most astonishing places I have ever been. Pompeii was no doubt a sight to behold in its heyday and continues to be even despite the very palpable history and sense of catastrophe that was with us as we explored the massive town. Walking into Pompeii it was clear that the town was so much more than rubble and overgrown grass we could see--it was a whole new world.

Signed, sealed, delivered....VOTED TODAY

For my American visitors, did you vote today?? 

As you may/should know, it's time for the midterm elections! I'll admit I'm not super political so it won't be shocking that there's not much no political debate here on the blog. I definitely don't want to change that but I will say that yes, I voted! And I even did a festive nail design afterwards. I was inspired by my presidential election nails from 2010 and wanted to try another election nail design. 

I hope you voted!

Travel Day: Rome to Naples

Okay, let's get back to recapping our adventure in Italy from September shall we? I went for margaritas with my sister yesterday and she reminded me how I sort of left it hanging after posting about our day at Vatican City. So here I am continuing on with a little bit more of our trip! Our next day was a travel day to re-position ourselves from Rome to Naples. But we started the day in Rome with time to kill before our afternoon train and we wanted to cram in some additional touristy things.

101 in 1001 Days...Part Two!

I seriously cannot believe that I'm starting my second 101 in 1001 List right now. I love making lists and I am so excited to restart on a whole new set!  I will always be grateful to Mackenzie Horan for creating the concept and sharing on the internet to inspire others.

So things didn't go as planned with my first list--I only completed 46 items--so obviously one of goals on my new list is to beat that total. Read on to see what new goals are on my new list! This is 101 Things in 1001 Days....part two!

Happy Halloween 2018: My Amazon Costume + Painting + Pumpkins!

One Day at The Vatican (PART TWO): Sistine Chapel + St. Peter's Basilica + St. Peter's Dome

Ok, so let's finish out our "Day in the Vatican" with Part Two. Part One got so long and photo heavy I thought it was better to break it in two. 

So picking up where we left off: walking into Sistine Chapel! 

101 in 1001 Completion and Recap

How have I been so remiss as to not post about my 101 in 1001 progress?! 

Seriously??

You guys might remember how a loooooong time ago I created a list of 101 things I wanted to do over the next 1001 days. I found the idea over on Pink Champagne Problems (which is now The Champagne Edit by Dana) and she got the idea from Mackenzie Horan on Design Darling. I think Mackenzie is the originator and she is on her third list now.

Anyway, 1001 days ended...on September 16, 2018. Lol. So ignore the fact that it has taken me OVER A MONTH to actually post about how I did. How did I do you're wondering??