Have you ever received a gift that was way too pretty to unwrap? Lots of thought goes into picking out the perfect gift for loved ones, so why not take the time to make the wrapping just as memorable as the gift? But wait, just because you want your package to be gorgeous, doesn’t mean that it has to be expensive. Here’s a book that we wrapped last year and...

Call me old-fashioned, but I love holiday traditions and I hope that my annual November get-together with friends to make tourtières, a traditional meat pie from Québec, will continue for years to come.  Here I am with friends (from left to right) me, Pam, Anne, Karen, Carolyn, Cathy and Shirley, celebrating another successful tourtière-making afternoon. Coming from a large French Canadian family (nine kids), on Christmas Eve my mom would put...

This is an outdoor decorating project that takes less than 15 minutes to do and is guaranteed to wow your guests every time. One winter, I hung the balls on a day when there was no snow, but by the next morning the ornaments were covered with fresh white fluffy snow which looked unbelievably Xmas-y. This crab apple tree is in my teeny tiny city backyard, and as boring as...

This has to be one of the easiest way to add instant holiday flair to your house: simply add a big red bow. Adding red bows to anything during the holiday season just screams “Christmas” and makes a huge impact with minimal effort. Red bows are inexpensive, that is if you buy the plastiky-velvety kind like I bought, and in the right situation they don’t look as tacky as you...

With Christmas drawing near, we want to help you get your house holiday ready. We know that you’re short on time, so here are three examples of great five-minute quick and easy-to-recreate decorating ideas: All you need to do for this one is take a large glass bowl and fill it with colorful Christmas balls. The whole set-up takes a matter of minutes and kids can easily help as well....

If you have a view of the backyard from your kitchen, living room, or another spot inside your house that you spend a lot of time in, this is a fun decorating idea that can be enjoyed both indoors and outdoors. Perhaps you’ve noticed a recent trend towards really large tree ornaments in your favorite home décor stores. These chic oversized ornaments might be too big for an indoor tree,...