A Joyful Christmas | A Joyful Riot

Christmas home tour!

December 20, 2018 ·

There is nothing unique about loving Christmas time but truly there is no better season! Even all the decorations are just so much better than any other holiday. I love how cozy my home feels during the holidays and always want to snuggle right by the tree. This year I could not wait to get the tree up and I even put it up before Thanksgiving. I couldn’t help myself – I wanted to put it up with Pierce so badly. Obviously he wasn’t much help since he is only two months but putting it up with him and his dad was such a wonderful experience. Even though everything we do this holiday season is more for me than him I cannot wait to experience every sweet moment with my little love.

Here he is lounging in front of our tree! I cannot believe how big he already is. I get emotional just thinking about it. Before I was a mother and I heard other parents talk about being sad when their baby grew out of clothing or got bigger I thought it was quite strange. I just didn’t understand it until I went through it myself. So you better believe that when I went through his newborn clothes and packed them up that I cried. I love seeing the strides he is making but it is bittersweet.

It is so fun to see him stare at objects and the lights on the tree are already one of his favorite things to look at. The other one is his daddy.

Chocolate Orange Chocolate Chip Cookies | Pinhole Press Holiday Cookie Bake Off

November 27, 2018 ·

A holiday favorite candy gets baked into soft and delicious cookies, with a special ingredient (orange olive oil) to make them extra Christmas-y! Chocolate orange chocolate chip cookies will be a new tradition.

Honestly, with the way the last month has gone, I wasn’t sure we’d get any Christmas posts up this year! My family was hit with a few sicknesses (we’re battling a new round again right now!) and we also got to go out of the country for a whole week! It’s been crazy. With all the craziness that already is the holiday season, I had sort of written off all of my fun blog ideas this year. And I seriously had some good ones :( But I just had to make time for this one because not only is it super delicious and festive, it’s also part of a contest in which YOU could win $1000 in amazing prizes!

Did that catch your attention?! It should of, cus this is seriously fun! We’ve teamed up with a bunch of awesome bloggers, and Pinhole Press, to bring you a Holiday Cookie Bake Off! You can read all about it on the Pinhole Press blog and there’s even a fun short video.

The short story is, you can follow our Pinterest board of amazing cookie recipes, try any of them out and upload a picture of your cookies under the “tried it” section of the pin. Every photo gets an entry into the contest and the chance to win the amazing grand prize!

Now, I cannot wait to try out some of the fabulous recipes on the board which includes favorites like spritz cookies (a staple in our holiday baking) and soft sugar cookies, to cookie butter and caramel sandwich cookies (yum!) and lots of candy cane goodies! For our recipe, I decided to go to one of my favorite Christmas candies for inspiration! Don’t you just love those fun and delicious chocolate oranges?! It was one of the candies we got every single year in our stockings and I absolutely have to enjoy at least one a year still!

You obviously cannot go wrong with chocolate chip cookies either and this year I’ve discovered a delicious little trick when making them! Have you seen those flavored olive oils at farmer’s markets or olive oil stores and wondered what you would even do with orange olive oil? Well you can actually replace some of the butter or vegetable oil in any baked good recipe and have a scrumptious spin on your usual desserts! It’s especially yummy when chocolate is involved!Continue Reading

DIY Mini Bottle Brush Tree Garland

December 2, 2017 ·

I’m not going to write one of those posts apologizing for my lack of content creation lately. I’m not. Ok…I guess I am. Machelle has been single-handedly keeping this blog alive while in school with two kids. She is amazing. I on the other hand have no kids and am not in school. But I have a job. That is not a great excuse now that I am typing it out though.

So sorry for my lack of project creation lately. I thought I would ease back into it with a 5 minute project for you all. And I thought that this was so simple it must have been done a hundred times already but I searched and couldn’t find it. So if any of you have already seen one done go easy on me ok!

Bottle brush trees are my favorite Christmas decoration and have been for years. They’re timeless that way. I have included them in my holiday decor for at least the past five years. Last year I got a great deal on a bunch of these mini trees and used them as ornaments on my tree which I loved. This year, however, I got rid of my white Christmas tree (RIP) and opted for a green one. This left my mini trees discarded to the side and I had to use them for something!

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DIY Color Blocked Wood Christmas Forest

December 17, 2015 ·

I used to dream about having a fireplace with a mantel so that I could decorate it for holidays. Now that I have one it has proven to be quite difficult for me to actually come up with decor ideas. Some people are really good at styling mantels, I am not one of those. Please teach me your ways people! This year all I wanted was a bunch of bottle-brush trees and I did try to make my own yarn ones but they were too time consuming to be realistic (says the woman who spent 6 hours making that pom-pom garland ha). So after that attempt I brought out my trusty balsa wood and fashioned a whole forest of colored trees and it took maybe an hour and was much cheaper than buying 15 trees!

See all the fun angles and colors you can use? I was limited in width by the size of the balsa board I had so I also just went ahead and made a few trees from multiple triangles that you can see above.

You probably don’t need directions on these little trees, but click through for the super simple how-to just in case!

Mini Yarn Wall Hanging Ornaments | #swapthatdiy

December 14, 2015 ·

We are beyond thrilled to participate in another awesome DIY blogger swap! Remember last time we got the most amazing desk caddy from Christina Williams? Wait until you see what ridiculously creative ornament we got this time around! You will die.

First though I guess I should show you what we sent to our lovely swap partner, The Sweetest Occasion! You know those wonderful yarn wall hangings that have been all the rage lately? Well, Machelle and I were discussing making mini versions of them for a necklace (which would still be amazing to do wink, wink) but once we got this ornament blogger swap going I thought that the idea would also translate nicely into ornaments. I also had less traditional yarn colors available so if you want them to be extra festive feel free to grab the perfect shade or red and some gorgeous greens for these mini hangings!

Click through to see the how to for this yarn ornament and all the rest of the amazing bloggers involved but first check out the AHMAZING ornaments we got from our girls at J.Sorelle Blog!

It’s a geronimo balloon! Are you kidding me?!! I’m so absolutely in love with these, I definitely think we won the swap! What a cute idea! To see how to make some of your own, head right here!

Christmas home tour!

Chocolate Orange Chocolate Chip Cookies | Pinhole Press Holiday Cookie Bake Off

DIY Mini Bottle Brush Tree Garland

Continue Reading

DIY Color Blocked Wood Christmas Forest

Mini Yarn Wall Hanging Ornaments | #swapthatdiy

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