5 Christmas DIY Hacks & Crafts

Tis' the Season, for hosting dinners, decorating and keeping kiddo's busy during the Christmas break. All of this can get a little hairy when you think about all that we take on every year, shopping, cooking and decorating can get the budget a little stretched out. I asked a few of my lovely friends and fellow bloggers if they could share with us some easy and not-so-costly ideas on how they make the holidays a little brighter. 

Winter Wonderland Centerpiece : By Jihane @ Onixj.com

My parents were hosting a dinner party and they asked me to create a unique centerpiece. They asked me to include the colors gold and silver. I went for a forest inspired piece using "snow" covered tree branches and combining them with some winter evergreen pine branches. Added some sparkle with a statement golden star (also made of tree branches) small snow covered ornaments, and fake snow at the bottom of the centerpiece to complete the forest inspired arrangement. Make sure you use floral dry foam to keep all the elements in place. I finished the whole thing by adding acorns, branches and lights ❄️✨at the base.

Merry Christmas Wreath: By Connie @ MommaofDos.com

In order to create my wreath, I purchased some great Christmas decorations/ornaments and a medium size green wreath. You will need some hot glue or if you have ornaments ties or ribbon would also work. Creating the wreath is very simple and takes no time at all. You can have it done in about 30 minutes depending on how much detail you want to add.

I first make a mock arrangement of my wreath and try to imagine what I want it to look like. Once I have dreamed up my perfect Christmas wreath; I start affixing the ornaments, ribbon, and bows. I purchased a pre-made bow, which is always easier, and some ribbon to tie around the entire wreath. Once I have secured all the ornaments and details to my wreath with ribbon ties or hot glue; it is ready to go on my front door and welcome our guest when they arrive on Noche Buena.

Santa & Rudolph Paintbrush Craft: By Lauren 

@ wiferellatoboymom.blogspot.com

Paint the handle red for the Santa and brown for the Rudolph. Do about two or three coats so you won't see the original color. Once dry take your felt, and wrap a around half the gold plate and glue as you go (leave enough room for the eyes and nose. Than glue your eyes and nose. Add your own touch as I did with the silver embellishment on the corner of the felt.

Once your Rudolph is done drying. Use your pipe cleaner to wrap around to make the ears. Glue your eyes and nose. You are done!

Rustic Christmas Wreath: By Amanda 

@ PositivelyBeautifulBlog.com

The first step is to cut up the log. Then I hot-glued the pieces of wood together. The next step is to decorate it. This step is the lengthiest step because your trying different things until you think it looks good. 

Overall this project took my about 30-45 minutes and that’s because I couldn’t make up my mind on how to decorate the wreath. Well, having some wine might have had something to do with it.

 Lol! This is a cheap and easy DIY project that I would recommend anyone to do.

Upside Down Christmas Wreath: By Yvonne @faithcoffeelove.com

This year I'll be hosting Christmas at my house I thought about putting together a center piece for my table but truth be told, when it's dinner time around here there is no space for a center piece! So I thought outside the box and flipped my center piece upside down. I simply took and unused wreath, spruced it up, used wire, fishing line and hot glue to add some extra ornaments. 

I used the wire to attache my wreath upside down on my light fixture, sometimes you might need a third hand to get this up there with out it falling on your head!  Then I tied fishing line to the wreath and hung a few ornaments at different lengths.

I loved how it turned out! 

Girls Night Out with Chi

Sometimes a girls needs a break, sometimes that break consist of a glass of wine and an uninterrupted shower (mommas you know what I mean!!) Sometimes you need to go out and get pampered – whatever pampered might mean to you. Last week I had the chance for the ultimate pampering!! The Houston Latina Bloggers were invited to Chi Academy to get a little pampering and a makeover!!

They asked us to show up with no makeup and no product in our hair – Eeek! You mean all of us gorgeous ladies showing up in our true colors? I don’t wear too much makeup and lately I am lucky if I get a chance to style my hair, so this was not a stretch for me :) Before I knew it all the ladies were there and we were all swept away for our before pictures. We giggled at the idea of taking a picture of ourselves in our natural look.  

My All Natural "Before" picture! 

Truth be told ladies we are so beautiful without all that makeup and product but it didn’t hurt that we were treated like a star, after our before picture we meet our personal hair stylist and later we were asked to meet our makeup artist!

Each one of us getting our very own stylist and some needed double duty!!

Group before Picture

By the end of the night we were ready to take our after shots! We played around and ended up taking picture after picture – all of us feeling pretty glamorous!

All of my beautiful Latinas come in all shapes and sizes, some of us get dolled up daily and others not so much, but at the end of that evening the girlie girl in us came out giggling and excited to play hair and makeup!

A super Special Thanks to the ladies that worked their magic!!  Thank you Melissa & Brianna!!

For me personally, I felt super fancy, the last time I could remember getting so much attention was the day of my wedding, 7 years ago this month!  That’s a looooonnng time! Thank you CHI for making me feel so special! 

Weekend Snapshots 6 | Busy Bee

Houston Latina Bloggers ready for Action! 

This crazy Weekend Snapshots is due to family and friends and randomness! I had a great weekend including an awesome opportunity to attend the Business Advancement Conference, crazy time in my kitchen and some much needed time with my family celebrating my brother’s birthday. Lately though I feel as though I could use a clone or three day weekends might be a better idea because a clone would probably be a bad idea, she might be too bossy and she might get more stuff done than I would because she wouldn’t have to do everything I am already doing for her. The whole situation would go south very quickly :)

Saturday first thing Saturday morning I headed off to the Business Advancement Conference as part of the Houston Latina Blogger group! This was exciting for me on a couple of different levels, first of all because I get to represent an amazing and talented group of Latina Bloggers!  We get to network and learn as a group and as a Blogger, I have to admit I’m a bit outside of my comfort zone but with these ladies I really have fun and I feel comfortable knowing my support crew is with me!

Secondly, I have been entertaining the idea of venturing off into the world of being an entrepreneur at the moment more a want-trepreneur. The conference touched on Branding, Networking, Public Relations, marketing and tons more. All topics very relevant to one thing (blogging) or another (opening a small business). Check out a list of our speakers here! 

When I made it home that evening with no major plans in the works for the rest of the day, the bear and I decided to play bakery shop and we made “conchas” (Mexican Sweet Bread) from scratch. I love the kitchen and I can cook like there is no tomorrow, baking is another beast all together. In the end I was thankful that they looked pretty and that my bread was eatable!! Not spot on the texture and taste for a traditional concha but at least I tried!! Round two is coming soon to the kitchen near me.

Sunday was my brother’s birthday! I can’t even sit here now and figure out the way to express how much my brother means to me. The funny thing is the older we get the more I realize how much influence he has had over my life. I realize how thankful I am for him and how through this crazy life and at the end of my crazy day I need him, still.

The end to my weekend and I found myself back in the kitchen, meal prepping for me and my little bear and per usual I was exhausted by the end of the night and I fell asleep trying to watch Snoopy the Movie! Do you think the clone would have been the one in the kitchen or the one on the couch watching a movie with the hubs and little bear…? 

Link into Weekend Snapshots by visiting 3twentysix and Momma of Dos! 

Beautiful Group of Ladies!!

Pretty sure my house smelled like heaven this evening!

Little bit crazy, little bit funny and lotta love to go with him! 

My little helper making her pizza rolls for lunch! 

Pizza rolls ready, now on to egg muffins for my breakfast! 

Bake for 20 min and done! 

Weekend Snapshots 4.5 | Segway

This Weekend Snapshots is brought to you by Segway Tours ofHouston and I’m Linked Up with 3twentysix and onixj. Really this is a mashup of this weekend and the weekend before! I’ll make it worth your while with an awesome giveaway at the end brought to us by Segway Tours of Houston!!

Weekend before started off mellow and chill – Sometimes you just have to take a break. It feels like we go go go all the time and suddenly you just come home and you want to stay home. I worked in my garage all day long Saturday before last finishing up a chalk paint project for my niece. I’ll write up a post on the whole chalk paint – tips and tricks. Chris and I were able to get away Sunday to meet up with the peeps from Segway Tours of Houston for an awesome Segway Tour! It was epic and awesome.

A few years back I was able to work with the founders of Segway Tour of Houston and I had access to jump on Segways all the time, lucky right? Over the years I’ve kept in touch and I am so proud of what an awesome company it’s become!! They have tours going out from the Wrotham Center every weekend and they have a “Certificate of Excellence” from TripAdvisor. Most recent they teamed up with Ben’s Beans in Downtown Houston offering even more tours daily. Segway Tours of Houston is revamping all of their social media and websites and Chris and I were happy to take some pictures of a tour in action of them. This was our first time on an actual tour and we were impressed, the tour guide was awesome, funny and informative with things about the Bayou City you never knew you never knew!!

This weekend was a busy one as we are prepping to go on a big trip that’ll take us from Seattle down to Sacramento- we fly out today!!

Saturday – We ran around shopping and getting our plans straight for our trip and I managed to take a break from all that to join the Houston Latina Bloggers at a Wellness and Beauty Networking event.  Events like this push me out of my comfort zone, but I will say we all need that don’t we? If we plan big and dream big we should surround ourselves with like-minded people and when we plan big and dream big we can’t keep doing what we’ve been doing we have to be ready to step out and do different to be different. I consider myself lucky to be a part of an awesome group of Latina Women who encourage and uplift one another. Teaching each other the strength and beauty comes in many different shapes and forms but ultimately the beauty I can give to someone comes first from finding that beauty from within myself.

Sunday we went to New Hope and afterward my one request for lunch was that we could sit outside and soak up the stellar Houston weather. We found ourselves at Café Adobe, the grub was good but the view was better! Lots of outtakes with ducks, turtles and even an alligator! Back at the home front we did more packing and some semi-napping before heading to my dad’s for more grub. Oh and a small tequila tasting he set up for us!! What can I say? That’s my family and they know how to bring it together real nice! 

Enter here for your chance to win a free Segway Tour for Two!! 

HLB Girls lookin' fly

CHI en Espanol | Farouk Systems

** This is a sponsored post in collaboration with Farouk Systems and Lopez Marketing. **

Blogger life lately has been so much fun! Recently I joined my fellow Houston Latina Bloggers in a wonderful campaign with Farouk Systems “CHI en Español” and as part of our campaign we were invited to visit the Farouk headquarters! {insert happy dance here}

Why CHI en Español? Farouk Systems has been a major player in Hispanic community for quite some time and let me tell you from the moment you walk to the front desk to the tour through the warehouse you get a sense of this right away.

The Farouk Company provides jobs for about 2000 employees the majority of these employees are Hispanic. We saw many Hispanic ladies and gentlemen driving the forklift through this warehouse, they were in the offices and they are part of the CHI Academy.

I believe in backing up a company or product that I really do use in my crazy daily life and if you are like me at some point in my life I’ve used CHI (Farouk Products).  I remember being a teenager and just gushing over the latest and greatest flat iron CHI had to offer; and hoarding my Biosilk© like you hoard water during a hurricane!! As I’ve grown up I’ve tried different products just like anyone else, about four years ago I went through two different flat irons that died way before I felt they had done their job. So, I bought a new CHI flat iron and I haven’t looked back since. It’s my go to styling tool almost every day… but what if my tour disappointed? I was weary to go through with our tour and come back disappointed.

My very own go to - CHI G2

Disappointed I was not! The most honest thing I can tell you about my feelings after the tour is that they have a customer for life! I may not be famous and my opinion may not be a big deal but as a voice for women and Latina women at that, I was impressed with everything I saw and learned during our tour.

Words that were repeated during our tour – quality, health for your hair in every aspect from designing styling tools to hair products, opportunities for the community, investing in organizations and keeping their customers best interest at the forefront.

Did you know??

·         Farouk decided to not renew their contract with Miss Universe contest when the respect for Latino’s was in question?

·         Farouk has been breaking ground since 1987 being the first company to have an Ammonia free hair color? That’s not all, very soon you will see an even more environmentally focused company.

·         The CHI Academy believes in empowering stylist by not only allowing for someone to aCHIeve their license but also by earning an associate’s degree in the process, so continuing your education is always an option. (You might want to get a business degree to go that beautifully awesome saloon you are dreaming of having one day!)

·         2016 is going to be an awesome year for Farouk (sorry most of its top secret…) but keep on the lookout for new products, new style and more awesomeness!

Picture provided by CHI en Español

At the end of our tour we sat down for lunch with Basim Shami, CEO of Farouk Systems, himself. He answered all the questions we could throw at him, he gave us background information, and expressed his true passion with us about an hour later I was mostly impressed that this amazing man leading a company that is known around the world was still talking to a bunch of crazy Latinas. He was at ease and was ready to share all kinds of information while making us laugh.  He personally continued the tour and you could see how proud he truly is when it comes to the work his employees do at Farouk Systems. It was a wonderful experience and I am so glad I didn’t miss out on this opportunity. I got a pretty cool swag bad of goodies – I’ll fill you in on those soon!