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We've had an incredibly busy start to the Christmas season, dividing our time between friends visiting from New Zealand, going to visit family in Brisbane and the big one, moving house! It's been a daunting but fun task unpacking our new home and decorating every room to match our style and taste.

One thing I think you can never have enough of, are throw pillows. You can swap and change, mix & match them between rooms to create fresh and interesting features. Christmas came early for me with these lovely animal throw pillows from Uncommon Goods. A quirky and adorable set that now live in our bedroom and add a little bit sunshine and joy to our room. Don't they just make you happy??

With only days to go before Christmas, Uncommon Goods has an incredible selection of, as the name suggests, uncommon, quirky and funny gifts for everyone. Definitely worth a look!

Adventure Time.

Well my friends, tonight has been a very exciting evening. After years of wishing and dreaming, the husband and I have finally bought our flights to New York City! For as long as we've been married we have been hoping of one day visiting New York and it is finally happening. What makes it even more special and incredible is that we will be visiting over Christmas! *gasp* PLUS we will be stopping over in San Fransisco for a week!!! I am actually so jealous of myself (is that even a thing??) I can't quite believe it's all happening ;) Both cities are in my top cities to visit in the world, so it's pretty surreal to be able to visit them BOTH in one trip!

We've already been looking into some places for accommodation and different attractions and sights that will be on our list of to-do's, but it can be a bit overwhelming as there's just too many places to look through! This is where I need your help friends...WHERE SHOULD WE GO? What should we do? Any recommendations on places or areas to stay? Have any of you visited either of these beautiful cities? It's all good reading reviews on the net, but I don't know, I seem to appreciate advise more when it's from someone I'm familiar with!

The months of planning will be quite exciting and I know it's still eight months till our trip, but I am already counting down the months ;) Also, a shout out to Hannah from Nellie and Oliver who has so kindly already passed on her awesome knowledge of New York so far!

Ho Ho Ho.

Thought I would quickly pop by, no fancy clothes, no make up, no agenda, just Ilana, to wish all you lovely readers a very Merry Christmas! I pray this time of year will be a special one shared with family & friends. Be safe and have a great holiday! We are off home, so I cannot promise I will be posting much, but if you have instagram, your welcome to follow our adventures on there (@ilana_mcmorran).

Christmas Came Early.

Tonight Neil and I decided to celebrate our own little pre-Christmas dinner together, just the two of us. We have been so busy getting organised, packing and wrapping gifts for when we head home that tonight was the last time we were going to have the chance to spend some time alone together. So great to enjoy a fantastic meal together, enjoy each other's company, share in some of the delights that came in the work's Christmas basket and of course dig into our stocking fillers! I absolutely love this season, so want to make it last as long as possible and making the most of every bit of Christmas festivity there is. Tomorrow we will be going to watch the carol's in the botanical gardens with some friends and I finally get to open my gift that's patiently been waiting under our Christmas tree, begging to be opened!

I'm now just counting down the days till we get to see our family and friends again, I don't think I have ever been this excited! I will be taking a bit of a break over the next couple of weeks to make the most of the time I have with them, and I suggest everyone does the same. Turn off the mobiles, ignore the facebook notifications and enjoy the company of loved ones :)

Wrapping Time.

I love Christmas time. Everything about it! The repetitive and cliche Christmas carols that you hear in every store, the cheesy old-school movies, houses being put on display with decorations and lights, festive treats, buying perfect gifts and of course, wrapping them!

It's great to see so many people take on a different approach to gift wrapping, creating beautiful and creative packages that entices you even more to open the gift to find what wonders are in it! We are nearly finished with our Christmas shopping now (apart from a few tricky ones) and I've already gotten into the joy that is wrapping time. I am happy to say that this year I am feeling semi organised and won't be required to do most of our shopping on Christmas eve! Bonus ;)

Christmas Countdown.

One. Bloom Theory Strap
Two. Marc Jacobs Sunglasses
Three. A Skulk of Foxes iPhone case
Four. Baggu Backpack
Five. Curio & Curio cushion
Six. Karen Walker Skull ring 

It's only 15 more days till Christmas! I cannot believe how quickly it's come around this year. This weekend the husband and I pretty much finished our Christmas shopping (pretty exciting for us as we usually end up still buying gifts on Christmas ever!) this weekend so our tree is looking rather happy with so many gifts underneath it.

I couldn't help myself, but I have still been adding more ideas to my Christmas Wish List, I just couldn't resist ;) And speaking of Christmas Wish Lists, you can still enter my giveaway to win a designer pair of sunglasses from Vision Direct. Head over to this post and read the details. I've still got my eye on the sexy Marc Jacobs sunglasses (featured above) that I keep coming back to. If I could enter, I would!

Inspired for DIY.

I have some very talented friends you know. My friend Tori (we met back in our studying days)  has an incredibly awesome blog Voyages of the Creative Variety and posted this amazing DIY Christmas ornaments on there recently. I absolutely love modern Christmas trees & decorations and I think this definitely takes the cake for most creative too. Next year I will plan our tree in advance and make sure to make a few decorations of my own! You can check out her tutorial here.

Only3 more days till Christmas! x

Those Christmas Lights.

Okay, seriously, I love Christmas! Everything about it!

Sunday night we had a lovely dinner with the Thomas' and decided to head out to the Temple Lights later on in the evening. I know people get over doing the same thing every year, or seeing the exact same decorations as previous years, but the joy that hits you when those lights turn on is too overwhelming to resist! I got a bit too excited when the lights came on (you can go see the outtakes on my facebook page hah!) that I must have scared some people behind me. Oh well, this only happens once a year, better make the most of the season!

Celebrating Christmas: The Gingerbread House.

With only 12 days left to go till Christmas (WOW!) we are well and truelly getting into the festive spirit this year! Earlier this year, Amanda and I decided this will be the first year we build and decorate Gingerbread Houses together. So on Sunday we started out on the task to bake and build our little houses from scratch. And just look at the finished product! A bit rough around the edges, but it just screams out FUN!

For any of you that are keen to build your own houses from scratch, here are a few tips I would leave you with from our experience:

1. Read the recipe a few days before you start! You may need to leave your dough in the fridge for a few hours, so plan ahead.
2. When you roll out your dough to be cut into shapes, don't roll it out too thick!
3. When you roll out your dough to be cut into shapes, don't roll it out too thin! Hah, it's a bit of a guessing game really - too thick takes ages to bake, too thin won't support your house and may crack.
4. After baking your separate pieces to build the house with, make sure it cools down completely before you start putting it together - the icing may melt, and your pieces may still be too soft (the colder they are, the harder and more stable they become).
5. The more lollies, jellies, candy canes and sweet treats you have the better!
6. Research some houses for decoration ideas - you can get pretty stumped if you don't have a bit of an idea of what you would like it to look like.
7. Decorate your walls, roof, door etc BEFORE you assemble - it is much easier to decorate while pieces are lying flat.
8. Have a friend help you assemble - the more hands you have to hold up walls, the safer and studier your house will be.
9. Use a quick cooling, hard icing to help assemble pieces.
10. Have cans ready to put on either side of the walls to help support structure until icing is hard.
11. Make sure you have enough patience! We didn't believe the recipe when it said "Alow up to 3 days to complete house", but really, if you are building from scratch you probably want to do that!


The icing recipe we used was perfect! So for those who would like to try, would recommend this icing:

2x egg whites
2 2/3 cups icing sugar
Whisk egg whites until light and fluffy, and slowly start adding icing sugar until icing becomes thicker and stiff.

Fun! Alright, well that's a new Christmas tradition we have started! Oh how I love Christmas!

A Little Christmas Freebie.

Okay friends!
As you know Christmas is fast approaching, and if you are anything like me, I do really struggle not only to come up with ideas for others, but also when I get asked what I would like...I have no idea! So I've started making lists as I think of ideas and thought it quite handy to make a little "wishlist" card to write down some gift ideas. You can see I've already started doing my wishlist (which the husband will find quite handy!) and tonight I shall be giving Neil his to fill out too.

Since we are getting into the Christmas Spirit, I've made this a little freebie for everyone! You are more than welcome to use it for yourself to fill out, or to hand it out to those ones you struggle with getting gift ideas!

Download your wishlist here.

Please note, this file is for personal use only and cannot be distributed commercially. If you wish to use this on your blog/site, please credit me and include a link to my site. Thank you to all those in advance that are kind enough to blog about this little entry, always appreciated :)

Enjoy my friends!

The Christmas List.

(Pepper Sprouts)

Had the best night EVER! Seriously, I love Christmas! Amanda and I, along with the husbands had a Christmas night out, filled with yummy dinner, Christmas drinks, walks and talks along the neighborehood covered in amazing Christmas lights and decorations. One thing that came up in our crazy conversations, was the list. The list is made of things you would have to tick off to officially finish off Christmas. We came to the conclusion that ours would have to be:

- Bake gingerbread cookies
- Make decorations and decorate the Christmas tree
- Make a Christmas CD
- Watch Christmas movies
- Buy seasonal drinks (Toffee Nut latte from Starbucks)
- Take a walk down Harrowfield, which is a street renowned for having the most amazing Christmas lights.
- Buy all our pressies
- Wrap all our pressies
- Sings Christmas songs (or in Amanda's case, whisper them)
- Do the river float (on Christmas eve at 11.30pm float down the river in anything floatable with a group of friends)
- Feast, feast and feast!

Done most of them, just still need to wrap the pressies, float down the river (buying our little paddling pool tomorrow as our floating device!) and FEAST!

Does anyone else have anything to add to the list of things to do before Christmas?

I. LOVE. CHRISTMAS!

Loving Christmas time.

(Myan Print Shop)

Okay, so I've been terrible the last couple of months at consistently doing my Much Love Monday posts! But never fear because another one is here :) These last few weeks have been some of the busiest, but in saying that also some of the best!

Right now these are the things I love about Christmas:

CHRISTMAS. family (my brother is engaged and is getting married in fiji next year! YAY!). friends. beach trips. patting bellies with babies in them. baking christmas cookies. a very little christmas cd (free download). christmas movies. planning our getaway. working in our cute little store. seeing people with joy (why can't this be throughout the year too?). driving around looking at the houses with decorations. almost being married three years. candy canes. christmas carols. and did I mention family time?

Handmade Joy.

Oh it's always such a joy to come across sweet little handmade items like Pilli Pilli handmade. Her Christmas embroidery hoops are just absolutely gorgeous. Just makes me all the more excited about Christmas (and I say that whilst listening to Mariah Carey's Christmas album!) and all the joy it brings :)

Hello December.

Oh hello there December, how lovely it is to see you again!

YAY! I feel I can finally share some Christmas goodies with you since it is officially Christmas time now! Wow, this year has gone by WAY TOO FAST, but I can atleast say that it has been a stunner of a year :) Okay, okay, I won't bore you with my excitement of Christmas time, but I do want to share these incredibly adorable doily decorations with you from I Wanna Be. How can you resist these? I adore the bunny and deer and would get them just to leave around my house and look pretty and cute.