2014 - a year of festive garlands!

This is an idea that I've been wanting to do since the year we got married, but have never gotten around to starting. Instead of watching another year just fly by, I want to pause a little longer to enjoy each month of the year and celebrate what it brings with it - birthdays, holidays, anniversaries, the changing of seasons ... And what is more festive and celebratory than a festive garland to hang up all month long? Plus garlands are just so dang fun to make! So here you have a year of monthly banners and garlands that I will be creating and posting up a picture of each month (along with what we are celebrating/looking forward to that month). And I'd love for you to join along too if you would like. There is no theme for each month, just feel free to create whatever is inspiring to you or what you are celebrating that month and be sure to leave a comment here so I can link to you and we can all see what you are celebrating too! This month I kinda cheated and made two banners ... but they hang together so nicely :) I really wanted this months banner to say 'Happy New Year' and I had been wanting to try my hand at making tissue paper tassel garlands for awhile now so I decided to kill two birds with one stone and just make both. And tassel garlands - they are so fun to make! I can see myself getting addicted to making these little fellas! You can find lots of different tutorials on Pinterest and I found the gold/silver paper to be the easiest to make them from as the paper dosen't tear. I can see myself making many more of these garlands and I love that they easily thread onto the ribbon so I can take them off and add in different colours depending on the event. The New years banner is made from black and gold glitter card stock threaded onto black ribbon :)  

January 2014 - 'Happy New Year'
This month is pretty obvious huh, a brand new year is upon us, and the slate is all fresh and clean and shiny. 2013 was a great year for us, but it's always exciting to think of what a new year will bring. We're really praying 2014 will bring a new job for Morgan and a start to his career (he finishes his study in 6 months!!)

So here we are in January 2014. This month we are...
Celebrating: a brand sparkly new year
listening to:  Bethel Pandora playlist. non stop.
nibbling on: Ice cold berry smoothies for breakfast (in our new pink and blue mason jar cups)
M's looking forward to: Celebrating Australia Day!
K's looking forward to: Cleaning, purging and organizing the house for the new year.