We’re celebrating the holidays a little differently this year at Boutique Cafe, my new baby Lola Olivia was born on Dec. 10th and isn’t sleeping at night. Needless to say I had to find a creative way of bringing the holiday spirit to our viewers, while including some extra help from a few special friends to pull it all together. What I came up with was a wandering through various homes in our very own Boutique Community!!

This idea makes me feel like Robin Leach from Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous (minus the accent)!! It’s a fun little holiday jaunt into the homes of some very creative gals who give so much year-round to their families and community. We hope you feel inspired by the Christmas decor, so cozy up with your hot cocoa and visit the homes of some of our closest friends.

Holiday Homes Included in this episode:
Chelsea – Vintage Chic (Free!! Pillow tutorial on her blog>>)
Patty – Mod Kid Boutique
Emily – georgietees
Liz – LizzyAnne
Lisa – The Domestic Diva(TUTORIALS: Make Tulle Garland, Bow Tutorial, Scents of the Season, Gift Wrapping Tutorial)
Catherine – our “Muirhead Family” Tree
Daria – Boutique Cafe

Don’t miss out on the incredible shopping deals in our 2009 Holiday Gift Guide>>

Happy Holidays with love from Boutique Cafe! See you in the New Year!

*** Giveaway! Boutique Cafe wants to make your holiday extra merry by giving away two (2) Zhu Zhu Pets to two Very Lucky BC readers!
Here’s how to enter. You can do as many of these as you’d like. Each one is worth one entry into our giveaway; please leave a separate comment for each:
• Leave a comment in our shownotes for this episode telling us your favorite holiday tradition!
• Become a fan of Boutique Cafe on Facebook and leave a comment telling us you joined.
• Follow Boutique Cafe on Twitter (@BoutiqueCafe) and leave a comment telling is you’re our newest follower.
• Tweet about this giveaway and leave a comment with the URL of your tweet.
• Blog about this giveaway and leave a comment with the URL to your blog post.

Include a valid email address for our drawing. We’ll draw the two winners from the comments and contact her via email. Deadline: December 26, 2009 (midnight). The winner will have 24 hours to claim her prize or a new winner will be chosen.

GIFT WRAPPING with Lisa Carroccio (The Domestic Diva)

I hope you don’t think I’m mental, but my favorite holiday activity is GIFT WRAPPING. I “try” to wrap each night as new purchases come into my home. It helps to have a “gift wrapping station” set up in your home…a simple table with all the supplies you need to wrap gifts. My station has several holiday gift papers on rolls which are contained in a Rubbermaid™ Gift Wrap Holder.





I keep several rolls of fancy gold and ivory ribbon, tulle, my handy dandy Bowdabra™ (the Diva’s bow-making secret), place cards (used as gift tags), scotch tape (on the big rolls in the office tape dispenser), plain white boxes, tons of gold gift bags, gold Calligraphy markers and my hot glue gun. Each gift, no matter, how small, is wrapped with care and is adorned with a nice bow.



Stuck in the center of the bows are simple “holiday picks” such as silk flowers, ribbon roses, faux sugared berries, miniature ornaments, rhinestone buttons or some other glittered item. Year after year, my sisters fight over my bows as gifts are unwrapped on Christmas Day. They reuse them the following year to make their gifts “sparkle.”





Every year I designate a specific color and/or theme to each of my two kids. That way I don’t have to put name tags on them until Christmas Eve and the kids’ don’t know which gifts are theirs.



In the past, I’ve used some great color combinations for my teen daughter such as polka dots, zebra prints and tiffany blue. This year I’m using hot pink and black/white houndstooth for my daughter. My son will get either brown or turquoise blue depending on which wrapping paper I have the most of this year.



When gift wrapping, don’t restrict yourself to just ordinary white boxes. Get creative! I’ve used colored Chinese take-out boxes, fancy hat boxes and different baskets. If you’re going to be lazy and use gift bags, be sure to at least add a beautiful bow and handmade gift tag.


Also, don’t be afraid to use non-traditional colors. As a matter of fact, I NEVER use any red in my house. Any color can become a Christmas color is you add sparkle to it.

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