There is just something about the holidays that steal our hearts year after year. Beyond the stressful to-do lists and the jam-packed holiday schedules, the month of December is simply magical. It’s oozing with family, friends, traditions, delicious desserts, and a whole lot of holiday cheer. What’s not to LOVE, right?!

If you’re coming over from Restless Arrow, welcome!! And if you’re a DIY Playbook rookie, we are so happy you’re here and can’t wait to show you around. Before we dive into Bridget’s holiday home tour, here’s a crash course on all things DIY Playbook.

• There are two of us (Bridget & Casey). We became best friends in high school, loved doing crafty things like making puffy paint t-shirts for the football games, and scrapbooking pics we took with our disposable cameras throughout high school (nerd alert). Eventually, this creativity blossomed into a love for DIY & home decor.
• This love for all things home eventually inspired us to start The DIY Playbook, which is now about 2 1/2 years old!
• Since then, we have been rookie DIY-ers navigating our first homes without investing a ton of time or money. And let’s be honest here, if rookies like us can tackle a project right here on the blog… we KNOW that you can too.
• Casey lives in downtown Chicago (she just bought her first house!) and I live in a small (yet cozy) suburban ranch outside of the city.
• Oh, and one more thing. We both have full-time jobs outside of the blog (Casey a TV producer & me a high school teacher) and life has been pretty crazy with Casey moving, my dining room makeover that left my entire house a hot mess, our day jobs, and keeping up with blog work. Why do I mention this? Well, these crazy schedules bring both good news AND bad news today.
• The good news: I snuck in a few pictures of the dining room in today’s tour (full reveal soon)!! PLUS, I spent less than $100 to decorate my entire house this year, proving that you don’t have to spend a ton of money to dress your space up for the holidays.
• The bad news: I didn’t have time to put up my tree yet (bad blogger). AND, since I spent less than $100… you may see a lot of the same items from last year’s home tour. But to be perfectly honest, I’m excited to use a lot of the same items and start building traditions around these holiday favorites.
• Now I promise to shut up so you can get to the real reason you’re here — our 2015 Christmas Blogger Stylin’ Home Tour. Come on in!

I’m so glad you stopped by!! Now before you head off to check out the drop dead GORGEOUS-NESS that Julie from Julie Blanner blog has in store for you, I hope you can take away these three things and apply them to your own holiday decorating:

• • • It’s perfectly OKAY if you can’t get to everything this holiday season. Whatever you DO get to is ENOUGH! <– Heck, I didn’t even put up a tree yet and that is OKAY!!
    • Decorating for the holidays does NOT need to be expensive. Re-working the same items year after year is A-okay in our playbook. (Rookie Tip: Need some Christmas decor? The week after Christmas is a great time to buy stuff on super sale. That’s usually what we do if we need anything new and I’ll probably be adding a few new items starting 12/26.)
    • Whatever the holiday season has in store for you…embrace it, and more importantly, ENJOY it!! That’s what the holidays are all about.

Need some silver, gold & glam holiday inspiration?! Come check out the tree we created at my sister’s place a few weeks ago!

 

How’s that for some holiday inspiration?! As always, a BIG thank YOU to Lindsay for hosting and organizing this blog hop! We are so thankful to be included!!

Bridget