Ancestry Knows How to Throw a Party *Updated*

New Photo!

So my extremely awesome company, Ancestry.com, throws excellent Christmas parties every year. Even though I don't technically work for them, my company {Fold3.com} is part of their large umbrella of awesomeness, so I still get to go to their events. And now I get to take my hottie hubby with me!

I thought last year's was pretty awesome. Tasty food, music, SLEIGH RIDES. It was great. But this year's was extra superb! It was 40s themed {thus our get-ups in the following pictures} and it was sooo well done. The venue was the new Utah Valley Convention Center that was just built on Center Street in Provo, and let me tell ya, it is a jazzy place. 

The party started with a red carpet entrance {literally, there was a red carpet rolled out for us. Schmancy} and a photo-op next to an old-school 40s car. There were also lots of cheesy props like fake money and guns....so you could be an old-timey gangster if you wanted, I suppose. We were all decked out, like so:

We're ready to go! (Actually, these are all after we got back.
Let's just pretend.)

 ...and thus, we took that photo-op very seriously. As seriously as we take everything.

We went up the escalators into the huge ballroom, where a casino was set up. They had this AWESOME 15-18 year old jazz band ensemble playing, and they were seriously so good. Best in the nation for their age group, apparently. The music was super fun and lively. Good choice, Ancestry.

We ended up staying in the casino all night playing Blackjack, which I have discovered I quite enjoy. Our dealer, Aaron, was hilarious and let all of us at the table win a lot when he thought his wins were lame. He also could tell we {ok, I} had no idea what we {I...} were {was} doing, so he helped out a lot. And he was just funny. It was good times. Since the casino was obviously not real, we handed in our chips {a certain amount of which we were given to start with} for raffle tickets, which we could then enter into the prize boxes that they drew from at the end of the night. It was enjoyable and, of course, extra classy.

We didn't win any prizes. But we had cool outfits! See?

Had to point out the awesome swirl in me hair. 

 Here's another picture of us, because we're cute.

D'awwww...

I heard they also had a hypnotist, comedian, caricature drawings, a photo booth, and dancing, but we were having too much fun in the main room to ever explore those options. However, we did take a small breather for dessert, which was delectable. Mmmm, pie.

In case you didn't notice, I'd like to take this opportunity to point out my eye-blindingly bright red lipstick.

I was rather pleased with my makeup.

Look at the swirl! I was oh-so-proud. 

 How I got rid of the lipstick:

I made it blurry because he's so dreamy. Thus
the smooches. 

Anyway, my point is that I love LOVE love my job. I love the awesome things we get to do, working under a giant company, and I love the perks of actually working for a smaller, cozier company too. Best of both worlds. And I now also know that my husband is a good sport who will dress up with me! Win-win-win.

The Tree Hunt

Every year, faithfully, my family gathers to go hunt down a Christmas tree. At least, they should. Really this only began last year so I guess I can't say it's quite the annual event yet. This year, however, we continued this fine tradition and trekked up to Alpine to find the perfect Christmas Tree for both my parents' house and ours. We took Magnus along too, although he wasn't exactly helpful. 

Joe and Magnus, in front of what
ended up being our tree of choice

Spencer came too! He had fun, despite his face.
Also, he has a cool hat. 

Our tree! His name is Herbert.

Chatting in front of Herbert.
Magnus is probably eating dirt. 

I love this picture. Love it. Even Magnus turned to join in the weird-look fun.

This is the (almost) final product! As you have seen,  I finished the tree skirt underneath.
We have since added in the ornaments that my grandma has been making me every year since
my birth. They make the tree so much more homey! 

My parents seem likely to give up soon on going to the tree farm, but I hope our wee family keeps it up. It's just a fun, Christmas-y activity that gets us moving around outside! Nothing better'n that.

And just for fun, here's a picture of Joe on his first day of school riding the new FrontRunner train to work. Isn't he cute?

Tara Gets Crafty (& Tutorial!)

Ok, so, I use Pinterest. And by that I mean that I pin a lot of ideas for crafts, recipes, and fashion, and do almost none of them in actual life. But not this day! This day I decided I would make this "no-sew" tree skirt that I found and really loved. I must admit I fully expected it to look horrendous afterwards. After all....

...But it worked!

I'm also going to present it to you in the form of A TUTORIAL!! That's right. If anyone reading this wants to make this awesome tree skirt, they need look no further. All instructions shall be included here. Are you excited? I know I am! Here we gooooo!

{Disclaimer: This project is super easy, but really tedious. Make sure you have a good chunk of hours to spend, or else be content with having to finish this in installments. I didn't realize it would take so long, and it was horrible to have to stop halfway through! But the end product was worth it :)}

First, here's the picture I saw on Pinterest -- the inspiration for it all! :

Isn't that nice? The lady who did this one used burlap from Walmart and some scrap fabric she already had at home. It's lovely!

Ok. Things you'll need:
- Fabric! I chose burlap and a kind of shiny red fabric because I love the contrast between the two. Ya know, sorta shabby chic meets refinement. Very classy. I got 2 yards of each and had some extra left over. {I've also seen some variations that use more than two colors of fabric. That would be awesome! I'd maybe get a yard of each if you do 3 or more colors/fabrics}
- Old, hideous tree skirt that you don't mind updating. Or just an okay tree skirt. OR a circle of felt or similar fabric that you cut into a tree skirt shape. I got an old tree skirt at a thrift store for a dollar.
- A hot glue gun
- A whole, humongous bunch of hot glue sticks. Like, possibly one of those big bags with like 40 in them will make it. No promises.

Step 1!
Cut your fabric into strips. The bigger the strips, the fewer rows you'll have on your tree skirt. I chose to do 3" strips, they just looked like a delightful size.

This is my cut up fabric. What can I say, I'm amazing. 

Step 2!
Heat up the glue gun and lay out the tree skirt! {I'd also suggest you pop in a movie to keep yourself entertained.}Start gluing on the strips starting on the outside edge of the skirt. I did a long stripe of glue on the tree skirt, then quickly laid my strip of fabric along it, ruffling the fabric as I went. Once I covered the glue stripe, I did individual dots of glue under the top part of each ruffly fold (where it would be hidden under the next layer), just to keep it laying sort of flat.

Tree skirt halfway finished! You may want to
have a snack handy, it can get pretty tedious. 

Step 3!
There's really no step 3. That's pretty much it. It's easy peasy!
You could thread some twine or leftover fabric through the part where the tree skirt is open to go around the tree, so you can tie it closed and keep it from moving as much. I didn't care, so mine was left un-tied. I wasn't very particular about how perfect my rows were either, and it came out a little uneven. But you can't tell under the tree, and I just made the last layer work with what I had left of the tree skirt. If you're more exact-minded, you can be somewhat precise about where you decide to glue your rows, and it will come out much more even than mine.

I love it!

I love my beautiful tree!

So, maybe this will be useful for someone. That'd be awesome! If not, you can just enjoy my tutorial and mentally praise me for my dedication and success in this craft. It really did come out way better than expected. Usually I botch these sorts of things impressively well.

Joe and I went with the Grierson fam to get our tree at a tree farm! Isn't it lovely? Post on that to come later...