Christmas lights are the best. I used to have colored lights all around my bedroom when I was little. Those same lights hung all around Nick's apartment in college and then in our apartment this past Christmas. I just think they make a room feel warm, cozy, and inviting.

A few months ago I saw this pin about covering Christmas lights with ping pong balls (genius, right?) We decided to make a set of our own, and let me tell you... this is probably the quickest and easiest project we've ever done. 

Want to make a set for your home? Here's what you need!
- String of Christmas lights
- Ping pong balls
- Xacto knife

Here's what you do!
- Using your Xacto knife, carefully cut a small X in a ping pong ball.

- Push a light through the X as far as it will go.

- Repeat with your remaining lights and you're done!


Hope you're having an unseasonably warm Saturday like we are :)

Sarah & Nick

EDIT 5/25/17: This post was originally published in February 2014. We no longer have these lights, as we cleaned out our apartment extensively when we moved and didn't see a need for them anymore. We've received a few comments saying that ping pong balls are extremely flammable, but we had no issues with these lights whatsoever when we were using them. I would recommend using LED lights (which generate less heat) if overheating is of concern to you. We are not experts or DIY professionals, but wanted to share that we had no issues with this project. Thanks for reading!

Last year for Valentine's Day, I decided to make strawberry cake cookies for Nick. Upon telling him, this was the reaction I received.


I'm not exactly sure if it was the cookies, the casserole, or the Emma Watson that sparked this reaction, but for the sake of this post I'm going to say the cookies (even though it was probably the Emma Watson).

These strawberry cookies are absolutely delicious. We made a chocolate version at Christmas which was awesome as well, but since Valentine's Day is this week, we decided to make strawberry and red velvet (gotta have that pink and red, you know).

To be honest, I'm not a big cookie eater unless it's oatmeal raisin. Yes, I'm the crazy person that is like, "Ew, chocolate chips... where are the raisins?!?!" Also, cookies tend to be hard and crunchy and that is not my thing. But these cookies are light and fluffy and so, so yummy.

Here's what you need! (Please note, these amounts are for one batch/cake mix. We made two different flavors, so if you plan to make two, you will need to double your ingredients)
- Boxed cake mix
- 8 oz. containers of whipped topping
- 1 egg
- Powdered sugar


Here's what you do!
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease your cookie sheets.
- In a large bowl mix together your cake mix, whipped topping, and egg. The consistency should be pretty thick and sticky.
- In a separate bowl, pour a small amount of powdered sugar for rolling.
- Using two spoons form a small ball (glob) of your batter and drop it into the bowl of powdered sugar. Roll it around until the outside is completely covered.


- Move the ball to your greased cookie sheet. Space the cookies about 2 inches apart. Repeat until you are out of batter. You should have approximately 24 cookies.
- Bake 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, the cookies probably won't look done, but take them out of the oven anyway and move them to a cooling rack. They'll continue to bake once removed.

I'm pretty partial to the strawberry cake cookies, but dang... the red velvet are so good too. They're so flavorful, so fluffy, and so easy to make. Nick took a batch to work the other day and they were gone by 10:30, if that's any indication of how wonderful these are.