5 Offline Coloring Activities for Tween Girls

Host a Candy Cane Lane party with this sweet and colorful backdrop. (via Etsy)

Dried Orange Garland

String dried oranges with twine for garlands, attach them to gifts, or use them as natural ornaments on your tree.

Festive Charcuterie Board

Serve up the most festive charcuterie board with gingerbread, pomegranate, chocolate, rosemary, and candy canes!

Create a Christmas Tree Arch for your photo backdrop with real or artificial garland.

Buy or DIY these adorable cups for your holiday party. (via My Mind's Eye)

Dress up your tree for a very demure, very mindful holiday party. (via Etsy)

Bring a little dance floor vibe to your holiday door with this disco wreath. (via Brit + Co)

If you’re looking for a colorful, swoon-worthy backdrop for your dessert table, you can’t go wrong with a wall covered in honeycomb shapes. How pretty are those jewel tones with pops of gold? (via Sugar & Cloth)

Instead of Santa or reindeer, turn your tree into an homage to everything awesome about the ’90s, including Koosh balls (‘member those?). (via Aww Sam)

This tribute to our fave legal blonde is now our new favorite holiday decoration. Invite some friends over, and make one together! (via Brit + Co)

Foil-wrapped chocolates will make these pretty trees the main attraction. Line them up along the mantel or use them as an inexpensive table centerpiece at your holiday dinner. (via Brit + Co)

DIY queens will love the idea of putting their own spin on ornaments. Stock up on plain glass balls at the dollar store and let your friends have a blast coming up with holiday puns. They can then take their handiwork home at the end of the night as a fun party favor. (via Brit + Co)

Peace, love, and peppermint! These candy cane gift boxes are a breeze to put together. Fill ’em with chocolate truffles dunked in pink chocolate and sprinkled with crushed candy canes. (via Brit + Co)

A disco ball tree beats vacuuming up pine needles any day. It’s bold, it’s glam, and it’s actually pretty easy to put together. (via Studio DIY)

Glass Ball Terrariums

Fill these glass ball ornaments with pine stems, snow, gift bows, even sprinkles for your festive decor!

Marble backdrop with tiny packages full of goodies? Now you’re well on your way to counting down to Santa’s arrival in style. (via Brit + Co)

Don’t forget the hot chocolate! You need all the fixings, though: marshmallows, whipped cream, sprinkles, and even a little caramel drizzle. (via PMQ for two)

Let these beauties bounce across the floor, bunch them together for a photo shoot, or hang them on your porch. (via Studio DIY)

Decorate your tree with gold stars, red ribbon, and soft sage leaves for an extra pop of texture. Then follow this DIY to recreate the soft pastel ombre ornaments. So pretty. (via A Kailo Chic Life)

Channel warm holiday vibes with this crafty ornament. (via Club Crafted)

It doesn’t get much more festive than a bar cart full of presents and gold barware. Layered garlands and mini bottle brush trees create punchy decor accents for any holiday get-together.(via Sugar & Cloth)

Give that punch bowl set you found at the thrift store a new lease on life with metallic paints. (via Design Improvised)

Don’t pass up a chance to put a fresh spin on this party staple. Just add gumdrops, candy wheels, and sugar dust! (via Studio DIY)

No need for a tree when you have this festive cactus tree! (via Sugar & Cloth)

String these on the tree, hang them across the mantel, or use them as a photo booth prop. These light bulb garlands can do it all. The best part is that you can totally customize the colors! (via Studio DIY)

Round up a group of friends for a spur-of-the-moment holiday wrap party. Make sure to get plenty of tape at the store, then warm up your printer and go crazy with this tropical-themed gift wrap. (via Studio DIY)

Simple, colorful, and DIY — all of our favorite things! This easy balloon backdrop will transform any blank wall — and the tree! — into a breathtaking party scene. (via A Kailo Chic Life)

Deck out your bar cart for the holidays with some swag and swap out your wine glasses for something gilded to show off your signature Christmas cocktail. (via Brit + Co)

It’s not a party until the confetti shows up. Pop the bubbly, then pop these DIY confetti cannons to kick off your bash in style. (via Brit + Co)

THEME IDEAS

If you’re going with good old-fashioned snail mail this season, nothing beats a handwritten holiday card. Throw a party dedicated to hand-lettered addresses and actual stamp-licking. Check out the Brit + Co x Moonpig Holiday Collection too! (via Brit + Co)

Skip the grand festivities in favor of a cozy night in with the people you love. Order in pizza, break out the Trader Joe's wine, and get ready to share some hilariously weird and wacky gifts. (via Brit + Co)

Give everyone a reason to wear their cute holiday sweaters without needing to shop for something they'll never wear again. (via Brit + Co)

Gift Wrap Gathering

Grab your besties for a night of warm cocoa, gift wrapping, and holiday festivities at your house. Stock up on pretty wrapping paper and cool DIY gift toppers for a fun gift wrapping extravaganza.

Turn your tree lighting into the main event. Invite your pals over for coffee and cocktails, then get your decorating on by DIYing a few baubles. You can even ask everyone to bring one DIY ornament with a prize for the most creative! (via Brit + Co)

@k.ard Medicine Ball for only $1.69 each! #medicineball#fluseason#coldseason#starbucksdupe#budgettok#SephoraConcealers#DrPepperTuitionContest#halloween#fall2022♬ Halloween - KenZie DarkStar

TikTok always makes recipes look effortless. So, I took this trusty tutorial into our own hands to compare how good an at-home Medicine Ball could really be against the real one from Starbucks.

Ingredients for the Starbucks Medicine Ball Drink

• Teavana Peach Tranquility Tea Bags
• Teavana Jade Citrus Mint Tea Bags
• Honey
• Lemonade

How can I make a Medicine Ball at home?

1. Heat 1 cup of lemonade in the microwave for 45 seconds to a minute.
2. Add 1 cup of hot water and stir in 1 tablespoon honey.
3. Add one bag of Peach Tranquility and one bag of Jade Citrus Mint, then steep for a few minutes.
4. Enjoy your Medicine Ball!

How I Made The Starbucks Medicine Ball At Home

First, I embarked on an ever-iconic Target run to gather my copycat Starbucks Medicine Ball recipe ingredients. Since they were out of the exact Teavana teas I needed to replicate the TikTok recipe, I picked up two similar ones: first, the Good & Gather Organic Peach Honey Tea, and the Good & Gather Organic Mint Tea. I also picked up a jug of lemonade, and planned to use the honey I already had at home. All together, the three ingredients I needed ended up costing me about $9.50.

Step 1: Heat Lemonade

I measured a cup of lemonade, and just popped my Starbucks mug in the microwave for a minute.

Step 2: Add Water and Honey

While the lemonade was in the microwave, I set some water on in my electric kettle. Once both liquids were heated up, I measured a cup of water and combined it in the mug with a tablespoon of honey. Yum!

Step 3: Steep Tea Bags

Then, I put the two teabags in the mixture to steep. The tea wasn't overly hot either, and I steeped them for about 3 minutes before giving my homemade Medicine Ball recipe a lil' sip.

Is the homemade version of the Medicine Ball as good as the one from Starbucks?

To my surprise, my homemade Medicine Ball recipe was extremely delicious, and it mimicked the Starbucks one so closely. Before tasting, I gave my tea a sniff, and the smell was pretty much identical to the drink made in stores. The flavor hit the exact same mark.

Overall, I rate my homemade Starbucks Medicine Ball a 4.7/5.

The only detracting factors are the temperature of the drink – Starbucks steams their lemonade to make the drink super hot, and mine wasn't nearly as piping. Of course, this is just personal preference, and next time, I can heat the lemonade for a longer duration, or reheat the drink altogether. Another reason for the minimal point deduction is the drink wasn't as sweet as I expected it to be. Again, this is a personal preference, and you can add as little or as much sweetener you desire!

All of this goes to say, that a homemade Starbucks Medicine Ball is just as yummy as the one you can get at a Starbucks cafe. By following the steps above, you can make a copycat recipe that's going to satisfy your hankering for a citrusy, hot tea!

Talking to Vanity Fair for her newest film Lee, Kate Winslet revealed one project she wishes fans asked about more is Iris. The 2001 film stars Kate as a young Iris Murdoch against Judi Dench's older counterpart. And for Kate, nothing was more terrifying than working with such a wonderful actress.

"People don’t really ask me about Iris. It’s such a delicate film," she says. "It was the first thing I had done after having my daughter. Going to work with a baby, I’m playing Iris Murdoch, looking to Judi Dench’s older Iris Murdoch — I was sh—ting myself."

Considering how nervous I get when I meet my heroes, I can only imagine what it was like to meet Dame Judi Dench. Talk about a dream! Another film Kate loves is Revolutionary Road, and not just because she got to reunite with Leonardo DiCaprio.

"The thing that people say is, 'You got to work with Leo again.' Then they go off on the whole Leo tangent, which I totally understand," she says of the film, which follows an ambitious couple who find themselves trapped in the reality of 1950s suburbia. "But Revolutionary Road — f—king hell, it just knocked us all sideways. Unbelievably difficult material. I was very proud of that film and what Leo and I were able to create as Frank and April. It was so brutal."

The process for getting Lee into the world sounds equally brutal, considering Kate started working on it over a decade ago. As producer, Kate tells Vanity Fair she doesn't mind the fact she's done more for the film than if she only had an acting credit. "That has felt very necessary for this film. But it’s also just really important to me," she says. "It’s important to me that people know that it’s out there and might feel compelled to go and see it."

Because it turns out, commercial success or stardom on its own doesn't actually help your movie get made! "It doesn’t matter who you are," she says. "No one’s going to go, 'Oh, I’ll just back that pony because she was in Titanic.' It doesn’t happen that way, and I never expected that. That’s really important to say."

"I've gotten older and I’ve learned more and felt more confident in myself about whether or not I could actually do it," she adds. "It’s not something I would’ve done had I not felt so passionately about the subject, and Lee was just—she wouldn’t let me go."