Easy Wreath

Man oh man this is the first year it has really taken a lot of motivation preparing for Christmas. Do you feel antsy with stress over the holidays or are you zipping thru your Christmas to do list? Whew! Wish I was zipping thru my list of things to do for the holidays. There is so much left to do and the clock is ticking! I think I have somewhat shot myself in the foot b/c I decided to take on several homemade projects for gifts and I haven't made much progress on them lately. I will post them after they are done and after they have been given away! Geesh I haven't even started Christmas shopping!!!!

It has been fun decorating for Christmas, even though it has been a slow process. I have added a few more things around the house. I used to have a wreath on the front door that looked like it was made out of icicles. Last year I chunked it b/c it was falling apart and we were tracking the beads everywhere. It became messy! I then bought a regular green wreath and last year attached some red and silver pearl looking ball ornaments with hooks. I never really liked the way it turned out.

So I pulled the wreath out the other night and fluffed it and attached the ornaments with the hot glue gun so they looked better and would stay put. I really like it! Simple as it is, now the door is no longer bare and it displays a lovely wreath. I could add some other elements but I like it just the way it is and it offers some contrast to the navy blue door. Um the wreath is a little off center b/c I took pictures of it after dark with the door open and I was trying to hurry because it was late. One of our neighbors across the street came outside as I was shooting the pictures with the flash. He must have thought I was a peeping tom or something. No Officer, I was just taking pictures of my Christmas wreath!!!

Making Pomander Balls

Making pomander balls using fruit is a fun craft to do over the holidays. Plus they smell so good!


All you need is citrus fruit; oranges, apples, pears, limes, etc. and whole cloves. I was at the grocery store the other day and picked up some oranges and apples. Since I was buying them for decoration I found some that were wrapped with a shorter shelf life. I got 2 bags of 4 fruits for $0.89 a piece.



I didn't used to be such a sales deals freak but my eyes have recently been opened to coupons and how to use them to their fullest to get the best deal and it has been mind blowing to me. I must give credit to my mother-in-law for teaching me how to shop better! This chick is completely addicted to coupons now! Hey the cloves were on sale too. Threw a coupon on top of that and SUPER CHEAP! Okay I'll get off my high horse of using coupons now.


Wrong bottle pictured above. Oops! Keep in mind that you need WHOLE cloves! I already tossed the container out but it's WHOLE cloves you need! Sooooo clean the fruit making sure there is no grime. You'll want to do this  project on a surface that is okay to get a little dirty. So clear off the table or place the fruit on a counter.
You could do this sitting on the couch but use a plate or bowl so you don't get the fruit juices or the clove pieces anywhere. 

Take a clove and pierce the skin of the fruit and push all the way in. You can use a tiny screwdriver or a sharp nail or any type of prodding tool to start your holes if you want to. The cloves might make your fingers hurt so for children you probably want to start the holes to make it easier for them. Just continue adding cloves until you have the design you want.

You can use masking tape to cover parts of the fruit to make an outline of your design or you can first tape down ribbon and put cloves in the fruit through the ribbon to add some color. My son and I simply did ours freehand and we enjoyed it.

These Pomander Balls Give A Lasting Fragrant Scent Of Woodsy/Fruit Reminiscent Of Christmas! To preserve the fruit, place them in ziplock bags and shake them in a spice. You can use nutmeg or cloves or various fragrant spices depending on what scent

you want. 

More Trees

While I was working on some more cone Christmas trees I went back to the first one I did, pictured below, and added some more painted shells and twine to make it a little more beachy. Now to get the stench out of the cabinets... I somehow missed a critter living in one of the shells that I found at the beach a couple weeks ago. Can we say Eww Holy Grossness! I don't have a room designated to crafts so I had the shells in ziplocks in a "craft cabinet" in the kitchen and boy did it stink. I'm not sure how I missed it when I was cleaning the shells but I sure won't make that mistake again! YUCK!



Now here's the big Christmas tree below, all decked out. Yay! I enjoy decorating for Christmas but am not one to put tons of stuff everywhere. The house is already cluttered enough and I just don't like to store too much. I'm afraid if much more goes in the attic, it will end up falling through the garage ceiling onto our cars. ;) Not really but I do try to limit what we store.



With Christmas decor, my main focus is on the tree, the mantel, and the front yard and I just try and spruce it up little by little each year. Here are some pictures of the tree. I'd say it's whimsical but that the ribbon makes it more formal looking. Over the years I've added on small touches. A couple of years ago I started sticking in these silver swirly, glittery branches from the floral section at Michaels and then more floral pieces that came from Pier One. If you do this, just try not to poke your eye out as you walk towards the tree to gaze over it! This year I added the blue snowflakes. Thank goodness it's up!

Below are a couple more styrafoam trees. I painted the foam cones blue just like the first one and I made these so you can see through to the blue paint a little. It gives a wintry cold look. I used the silver garland again, and shiny silver glass ornament balls this time, $1.00 for an 8 pack at Dollar Tree.



Topped with Snowflake!

All you have to do is remove the hooks and glue the tops of the ornaments and give them a twist when pressing them into the the foam. Make sure the balls are flush with the styrafoam. Just be careful b/c they are breakable and are liable to shatter. I would have used plastic shatterproof ball ornaments but all the plastic ones I found had a fine line where they were pieced together when they were made and I didn't think they would look right exposed. I used blue round crafters stones and wrapped each tree in thin, glittery silver ribbon (4 rolls of ribbon were $1.00 at AC Moore) and topped one with a snowflake and one with a star, each $1.00 a piece.

Topped with a Star!

They make a great flashy centerpiece and add a vintage flair! All are very reasonable. Each cost less than $7.00 to make!



A Shot of Trees in the Dark. :)



All Lit Up!

For Christmas that is! The Christmas tree is up and all decorations are in place and note to self: Remember to use garden gloves when it comes time to take the tree down! My knuckles are all sliced up from hanging ornaments and having my hands in water cooking this weekend. Ouch.

So what kind of lights did you choose for your tree? Did you use the old, warm, white or colored strands of lights or did you say out with the old and in with the new and shoot for the new LED lights? I personally love the warm feel of the older lights period. My favorite are the old school, screw on bulbs, ya know, the ones Snoopy used to decorate his dog house in Charlie Brown's Christmas cartoon.

Having said that, last year I got rid of the old bulb lights b/c I was worried about how hot they got. This year I picked up a few packages of the new LED lights to try out and though I don't care for the bluish glow of them, they are cool to the touch so they do feel safer on the tree. Below is a picture I took of the tree in night time mode on my camera. It cracked me up how the picture turned out because I had all the lights in the room turned off except for the tree. It's so electric looking!


Speaking of the new LED light bulbs, did you know that they can be hazardous to the environment if broken? I didn't realize it but they can be very harmful if broken because they hold small amounts of mercury, which is harmful to humans and animals. The bulbs are great in conserving energy but use caution when disposing of them!

A couple of months ago, I ordered a pack of 16 free LED light bulbs from our power company. The city/county offers free light bulbs to each household, you just have to call and request them. So when I got them I opened the box just to be sure they were all in one piece as not to cause any problems to the household.

Here are a couple links to some helpful information regarding light bulb disposal and recycling.

http://www.epa.gov/mercury/spills/

http://www.lightbulbrecycling.com/regulations.html#Federal_Regulations

Another Christmas Tree

Similar to the cone Christmas tree of shells, I made another one using glitter ball ornaments. Don't you just love these things? Last week was vacation time at the beach nice! and I was able to play around and make another tree yippee! when I had some down time one afternoon.

Before vacation I painted this cone with a pale green latex paint we had leftover from painting one of the rooms in our house. There are soooo many half full/half empty paint cans out in the garage. Oh what can I find to paint next?!?!? As silly as it may seem, I just don't want to see the white Styrofoam through any of the materials I put on the tree. I'm weird that way, like it's really hiding what is underneath! Anyhow I let the cone dry before packing it for the road trip, of course. Just had to do a little prepping!  : )

Using the glue gun I covered the cone with furry, silver garland. Then I attached silver, glittery, Styrofoam ball ornaments to the cone, scattering them all over it, but not covering the cone completely. The ornaments originally had tiny plastic toppers that looped pieces of thread so the ornaments could be hung. Well those tore off easily and I was able to put a dollop of glue in the same spot on the ornaments to cover where the pieces had been ripped off. Can we hit the EASY BUTTON for that one? After placing the balls where I wanted them to go, I glued green square crafters stones in between the ornament balls and topped the tree with a silver star. Voila!

These trees are so much fun to make!  They make great center pieces for any room in the house and add a little sparkle. Mine is in the dining room sitting tall with another beaded cone tree I purchased a couple of years ago. I think it adds some elegance if I do say so myself! Who doesn't want something elegant every once in a while!



This cost under $7.00 to make!

I have some more of these to make with some different materials to try so I'll post them in the upcoming weeks. Betcha can't wait, hu! I think I'm going to give some out as gifts too but shhhh! Don't tell!

I also have some more fun gift ideas to share sometime soon too, something people of all ages will enjoy!

Lots in the works before Christmas and lots of fun projects after the holidays are over. Yay!

Personalizing Christmas Stockings

I'm excited about the tiny little project I did tonight! It's the little things, it really is! This week my son has shown lots of concern over his "Christmas sock", as he calls it, that we've already hung by the mantel with care! This year he's got a new baby brother and is afraid Santa won't know whose stocking is whose. He just isn't convinced that Santa will know. He asked me to do something so Santa will know who the stockings belong to!

I thought about it and I didn't even consider using glue and glitter like my mom did when we were kids. Not my taste really. It's fine and all and my handwriting is okay but I just didn't want to even attempt it. I'm too much of a neat freak and like organization, and my trying to use glue and glitter on stockings could turn ugly. Plus what if I messed up?

At the craft store I found some white, lightweight wooden letters but there weren't enough in the store to spell all of our names. So much for that! I kept on trucking and finally found some IRON ON Soft Flock Letters in a font I thought would match pretty well. The letters are 3/4" but come in a variety of sizes. The package reads DOT075LWT Dot at AC Moore in case you want to try it yourself. The font is a simple one with the dots on the ends of the letters, kinda cutesy but still nice and simple. You just follow the directions and it only takes about 22 seconds, at most, for each letter. Pretty sweet. I would do a run through on a test fabric first just so you make sure you get the process b/c once the letters are ironed, they are pretty permanent. Oh, and I had to buy two packages of letters so I had enough of the letters needed. A package was about $4.00 but I had a coupon! The stockings were all bought on clearance during after Christmas sales at different times too. Not too shabby!

Wanna see how the stockings turned out?





  

The result is a Pottery Barnish look with nice, clean, consistent letters to personalize each stocking and point Santa the direction he needs to go!!!

Finally A Fun Outlet For Creativity!

I'll figure this whole blog set up thing as soon as I can but for now at least there is a name. That was half the battle! I'm psyched to have at least taken this step of opening an account. I love home interiors/exteriors and enjoy trying to make our house more comfortable. In efforts to get out of a rut with everyday life I thought this would be a fun way to explore and play with decorating and being creative. I'll start posting when I can to share some little home projects that I have been doing. I enjoy reading other people's decor ideas so I think this will be fun!