Christmas decorating outside

If you visited my blog in early June you may have seen [this post] about trying to make my outdoor entry more clear and inviting.

Now that winter is here my herbs in the planter box and plant stand are hibernating (ie gone or drooping sadly) and I've got the vent stuffed with old jeans to keep out the cold. Classy.

I never get rid of the branches that have to be inevitably cut from the Christmas tree. Instead I put them to good use as greenery around the house and even outside the house.


I am still in desperate need of a chalk pen but to be fair on my handwriting that old chair back is an incredibly rough surface to write on.


I stuffed clipped branches and some ivy I trimmed off into the pot that normally holds chives and oregano. This way I can just pull them out and toss them when my herbs perk up and start growing this spring.


These branches hide the jeans-stuffed vent just wonderfully! The stag creature is a tea lite holder and I'll add one the night of the Christmas party for extra warmth and pretty.


Christmas tree branches even fill up the flower box and hide my bare dirt while the oregano sleeps.

So don't get rid of those trimmed tree branches - you never know where you can use them!

Mosaic Monday - Christmas time

Click image to enlarge.

I think things are finally ready at my house but that doesn't mean I won't try to keep adding things up until the last minute. :)

The glittered butterfly (and another that isn't shown, but looks the same) was given to me by my grandfather when I was a kid. They've been on every Christmas tree since. The painting in the background of the photo in the bottom left was done by my great aunt and is one of my favorites.

Be sure to visit Little Red House to see all the beautiful mosaics!

Christmas came early for me!

Went to a huge handmade/homegrown bazaar last Saturday and bought some goodies for gifts, bought some treats I ate on the spot (blueberry milk chocolate covered hazelnuts) and got to spend time with my friend, and her little girl, her mom and my mom. Friend and I decided to exchange gifts later but her mom and I probably won't see each other until after Christmas. I gave her goodies from Epically Epic Soap Co. and Long Winter Farm and she gave me...




I can hardly wait to start reading this! And I should probably get going while it's still Christmas story time! She and I have been sharing Austenian spin-offs for a while now and she's found some really good ones.

This is peach butter. I haven't opened it yet but I swear I can smell it and imagine how good it's going to be on my morning toast.

And this is something I've oft heard about from my friend - blueberry vinegar. According to her family you add a couple spoonfuls to a full glass of lemon lime soda pop and a couple spoonfuls of sugar. I had two glasses of that concoction last night if that tells you anything. ;)

I just love her wonderful thoughtfulness! And to top it all she included this lovely note.

*sniffle!*

Easy & affordable poinsettia ring tutorial

Poinsettia Day was the 12th but I wasn't able to get my ducks in a row fast enough to get this posted in time - so remember for next year!

I designed this ring with the idea that any budget could try it out, and it's simple enough that older kids could get their craft on as well. It's very similar to my [Valentine's Ring.]

What you'll need:

scissors
pen
templates (see below)
thin elastic hair band
felt glue or anything comparable
1 piece or scrap of green felt or eco-felt
1 piece or scrap of bright red felt or eco-felt
1 piece or scrap dark red felt or eco-felt

My three colors came from my eco-felt stash.


I have enough scraps of eco-felt like this round to fill up a shoe box so I love coming up with projects to use it up. I first drew a basic flower shape on some paper and cut it out to make my template. A regular ball point pen will trace onto the eco-felt.

I cut one of those out of the dark red and one out of the bright red.

I used a similarly shaped but larger-sized template to cut out my piece from the green eco-felt.

Whenever one of my elastic hair ties gets stretched out in one spot like in the photo below - and thereby making it ineffective at holding my hair back - it goes into my craft stash rather than the garbage.


I simply measured it around my finger and cut it just slightly smaller than that measurement. Using old hair bands makes these rings very comfortable to wear and secure too, since they tend not to slide like traditional rings can if they are too loose.

Using my felt glue I layered my pieces starting with the green. Alternate their positions as much as possible so all the leaves are showing, giving a nice layered look.

And whichever color red you layered on the bottom, cut out a small circle to glue on as the center of the flower.


You'll also want a small green circle to glue onto the bottom of the flower, once you've added the hair band. (I ended up cutting my green circle much smaller after the photo!)

Once the glue for the flower is dry, turn it over and position and glue the elastic hair band piece you cut earlier. Clothespins work great as a second and third pair of hands and will hold the band in place until the glue dries.

Glue the green circle over the ends of the band to finish it off and help keep them in place.

Once everything is dry you are ready to wear your ring!

Easy peasy! Have fun!

Linking to:

If you'd like to add extra security and detail to your ring, you can stitch the pieces together (along with the gluing) in stages. My recommendation:

Stitch the elastic hair band onto the bottom of your green piece. Stitch the bottom red color to the green. Then the next red over and then the top circle. Now cover the stitches as much as you can with your bottom green circle.

Stitching gives it a bit of a quilted look even if only done in about two spots per leaf side like shown below.

It will give the flower an appearance more like the ones towards the end of [this post.]

Mosaic Monday - a borrowed view

Click image to enlarge.

I'm house-sitting again (again!!) and thankfully it's a lovely place full of faded blooms, moss and ferns, broken, bare trees in the fog and bare trees in the sunset.

Before the weather turned truly crummy (that water photo in the top left was a small pond that showed up in the yard overnight) we had some truly spectacular skies.

Sunrise on the 7th.



Sunsets the next few evenings.

As long as I've got my camera to keep my company and something pretty to look at I'm happy! :)

Be sure to visit Little Red House to see all the beautiful mosaics.