My kind of Christmas decor

I don't know what your Christmas looks like, but mine looks like twigs and leaves. Coincidentally that's how my 'the rest of the year' also looks. I decided against a tree and so my Christmas decor looks as bare as nature does outside the windows, but I kind of like the simplicity.

 If you tilt your head to the side this photo looks completely straight. 

Above my "fireplace" I used a thrifted metal tray, a couple of large tea strainers with battery operated tea lights inside, a chunk of bark I salvaged from a tree that had to be removed and a sprig of faux greenery we were going to throw away from the decorations box at work.

 


And lit up...

I amuse myself by continuing to refer to these as "tea lights" since they are lights...and a tea strainer...and have tea lights inside. Ha. ha. Knee slapper?

 The artwork was painted by a mom's friend who has since passed away. She always sent cards with images of something she had painted in the year. Most of her work was copies of other work but I don't know about this one. Anyone know?

 


Above all this I hung a banner I made a few years back and forgot about. You wouldn't believe how many things I've found in old boxes (and how many things I can't find in new boxes). I hung it here using tiny, clear Command Strip hooks. They are my new favorite discovery, for sure. I linked it there if you want to check them out, I found mine at Rite Aid I think.

 

I made this using a pair of circle punches of two sizes and then using those weird edged scissors to give the inner one some interest. I aged the paper with ink and placed a glittery sticker in the middle, hanging it on some jute by punching two small holes in the top. I'm not usually a paper craft person but this turned out pretty well.

 

Along the top of my giant bookshelf it took me forever to assemble I've finally hung a few things on the wall.

 

My chalkboard art can be seen originally here and my leaf garland can be seen here.

 To the left is my collection of thrifted bowls and cande holders topped by thrifted glass domes. They are holding an assortment of nature items and keeping them dust free for me.

 On this one I've hung a tatted snowflake I bought from an older woman at a craft bazaar several years back.

 

The work is so beautiful!

 This giant cone I also bought at a craft bazaar. The woman said it came from a tree in her yard. Can you imagine having a yard full of these giant cones? What if one hit you? Yikes!

 
It is sitting pretty on a little gold candle holder. The cute chubby snowman came from JoAnn stores several years ago. The leaves I took from my neighbor's yard one year and spray painted - they've stayed perfectly preserved for over a year.

 

More gold leaves and some twigs with mini cones.

Thanks for taking the tour with me!

Merry Christmas to all

I posted this photo on facebook and everyone griped about how creepy it was. I've never photographed red lights before, have you? It is impossible! The entire room looks like it is glowing red even though it looks nothing like that in reality. And when I tried a different setting...

I give up. But Merry Christmas, anyway!

Merry Christmas

O Little Town of Bethlehem, on this O Holy Night you were home to What Child Is This.


All scholarly arguments about the actual date aside ;)


Merry Christmas to all and God bless us, every one.


(Photo taken in 2000 across the field of a family farm. Many thanks to that family for allowing the entire tour bus to unload on their property and for sharing fresh goat cheese with us!)

Decorating every corner

I usually don't, but I decided to bring a little Christmas into my bedroom this year.

I have these candle holders on each side of my headboard.


So I used some excess trimmed off the Christmas tree and used them like a vase (minus the water). A piece of wire ribbon is draped to add a little more festiveness.


That other branch is a vine maple, I've had it hanging on walls for years!


Some more tree trimmings go into this empty vessel and sit on my windowsill alongside this cute little birdie on a berry.


A $3.00 clearance urn holds some tiny pine cones.


A pine cone candle (sitting on a spray painted salsa jar lid) adds some color and some dried oregano adds a little greenery.


I used the cake plate from my Halloween decorating to layer a candle holder and sandalwood scented candle. Dried rose petals and gold spray painted oak leaves fill the space between.

I love burning candles in winter, don't you?

Little things here and there but it sure brightened up the room and made it smell good!

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!

My shabby little hall tree

Wrong kind of hall tree. I literally mean a little tree for my hallway. :)

Kara made a couple (she wrote the tutorial so give her site a visit) and I had this old, beat up cone in my craft supplies so I decided to go for it.

I decided I wanted a star so I freehand drew one on the back of a pudding box headed for recycling. You can see I'm such an artist that I got it perfect on the first try. ;) Also notice I made a little "stem" for it to stick into the top of the cone.

Cut out and make sure it fits.

Pick out what fabric you want, trace and cover. I only did one side of the star (call me lazy?) but if you have a freehand star and want to cover both sides be sure to flip your template around to make sure you have fabric that will fit to each side.

I had originally thought about making just a jute tree and then decided to go with the shabby fabric tree but decided to give it a jute base to look something like a tree trunk.

Now for the main course! I ripped my fabric strips to give them some nice texture (as per Kara's tutorial). If you've never ripped fabric strips before it is easy AND fun. Cut a small start,

then holding the large part of the fabric stationary, grip the "strip" side and pretend you're the Incredible Hulk - I was using muslin so it tore very easily.

Then I did a little factory set up and made plenty of loops to glue around.

Make sure your strips are going in a straight line around the circle. Maybe drawing a guide mark would help but I found myself going quite crooked a few times.

All finished and looking shabby cute in my entry sitting atop my garage sale candle holder.

I also tried another thing I've been seeing around - the book page wreath. Now I am a bibliophile through and through so to tear up a book and use it this way you have to know I chose something no one would ever miss.

I ruffled crepe paper for the center (albeit crookedly!) and added a cardstock circle that I stamped.

Time consuming? Yes. But the cost of the project was so negligible that these would make great gifts!

How I did it - Christmas decor tutorials

How did she do that? Here's how!

In my last post I showed some decorating I've done around (and outside) the house and since I didn't want to make your eyes cross with a post that had a billion photos I decided to put the how-to's in this one.

Door decor - pine cone swag.

This idea was inspired by:

I just fell in love with the beautiful simplicity!

Per their instructions you simply hot glue the ends of the ribbon to the cone then stagger them to make it look interesting, tie the knot, trim the ribbon ends and hang.

Ummm who wants ugly hot glue and ribbon ends on the first decor people see when they walk into their homes? No takers? So maybe I'm just a huge slob with my glue gun but I knew that's what mine would look like so I improvised a little.

I started with pine cones I cleaned up out of a friend's yard and some red ribbon; not as big as CL's version but proportionate enough to the cones to be fine.

Then I took a scrap of felt from a previous project and carefully measured and cut perfect circles - wow I almost typed that with a straight face! I have issues with circle cutting dating back to Kindergarten but that's a sob story for another time. Instead I just freehanded them making sure they were big enough for my purpose.

I folded each in half and sliced an opening in the middle with my scissors, then threaded each onto a ribbon like so.

This way when you add the hot glue (a dab will do ya so don't add too much) and stick the ribbon on you can cover your ugly end and glue blob with some felt that sorta kinda matches your cones. I think it helped make them look a bit more finished.

The end result one more time now!

Love! On to the next.

Merry Christmas garland.

Inspired by:

I have a ton of these metal edged tags but do you think I could find them? Now that would be just way too easy. So I gave up on it and just grabbed a sheet of cardstock that has that "old parchment" look to it and my papercrafting tools.

A scalloped circle punch, regular hole punch, black ink, alphabet stamps and distress ink in "vintage photo" (which I found at Goodwill!).

Punched out my circles, stamped my letters in black and punched a hole in the tops. That process is simple enough I really thought you didn't need to see each step in photo form.

Then I added distress ink to the edges. What a difference that makes! I just love the dimension it adds. I should have taken a before and after for you...now why didn't I think of that earlier?

Then I took my large jute string and my tiny jute string and attached my letters - loosely so they are adjustable.

It has the same effect as the inspiration and I love how it turned out.

The finished product one more time!

Festive rustic. On to the next:

Rescued mini trees under glass.

Not really a tutorial but more like a show-off. I literally rescued these guys from the garbage. Well I would have taken them out of the garbage had they not first blown away into the flower bed and sat there in the dirt. They were kinda (really) gross and I had to dry them out, pick out the icky bits and whatnot. I was really committed to this project, haha. ;)

Then I spray painted them white. Let me suggest that you don't try this with the cans that spray in a fan pattern - it seemed like it took a ridiculous amount of paint to cover these.

(See what's in the background of the "before" pic? That's a 75 year old Frigidaire which belonged to my great aunt and uncle...and which still purrs like a kitten! It's outside and keeps the pop nicely chilled)

Once they were ready for use I put them in this Goodwill purchased glass with some basket filler in the bottom. They look lovely next to the painting done by my great aunt Ellen (the same great aunt who owned the refrigerator I just mentioned).

This little vignette is so ME. The great outdoors, tea and classic literature - that is what I'm all about!

Are you finished with your decorating yet? I don't think I'll ever be done! I should have started in July.

Linking to:

Frugal Friday @ The Shabby Nest