Christmas decorations

I completely forgot to post photos of my finished tree!! Man, what a slacker I am! Anyway, here she is:

After I took this photo I made a proper skirt from oyster colored burlap and trimmed it with a wide plaid ribbon. I'd have posted a photo but my couches are now pushed back together and they hide the whole base of the tree, and frankly I'm just too lazy to move them out of the way. :)









We cut several low branches off the tree so there'd be room for presents underneath, and here's what I decided to do with them. (Keep in mind, these photos were taken a few minutes ago so the branches have had a couple of weeks to dry out and curl a bit, but I think they still look okay.) You can click to enlarge and see the details a bit better.





Here are a few more decorations I have around my house this season. I'm in love with this beautiful feather wreath that I got at Joann for 50% off. I added in the little bronze ornaments for some sparkle, but they're removable because I just couldn't bear to mess with such a lovely wreath.


For fall I'd hung some grapevine garland along my curtain rod, then just stuck in a few red berry sprigs to add a little color for Christmas time.


I made this wreath for my front door after seeing this one featured on someone's blog (can't remember where, I'm afraid) and totally loved it. I had some of this webbing left from an upholstery project so I just bought an inexpensive straw wreath form at Michael's and wrapped it up in jute!


And here's today's project, found on this blog by way of this blog. I love hanging things above my dining room table. I don't know why, but I do. And I do it a lot. These paper ornaments are festive and pretty, and so so very easy (and inexpensive!) to make. I love that they go with the blue theme I've got in my dining/kitchen area.




If I don't get back here before the new year, I hope you all have wonderful holidays!

Planning the tree

It's true- I haven't decorated my Christmas tree yet. In fact, I haven't even put it up. Though, to be fair, we may actually be getting a real tree this year (for the first time in 9 1/2 years!) so I've been putting off dragging the fake one in until we've decided.

BUT I do have a plan for the tree, fake or fresh. It's going to have a woodland theme with a cranberry/green/bronze color scheme. I am soooo excited! I've started collecting both outdoors and in stores. Here's some of what I've got so far.

From outside...


milkweed pods


I'm trying to figure out how/if I can make a star shaped tree topper with some of these...


A few red berries.


Some very sharp, very poky but pretty thistles.


I don't know what the heck these are, but they're cute.


And of course acorns. I LOVE ACORNS!


Last night I made a batch of cinnamon ornaments using this recipe and tutorial from Martha. They smell like Christmas.


I bought the bronze (even though it looks gold on here) glitter at Michael's. It's also from Martha- heh. Weird.)


Michael's also provided me with some pine cones, fake birds and nests, and some cranberry and moss green glass ball ornaments. I'm also hoping to add some faux eggs, feathers, ribbon, burlap (for the skirt) and other pretty woodland-y items. There will be more cinnamon ornaments made, more critters, maybe some bugs this time. I don't know. But it's gonna be pretty!

Sleeping baby sign

I made this sign over the weekend.

Found the perfect picture of my second baby sleeping...

...then used an archival pen to draw him onto a small piece of wood from the craft store. Tiny rubber stamps were used for the words and a little distressing around the edges from a stamp pad. Then I gave it a good spray (front and back) with some polyurethane, added a scrap of ribbon for a hanger, and now I have the most personal, precious sleeping baby sign.

I almost hate to put it outside.

Easy photo gift idea

This weekend I went to a baby shower for a neighbor friend of mine, and until the night before I'd only planned to give her a pair of baby shoes as a gift. Then I came across an idea online that I wanted to try to recreate myself.

I'd seen where some vintage blocks were used to spell out the baby's name and were accompanied by some adorable miniature animal toys. The little display was then photographed and sold for $18 per print. As much as I would have loved to give her one of those darling prints framed and ready to be hung in her nursery, I didn't have the time as her shower was the very next afternoon.

Instead I got up the next morning and dug through my kids' baskets of toys until I'd found all the blocks that we own, and set up my own little photography session by a big window in my dining room.

Here's the original photo I ended up using. I used a large sheet of white paper on a dining room chair as my backdrop. I put my camera on the Macro setting (the little flower symbol) and kept my overhead lighting and flash off. I just used what was coming through my east facing window. As you can see in the lower left corner, I accidentally got a little bit of the chair in the shot. Grrr.

First I used Picasa to edit the photo. Here's what the photo looks like after using the "I'm Feeling Lucky" basic fix feature.

Then I used the Glow effect to make it look a little softer.

I cropped out that annoying sliver at the bottom...

... then used Photoscape to add a pretty vignette around the edges.

I ordered an 8x10 print with WalMart.com and picked it up in an hour at my local store. I was in too big a hurry to take a photo of the finished project, but I ended up "matting" it with some purple fabric from my stash in the same way I'd done these for my son's room.


A white 10x13 frame that I already had made the whole thing turn out nicely. I may just have to do this with my own kids' names! I really like the idea of putting special toys in the photo as well, so if you try this look around to see what items you can add to the photo for a personal touch.

little chairs

I discovered something about myself last night- I have a love of tiny chairs. After coming home from a trip to the thrift store with 5 newly acquired miniature chairs, I started noticing that there are little chairs everywhere in my house.

I bought this sweet little rocker for my daughter when she was about two years old.

These two school chairs are easy for my kids to bring into the living room to watch TV, or they stay in the corner of the dining room and look cute. One came from a local thrift store and cost me a whole $3, while the other was rescued from the trash at my sister's college dorm.

This mattress stripe upholstered one sits at the end of my daughter's bed. It needs to be cleaned, but I just love it.


And here are my new little chairs. They were scattered on the shelves among the other wooden items, but I'm sure they came from the same place.

Each one is made of twigs and tiny nails and staples. They're all a little different in style and size, but I love how they go together.

(By the way, I'm hating my camera right now. Sorry for the grainy photos- I'm not sure why it's like that.)
I decided to hang them on a wall in my kitchen/dining room.
Sweet little chairs. I don't think I'll ever get enough.

Trying something

A couple of weeks ago I decided I wanted to try making a necklace for myself. Nothing complicated, just something simple, long and sparkly. I've tried my hand at jewelry making before, but I always shy away from projects that require expensive supplies and tools.

I love smoky quartz, so I bought some nice big, round, faceted beads on Etsy, as well as 3' of delicate gold chain.

Today I found some gold plated eye pins and a set of tiny jeweler's tools at Michael's. I couldn't wait to try them out.

It's far from perfect, but I really like how it turned out. A little fancy, yet a little quirky with the beads spaced unevenly. No need for a clasp. Just right!

And just how I imagined it. I think it'll look nice with the outfit I'm assembling to wear to my brother's wedding. That smoky quartz is a winner.

Wrist corsages

Tonight I'm suffering from a bit of insomnia, so instead of browsing the Internet for who-knows-what, I'm going to show you what I've been working on.



My little brother is getting married in about 3 weeks. He and his sweet fiance kindly asked if I'd be willing to help out with a few things. They wanted some wrist corsages made for the sisters, mothers, and grandmothers that coordinate with their wedding colors- white/pearl, ivory, moss green, gold and gray. Pretty, huh?



I had to look up how to make ribbon flowers, then went kinda crazy and tried out a bunch. They both liked the variety of styles, so I put together this prototype to see how they liked the results. Both were pleased so I've been making dozens of tiny ribbon roses, "daisies", rose buds and leaves when I have a spare minute here and there.



The flowers and leaves are adhered to an ivory felt oval with hot glue, and a lovely dove gray ribbon will tie the corsage to the wrist.


I've also been asked to make two somewhat matching ribbon headbands for the flower girls to wear, as well as the ring bearer pillow. I'm so glad they've asked me to help out with such special details of their important day! These projects have me so excited that it's becoming very hard not to ignore the other projects that need my attention.