Christmas Tour 2011

Welcome!! I am so happy you stopped by! We are knee high into the Holiday season so I want to show you our festive (but simple) home. A big thank you to Nester for hosting the tour, I know there will be tons of inspiration.

I will be highlighting areas and providing links to see even more.

Let's get started in the kitchen. The kitchen is where we spend a lot of time, not only to cook and eat, but the peninsula is where I do all my crafting, so you'll find me in here a lot.

Check out entire tour HERE. Also, a big thank you to Melissa at the Inspired Room for featuring my kitchen.

It's not a very big kitchen, so I just keep the decor simple and add in some whimsical touches. The dining room is actually just an eat-in kitchen but it's got visions of grandeur.:)

On the window sill are my waterless snow globes. These have been really fun and catch the light beautifully. See how you can make your own HERE.

A vintage looking Santa face nestled in a wreath and hung on our chalkboard door, this is probably my favorite aspect of the kitchen

Scratch that last statement, this is my favorite aspect of the kitchen, the Hot Chocolate Bar. Best thing I've done. We use it and love it, although I've had to put a 'cap' on the hot cocoa drinking...the kids would be drinking it all the time (can you say sugar high!:) if not.

Let's move into the living room which is another room we spend a lot of time in.

Over the bookcases, I hung my handcrafted Magnolia Leaf Wreath....I spent so much time on that wreath I definitely wanted to use it through Christmas. I had to stop myself from glittering it, I really wanted to but can you imagine trying to glitter it??? What a mess!
I think it has held up pretty well considering how many weeks ago I made it. It fits in perfectly with the colors in here.

If you'd like to see how to make a Magnolia Leaf wreath for yourself click HERE.

I added the Moravian star and a couple of candlesticks along with some driftwood (on the left)

Over on the TV wall, I hung a small collage featuring my winter tree prints, I've had those for a long time. I also found another vintage owl plate which helps brake up all the right angles. That poor chair, It's going to get reupholstered if it kills me...
soon.It'll be a good January project.

This is the collage on the sofa wall...I added some conifer botanical pictures for winter

This is what is on the coffee table now, I had to move the candlesticks (pictured below, not very kid friendly), to a chunkier candle and a poinsettia. I found a pine candle that I absolutely love and just so happens to fit on the mercury glass candle holder, surprisingly from Wal-mart called Fresh Pine. It has a pretty silver lid and really affordable (I highly dislike spending tons of money on candles). The cattail ball that my husband calls a green brain, is actually natural cattail fuzz (?) dyed a beautiful green. It works great for Christmas as well as everyday.

See more detail on the mantle HERE

See the full story on our Christmas Tree by clicking HERE

Learn how to make your own pine cone topiaries HERE

Let's move on to the Master Bedroom, I worked on it earlier this year and I added a tiny bit of Christmas.

I didn't get to show you yet that I found my parents oversize rosary in storage this summer when I was getting ready to open my booth. It is about 30 years old, Mom bought it when we were stationed in Italy. It always hung on a picture over the mantle when I was growing up, I'm glad that I found it.


For Christmas, I did some curly willow, mini pine cone stems and pine in one of the tea jars. I just took the lid off and used enough to fill the mouth of the vase, easy to take out after the season.

I also made a feather wreath to hang on the mirror. Totally inspired by Nester's white one, I made my own version in brown

This could certainly stay all winter, don't you think?

We have come to the end of the tour! Hope you enjoyed!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

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Open House 2010

I interrupt my previously planned post to bring you a mini home tour. I know I told you that a mini series of holiday ornaments were planned for this week, BUT, I've had my nose in the glitter for too long, I forgot that Susan at Between Naps on the Porch was having a little get together at her place! So even though I haven't finished completely, I'll share what I've done thus far. Hopefully you will be inspired and come back to see more when I get the the rest of the house all decked out {thank goodness we've got a tiny house!}. What will happen to the DIY ornaments planned for the rest of the week? I'll just get back to them on Tuesday. So grab some hot cocoa or a hot cuppa joe and relax, and thanks for coming by!

Most of these pictures have been taken through the course of a week, so you might see some taken in the evening, and some taken during the day.

Take a look at our Candy Kitchen here.

Some of you who have visited already have gotten a good look at the mantle, you can take a look at more here, but I've taken some more pictures since (go figure). The cylinder vases really remain my favorite, I love the ornaments and pods mixed together.

Milk glass is a staple around the house, here glittered pine cones are nestle in a beautiful compote. Stay tuned this week to see how I repurposed these ornaments.

This candle holder was a goodwill find that was an terrible color, I whipped out some spray paint and gave it a coat of Leaf Green from Krylon. I love it now and added some greenery and ball ornaments. Where I have it hanging, it's a little too close to the ceiling for candles, but I like the look of the ornaments anyway.

Here is an evening shot of the Christmas tree.

Here is the centerpiece on the kitchen table, if you'd like to see the entire tablescape click here.

Recently, my MIL's sister gave me an entire box of frames that she was tired of, I was inspired and was able to use a lot of them on a gallery wall, adjacent to the Christmas tree. I spray painted them all white and hung some of them empty. I hung a little owl in the middle, he's a GW find too that I painted, snowflakes in others. I will eventually fill most them with photos, but it just so happened that the printer ran out of ink ( I usually print here at home), but I like this improvisation as well!

I love how the tree turned out this year. It all started with the Christmas tree planter, and it really changed the over all look. Very woodsy and natural, but with it's fair share of glitter. A couple of ornaments I'll be showing you how to make this week, the 'Joy' and 'Noel' ornaments can seen how to make here. You'll be surprised what I used. :)

Thanks so much for stopping by! I hope you are inspired by something you see here!