Our Christmas House

I am always anxious to decorate for Christmas each year! I usually head straight for the cutesy Christmas stuff, all bows and ruffles, but I want something a little different this year. This picture is from our front door wreath from last year, which I still might just pop back on the front door anyway!

This year I wanted more of a rustic, homemade feel around our house. I went with a combo of paper crafts, pine cones and branches, and a little pop of red to change things up a bit. So far I am really happy with what we have come up with!

Our coffee table centerpiece is low fuss and in one of my all-time favorite goodwill finds!

I love our three window wreaths, a Pinterest idea.

These pillows were another Pinterest idea from a few weeks ago! They didn't turn out quite as well as I'd planned, but I am happy with the little linen pillows. I just used iron-on transfer paper to recreate this favorite pin!

I picked this polar bear up at HomeGoods, and I love it! Polar bears are my favorite, and he brings a different little kick to things.

Matt and I bought our stockings the year we spent living abroad in Edinburgh. When Laurelei was born we lucked out and found a similar 'old-school' stocking at Joseph Beth. Now, we are on the hunt for Abbott's perfect mismatch too! If you see any, let us know!

Yet another Pinterest christmas project. I'm not overly excited about how this turned out either, but I'll take it! It adorns our farm house dining room table for now.

This little ribbon tree is something I made last year, and I still really like it. It's a surprising little find on our living room bookshelf!

And of course, last but not least, our Christmas tree.

I've decided it's pretty much impossible to get a good picture of a Christmas tree. But you get the gist. This year we added letter garland and paper stars to our tree, alluding to the homemade feel around here. I really like it, even if it is a bit unorthodox!

I am pretty happy with all of our changes around here this year. If you are interested in what we did for Christmas last year, here is last years post.You can check out my Pinterest holiday board to see where I got a lot of my ideas this year!

Happy Holiday Decorating!!

Read more...

Christmas House, Traditions, & Gifts

My Christmas house pretty much looks the same as last year so I won't bore you with all the details of that.  

The one change is the mantel and I do love it so I will share...

The Christmas tree is also different this year because I let go of my "themes" and own ideas.  I let the kids decorate it completely this year.  This means it has random ornaments all hung on the same branches.  My idea of the perfect Christmas tree has completely changed.  This is it.  Now if only I had read Erin's post before taking this picture, it may have turned out much better.

I changed up the frames again with Christmasy stuff printed off the computer.

We started the tradition of opening a Christmas book a day beginning on December 1st.  I first saw the idea on Pinterest and it came from HERE and I love it!  It has been so fun and now all our Christmas books have a chance and don't get overlooked.

We also eat dinner by candlelight every night that we are home in December.  What kid (or adult for that matter) doesn't love that?  Then to make it even more exciting and to make it work for us, the big kid that stays in their seat and refrains from screaming at dinner time gets to blow out the candle at the end.  It really works.  Blowing out candles is apparently a very cool thing.

My sister gets the kids Christmas jammies every year.  She sends them our way and we give them out on December 1st.  We surprise them right before bed and then call Aunt Beth to thank her!  : )  They are practically worn out by Christmas from so much wear!  

We have cinnamon rolls for Jesus on Christmas morning.  We light a candle and sing Happy Birthday to Him.  The kids LOVE this tradition.

As far as presents go, we made a lot of ornaments in our home this year.  I made about 24 of these mini pillow ornaments for friends, family, and teachers.  

Then the kids got a chance to make their own ornaments.  We made salt dough ones this year.  So easy and so much fun!  They went to town painting them and loved every minute.  Then they had fun choosing who would receive them as gifts.  The recipe I found HERE made so many that my oldest chose one for each of her classmates too.

I love everything about Christmas.  

What do you love about Christmas?  Do you have any of these same traditions in your home? Or do you have new ones to share with us? 

Only 5 days to go, my friends!  Merry Christmas!!!

Read more...

Simple Christmas Card Display

Need some fresh, last minute Christmas decorating inspiration? Well, here is something simple that my parents use in their gorgeous home to display Christmas cards, that anyone can do in a few minutes or less!

 

 

See if you can find a spare bit of fresh garland at a local Christmas tree shop and get to work! Let the fabulous Christmas cards your friends send you do most of the work to make a blank space festive in no time! What great display options do you have working for you in your home?

Happy Wednesday,

Read more...

Puzzle Piece Ornaments

Puzzle ornaments are such a simple idea and I am sure you have seen it floating around blogs and Pinterest.  I still wanted to share my son's little Christmas tree because I LOVE it.  

I can't take credit for these ornaments.  My sister told me she had a transportation puzzle and she thought the pieces could make great ornaments.  This is the first year for my son to have a tree in his room since he is a big boy now.  You can see his room HERE.  These were the perfect addition to his tree.

My sister makes a lot of fun jewelry (you can see in her Etsy shop) and so she used some supplies for the hole at the top to string ribbon through.  She sent them to me in a package and added a few colorful jingle bells.  I strung them all with different red ribbons from my stash.

She sent a cute red star topper to complete the tree.  I stuck it in a silver bucket as opposed to a tree skirt and added fabric bunched around the bottom for some fun festive color.

I just LOVE the way it turned out.  Thanks sister for providing the goods!  His own little Christmas tree for his room personalized with things he loves.  It's a very "boyish" tree, don't ya think?  Completely different from my girls' pink tree in their room.  So fun!

HAPPY FRIDAY!!!

Read more...

Sewn Star Christmas Ornaments

Last week I showed you my son's Advent Calendar: paper stars with goodies sewn inside for him to open each day as we count down to Christmas.

I love looking at all of the stars all lined up and labelled with a countdown to Christmas, but I get just a little bit sad every time that he rips one of them open. So I decided to make some just for me and our tree.

I started off the same way, with a stack of stars of equal size, though they didn't match perfectly which I like. I also cut out a stack of the same size stars from an old Webster's Dictionary.

I threaded my sewing machine with red thread, set it to a straight stitch and the longest length. I stacked 2 brown paper stars on top of one another with the dictionary page star on top, and started sewing around the edges. Once I was 3/4 of the way around the star, I stuffed some polyfill stuffing inside to give the stars a bit of dimension.

I cut a 4 inch strip of red raffia, folded it in half, stuffed the ends in one of the open points of the star, and sewed them down.

I love these. The red thread on the dictionary paper is so fun and the back is still the red thread on brown paper, which I loved so much in the first place. Now the only question is, who won't be receiving a little bundle of these from me for Christmas?

Would you like a set of these stars? I also put some in my Etsy shop here.

Happy Monday!!

Read more...

Pinterest Paper Trees

 I started pinning holiday ideas pretty early this year. Pinterest really got me in the mood for Christmas decorating for sure! One of my very first holiday pins was also one of the first things I made this season.

My inspiration was this gorgeous paper tree...

 {image via}

 I loved the gold newspapers they were using, but went with something I already had in stock, old book pages. I simply glued my pages around a branch from the yard. All of the supplies were free and it couldn't have been easier!

Here was my result...

Not quite a full or perfect, but just right for me! I have tried out a few other Pinterest holiday projects this year, you can see some of them here on my family blog...Happy December and official decorating season!

And don't forget to stop back by tomorrow and link up your Pinterest Projects!!

Read more...

A Pinterest Inspired Thanksgiving

I got the opportunity to host Thanksgiving this year!  That made me so excited!  I was not responsible for all the cooking which made it stress-free.  I don't think I am quite ready to cook a turkey yet.  Maybe one of these days.  But I did get to work on making things cute with our big girl and son.  We had so much fun preparing little details to welcome our guests!  

And wouldn't you know...Pinterest came to my rescue!  

I found this paint sample turkey that came from Lizard & Ladybug blog and thought it was so stinkin' cute!  Simple and kid-friendly.  Perfect.  

pic via Pinterest and originally from Lizard & Ladybug

We picked up a bunch of fall-colored paint samples at the hardware store and I let the kids go to town making turkeys.  I loved seeing what they came up with.  My three-year-old son's turkey in the middle makes me smile.  He wanted wings and a hat rather than feathers!  LOVE it.  

Next up were these cute place cards made with felt that came from the Sheek Shindigs blog and originally inpsired by Pottery Barn.  So adorable.  And all you really needed was felt, hot glue, and sticks.

pic via Sheek Shindigs

I wanted to use supplies already on hand and floral foam was not one of them.  This meant that our little ships would lay on the plates instead of stand up.  Oh, well.  I still loved them.  We used popsicle sticks and I let my big girl write all the names with a red marker.

Finally, there was a turkey onesie that I couldn't stop staring at because it was one of the cutest things I had seen in awhile.  The pic on Pinterest said it originated from The Happenings of the Hermanns blog.  My friend, Jill also made an adorable turkey onesie for her sweet baby that she shared on her blog, Barnes Yard.  SO cute.  

pic via Pinterest & originally from The Happenings of the Hermanns

My baby girl had an old onesie that was almost too small.  I found fabric scraps, cut out a turkey and feathers, heat and bonded them on, and sewed the edges.  So fun!  I added buttons for eyes as the final finishing touch.

And I ended up making big sister a matching turkey shirt too!

It was such a fun and happy Thanksgiving!  Hope yours was too!

Thank you, Pinterest.  Did you all use any ideas from Pinterest for your Thanksgiving decor?  I would love to know!

Oh, and you can follow my boards here if you want to! 

Happy Tuesday!

Read more...