Since I finished the kids halloween costumes in October, I've been slaving away in my little workshop like a totally spastic elf getting all my new decorations ready for our first year in the new house! Get comfy, because this is a LOOOOOOONG post, which is reflective of the number of hours that went into all this stuff!
When we decided to move across country, I sold or gave away probably 75% of our Christmas decorations. I'm really glad I did because most of them were a total reflection of my twenties style. Everything was shiny, and sparkly, and bold. In my thirties I'm really into more of a lived-in, loved and worn style as it feels more comfy and cozy to me. In this new house, that shiny sparkly stuff just doesn't work, and I decided I needed to supplement with a lot of new decor for Christmas. New doesn't mean it has to come from a store though!
I started with making all new tree ornaments, nearly 100 of them. When my nana died, the whole family got together that Thanksgiving and took turns choosing one ornament at a time from the gold ornament collection from the Danbury Mint she left behind. To be perfectly honest, though it was fun divvying them up, I felt a little guilty because I didn't get the intrigue at the time. Since then, I can't even express how much I enjoy putting them on the tree each year thinking of her and how she'd get a kick out of us all having a stash of her collection. Other than those Danbury Mint ornaments, every single ornament on my tree this year is new and handmade by yours truly.
TREE ORNAMENTS
I made sets of 8-12 of each ornament, and the first set was my sweater balls, not to be confused with shweddy balls. :)
I started with oversized cheapo ornaments from the Dollar Store. I pulled off the plastic topper and added twine to hang them, and then just covered the ball with an old sweater. Mine was a $3 sweater from Thrift Giant, which of course took a ride in the extreme sanitation cycle of our washer. :) I pinned a bunch of "tutorials" on this but none of them helped me understand how you get a flat piece of fabric to cover a round sphere without lumps. So I took some photos of what worked best for me. Hopefully they're helpful if you give it a shot.
It's easiest to show you how I finished it on the bottom. Basically, you hot glue the sweater only at 4 points in the middle where all the sides meet. First bring two opposite sides together, and glue thsoe two in the very center. Then you do the remaining two opposite sides and bring those as close to the center as you can get, realizing it will be bulky where the first 2 sides were glued down. That creates an excess of fabric in the shape of an "X" as you see below.
Then, although it's scary, cut that excess off all the way down to the ball, which will make you totally freak out because you'll think you've gone too far and exposed the ornament underneath. It's ok, trust me!
Because the sweater will have so much give, you just dab a little hot glue in the gaps and then smoosh the sweater together over the glue to cover it. See? Can't even tell there were gaps there!
And voila!
I did a second set from the striped part of the sweater that you can probably see in the larger photos of the whole tree later. These are soft and textural and add a vintage coziness to the tree.
Keeping with the ball ornaments, I also covered the same Dollar Store oversized ornaments with little scraps of Christmas fabric. I bought 1/2 yard of 8 different fabrics for a different set of ornaments, and then used the leftover and cut into small randomly shaped pieces and just used watered-down white glue to randomly stick the scraps on to cover the balls. Sorry, I have no photos of this process, but the idea was from Pinterest, and you can read about it here. She used foam balls, but my jumbo plastic balls worked fine too.
Here's one of the finished scrappy balls. These might be my favorite new ornaments. Depends on which way the wind is blowing.
So I mentioned the Christmas fabrics I bought - that was actually for my little owls. I'm not sure why owls - I think I saw a little stuffed owl on Etsy and decided I needed to have them on my tree. :) I made 8 and mixed and matched fabrics for the bodies and the bellies. Again - no instructions or in progress photos. I just cut out 2 layers of a basic owl shape, sewed right sides together leaving a small opening to stuff. I think I just hot glued the bellies on and then I hot glued on some eyes and a beak. Here are a pair of opposites using the same 2 fabrics.
For more little friends to hang on the tree, I made some gingerbread men and women. hehe I used small sheets of craft felt and cut out the shape and then hand stitched them together with thick nylon thread - I'm not sure what it's called, but it's the thickness of string, except it's shiny and bright white. I wanted to see the stitches. The hand-stitching took a lot longer than I expected, but they came out really cute. I just hot glued on a bunch of embellishments like googly eyes and ric rac to mimic frosting.
One of the most time consuming ornaments were my cardstock poinsettias. They were based off this tutorial for rolled paper ornaments, though I made mine a bit larger and didn't add any glitz to mine. Instead I opted for jute and a pearl center. They were time consuming to make 12, but I'm glad I stuck with it because they add nice variety and texture.
Instead of tinsel or ribbon this year I made word garland spelling out 'Noel,' 'Joy,' 'Merry,' 'Peace,' and 'Believe.' I bought the wooden letters at hobby lobby, glittered them in a soft/dull champagne color, and just hot glued thick twine to the backs and left loops on the ends to hang on branches. You get a better sense of how they look on the photos of the whole tree rather than closeups. But here's a closeup anyway:
The kids helped stuff the dozen candy canes we made with Grandma McDavid while she was visiting. Those win the "easiest ornament" award this year, and great payoff with the pop of contrast too! :)
NEW STOCKINGS
Speaking of Grandma McDavid, she's a sewing goddess, and while she was in town I kept her busy. I wanted to make all new Christmas stockings this year, as the first set I made is quite formal and more importantly, they were a dark burgundy fabric. Since our fireplace is dark, they'd get lost. Anyway, if she weren't visiting, it would have taken me twice as long and they wouldn't have come out half as nice! I designed and designed and designed and then redesigned on paper and finally decided on all the materials. The goal was 4 unique stockings for each of us that suited us individually but all still coordinated and matched the overall vibe of our decorations and house.
Here's the design plan. Normally I do it on my computer but I went old-school this time!
There are 2 fabrics - tan ticking stripe and cream muslin. I lined them with thin white cotton, though I wish I had gone a bit thicker. I tried to keep Brent's stocking masculine so his is pretty basic, and his is the only one with a cuff. The cuff gives it a lot more stability at the top which is nice. Doodle and I have lace on our stockings! I wanted the lace to contrast against the light muslin though so I decided to try to dye it. Hers was a lace blend of fibers, and mine was a cotton applique meant for the bodice of a top or dress. I've never dyed anything before so this was a new experience. I'm really glad I snipped a small piece of lace to experiment before dropping the whole cut in the dye bath!! On RIT's website they have formulas for almost infinite colors, and I followed their formula to get a neutral taupe. However, it was way too dark - it was almost charcoal with a greenish undertone. So I ditched the formula and started mixing on my own. The second experiment was better, but still too dark. On the third try I finally got it right, and it turns out I just needed to add a lot more water and use less dye. You can see the white lace and the different experiments left to right in the photo below. Of course, her lace and my applique were totally different fiber content so I had to go through the same process for mine. :)
I'll definitely continue experimenting with dyes though - I'm sure it'll come in handy for halloween!
Here are the finished stockings. I think they look great, though I do wish the fabric were a bit heavier on the three without cuffs. Once Santa stuffs them with goodies, they'll hang better. :) Sorry for the ugly flash in these pics - I was in a hurry and it's been gloomy weather here, especially with the tree parked in front of one of the windows!
Holy Night Sign
The next thing I worked on was a 24"x32" wooden sign that I intended to set on top of the mantle next to my large wise men. It didn't end up there, but I digress. I used scrap wood from our desks project for the sign. I stained the wood with classic gray minwax, and then gave it a couple heavy coats of creamy chalk paint and distressed heavily with a sander. I decided on the lyrics to 'o holy night,' my favorite non-donkey-related Christmas carol. :) If you have no idea what I'm talking about, please read my last blog post about Dominick!
I got a great steal on a new Cricut mini, which is an automated cutter for vinyl, fabric, papers etc. I intended to use it for the sign, but I just couldn't figure out how to lay it out in 8x12 pieces and get all the letters sized properly etc. So I gave in and just hand-painted it. For letter placement, I designed the whole sign on my computer, and then ordered a 24x36 black and white engineering/blueprint from Staples. It's like $3 and saves SOOOO much time. Then I just used carbon paper to trace the letters onto the board. I used a red paint pen since the letters are small to fill it all in. Then, the finishing touch is hand painting over all the letters with glitter! In a small dish I mixed mod podge with a hearty portion of red glitter from Martha Stewart. She has hands down the best glitter!
And the finished product with a red burlap bow to top it off. Like I said this was intended for the fireplace, which is dark and why I chose an off white sign. It looks fine on our greige walls, but I would have probably done the opposite colors with a red background had I known it would end up on the wall. Trying to scramble to have all this stuff done before thanksgiving, I'm bound to end up with some oopsies despite all the planning.
TREE STAND
Aaaaaand speaking of oopsies... we made a big one. I'm referring to physical size of the oopsie in this case. When we bought our new Christmas tree, which is a beauty by the way, the salesman gave us the idea to build a platform to raise up a 9' tree rather than holding out for a 10-11' tree, because there are so many more 9' trees from which to choose. We thought it was a brilliant idea, and then the project became the decorative outer shell that would disguise the tree stand and the platform and eliminate the need for a fabric tree skirt. I photoshopped different ideas to death, and we decided on a large round base to be faux painted like birch bark. By "large round base" I mean the inner diameter of the circle needed to be 36" to fit the tree stand inside it. I stumbled on a listing on craigslist for spare sonotubes and got a great deal on it! A handyman's project fell through after he purchased these for concrete forms. They're otherwise very expensive in that size so I got lucky! So we built the platform out of 2x12's and plywood (got the dimensions wrong, took it apart and started over - *sigh) and then cut the sonotube down from 6' to about 22". Even at 22" height it looked enormous but we went with it. I went through the whole faux finishing process - and the kids helped too! I used spackle to add texture and dimension to the bark and then we just went to town with craft paints.
Here's a shot of the kids helping. Yes, I strip them down when they help me paint. :) To relinquish control of the paintbrush is a feat itself so please don't ask me not to care about stains and spills!
It ended up looking pretty birch-like!
Here's the thing. If you notice, that last picture was taken in the scrap corner of the garage. It looked ridiculous because it was just too big under the tree, and we decided to scrap the idea in the end. So we just boxed out the platform with thin underlayment/plywood and added a trim piece on the corners and then painted and distressed it. It's a LOT smaller (almost a foot smaller) and more subtle and doesn't overwhelm our poor tree.
Here's where we landed:
I love not having a skirt, and I love that the tree is raised to allow plenty of room for arranging presents underneath! Anyone need a giant sonotube? :)
SEASONAL SIGN COVER-UPPER
The last big project, and this one is physically sizable too, is a temporary cover for the 8' long sign that hangs over our buffet. It's the salt water taffy sign that I love, but it really was ruining the warm Christmas vibe with the cool colors. Here's the sign I'm referring to:
I thought about making a different sign for Christmas that I could swap out, but storing one of these isn't trivial - it's 8' long! So I decided to make a fabric sign I could just attach at the corners on the backside with velcro! As usual I agonized over the design and was very torn. Then, I was in the guest room closet one day and saw the deep plum colored velvet window treatments that I bought for the office when the office was fit for a peacock. Still loving the lighter and brighter office by the way! So when I saw the velvet sitting there, instantly I thought of sugarplums! Sadly, the curtains were not long enough to wrap around the edges of the sign, but it was still the inspiration for the new sign. I decided to make the main background a gingerbread color and the sign would read "Visions of sugarplums danced in their heads..." and I would add all sorts of faux confections all over it. So that's exactly what I did.
I even made white frosting out of felt using a scalloped shape gathering stitch. The fact that I now know what a scalloped gathering stitch is is pretty cool. :) The letters are made out of flannel backed oilcloth, and then I edged them all with white yarn to look like piped icing. The letters weren't popping enough off the dark fabric. It's still a bit hard to read in the pictures.
I made peppermint candies wrapped in cellophane, hard candies out of colored tissue paper, cookies out of felt, lollipops out of pipe cleaners, but the piece de resistance is definitely the faux cupcakes! To make those I filled red cups with "great stuff" gap filling foam, and then once it was done expanding and curing, I carved it down into a cakey edge and left a tall form in the middle to add the icing. The icing is just lightweight spackle I piped on using an actual frosting tip and decorating bag. :) I painted them, added little sprinkles made out of scrap felt, and ultimately cut them in half so they'd sit better against the sign. These were really fun to make.
Here's the finished menagerie. lol
To be honest, I'm kind of over this sign already, though it's so much better not having the salt water taffy's cool colors up. Maybe I'll make another sign next year and I can trade off. Something a little more subtle next time perhaps. :)
THE BEGINNING OF MY NEW COLLECTION
Maybe you noticed these spectacular little critters under the sign in those photos? I've finally started collecting the Dash Away Reindeer collection by Patience Brewster which I've been coveting for a few years now. Fingers crossed I finish collecting all 8 before they're discontinued. This is Dasher on the left with his elf helper, and Dancer on the right. :) So I didn't make the reindeer, but I did make the little mossy boxes they're standing on. They're just paper mache boxes painted kind of birchy using crackle paint and then I glued moss on the top. It was a really easy little project and I love the whimsy it adds!
THE TREE
Aside from my little friend, Dominick, about whom I already posted... that's the end of the projects. Juuust in case you missed the Dominick post, here he is:
Here are a few shots of the tree and mantle all put together. I'm sure I'll keep adding a few things here and there, but I'm really happy with how the house feels now.
One last thing I should mention. In this mad dash to finish all of this in a month, I pushed my little craft room to its limit, and am ready to finish that sacred space. Since we moved in, it's had makeshift leftover furniture, which has been perfectly fine, but it's time and I'm really excited!!! Stay tuned for that project. The designs are in progress!
Merry Christmas everyone!!
When we decided to move across country, I sold or gave away probably 75% of our Christmas decorations. I'm really glad I did because most of them were a total reflection of my twenties style. Everything was shiny, and sparkly, and bold. In my thirties I'm really into more of a lived-in, loved and worn style as it feels more comfy and cozy to me. In this new house, that shiny sparkly stuff just doesn't work, and I decided I needed to supplement with a lot of new decor for Christmas. New doesn't mean it has to come from a store though!
I started with making all new tree ornaments, nearly 100 of them. When my nana died, the whole family got together that Thanksgiving and took turns choosing one ornament at a time from the gold ornament collection from the Danbury Mint she left behind. To be perfectly honest, though it was fun divvying them up, I felt a little guilty because I didn't get the intrigue at the time. Since then, I can't even express how much I enjoy putting them on the tree each year thinking of her and how she'd get a kick out of us all having a stash of her collection. Other than those Danbury Mint ornaments, every single ornament on my tree this year is new and handmade by yours truly.
TREE ORNAMENTS
I made sets of 8-12 of each ornament, and the first set was my sweater balls, not to be confused with shweddy balls. :)
I started with oversized cheapo ornaments from the Dollar Store. I pulled off the plastic topper and added twine to hang them, and then just covered the ball with an old sweater. Mine was a $3 sweater from Thrift Giant, which of course took a ride in the extreme sanitation cycle of our washer. :) I pinned a bunch of "tutorials" on this but none of them helped me understand how you get a flat piece of fabric to cover a round sphere without lumps. So I took some photos of what worked best for me. Hopefully they're helpful if you give it a shot.
Keeping with the ball ornaments, I also covered the same Dollar Store oversized ornaments with little scraps of Christmas fabric. I bought 1/2 yard of 8 different fabrics for a different set of ornaments, and then used the leftover and cut into small randomly shaped pieces and just used watered-down white glue to randomly stick the scraps on to cover the balls. Sorry, I have no photos of this process, but the idea was from Pinterest, and you can read about it here. She used foam balls, but my jumbo plastic balls worked fine too.
Here's one of the finished scrappy balls. These might be my favorite new ornaments. Depends on which way the wind is blowing.
So I mentioned the Christmas fabrics I bought - that was actually for my little owls. I'm not sure why owls - I think I saw a little stuffed owl on Etsy and decided I needed to have them on my tree. :) I made 8 and mixed and matched fabrics for the bodies and the bellies. Again - no instructions or in progress photos. I just cut out 2 layers of a basic owl shape, sewed right sides together leaving a small opening to stuff. I think I just hot glued the bellies on and then I hot glued on some eyes and a beak. Here are a pair of opposites using the same 2 fabrics.
For more little friends to hang on the tree, I made some gingerbread men and women. hehe I used small sheets of craft felt and cut out the shape and then hand stitched them together with thick nylon thread - I'm not sure what it's called, but it's the thickness of string, except it's shiny and bright white. I wanted to see the stitches. The hand-stitching took a lot longer than I expected, but they came out really cute. I just hot glued on a bunch of embellishments like googly eyes and ric rac to mimic frosting.
One of the most time consuming ornaments were my cardstock poinsettias. They were based off this tutorial for rolled paper ornaments, though I made mine a bit larger and didn't add any glitz to mine. Instead I opted for jute and a pearl center. They were time consuming to make 12, but I'm glad I stuck with it because they add nice variety and texture.
Instead of tinsel or ribbon this year I made word garland spelling out 'Noel,' 'Joy,' 'Merry,' 'Peace,' and 'Believe.' I bought the wooden letters at hobby lobby, glittered them in a soft/dull champagne color, and just hot glued thick twine to the backs and left loops on the ends to hang on branches. You get a better sense of how they look on the photos of the whole tree rather than closeups. But here's a closeup anyway:
The kids helped stuff the dozen candy canes we made with Grandma McDavid while she was visiting. Those win the "easiest ornament" award this year, and great payoff with the pop of contrast too! :)
NEW STOCKINGS
Speaking of Grandma McDavid, she's a sewing goddess, and while she was in town I kept her busy. I wanted to make all new Christmas stockings this year, as the first set I made is quite formal and more importantly, they were a dark burgundy fabric. Since our fireplace is dark, they'd get lost. Anyway, if she weren't visiting, it would have taken me twice as long and they wouldn't have come out half as nice! I designed and designed and designed and then redesigned on paper and finally decided on all the materials. The goal was 4 unique stockings for each of us that suited us individually but all still coordinated and matched the overall vibe of our decorations and house.
Here's the design plan. Normally I do it on my computer but I went old-school this time!
There are 2 fabrics - tan ticking stripe and cream muslin. I lined them with thin white cotton, though I wish I had gone a bit thicker. I tried to keep Brent's stocking masculine so his is pretty basic, and his is the only one with a cuff. The cuff gives it a lot more stability at the top which is nice. Doodle and I have lace on our stockings! I wanted the lace to contrast against the light muslin though so I decided to try to dye it. Hers was a lace blend of fibers, and mine was a cotton applique meant for the bodice of a top or dress. I've never dyed anything before so this was a new experience. I'm really glad I snipped a small piece of lace to experiment before dropping the whole cut in the dye bath!! On RIT's website they have formulas for almost infinite colors, and I followed their formula to get a neutral taupe. However, it was way too dark - it was almost charcoal with a greenish undertone. So I ditched the formula and started mixing on my own. The second experiment was better, but still too dark. On the third try I finally got it right, and it turns out I just needed to add a lot more water and use less dye. You can see the white lace and the different experiments left to right in the photo below. Of course, her lace and my applique were totally different fiber content so I had to go through the same process for mine. :)
I'll definitely continue experimenting with dyes though - I'm sure it'll come in handy for halloween!
Here are the finished stockings. I think they look great, though I do wish the fabric were a bit heavier on the three without cuffs. Once Santa stuffs them with goodies, they'll hang better. :) Sorry for the ugly flash in these pics - I was in a hurry and it's been gloomy weather here, especially with the tree parked in front of one of the windows!
 |
| Brent's manly stocking finished with upholstery tacks and mine with a dyed applique and crystal brooch |
 |
| Nugget's got all kinds of boyish flair, and Doodle has lace and a big bow finished with rhinestones |
Holy Night Sign
The next thing I worked on was a 24"x32" wooden sign that I intended to set on top of the mantle next to my large wise men. It didn't end up there, but I digress. I used scrap wood from our desks project for the sign. I stained the wood with classic gray minwax, and then gave it a couple heavy coats of creamy chalk paint and distressed heavily with a sander. I decided on the lyrics to 'o holy night,' my favorite non-donkey-related Christmas carol. :) If you have no idea what I'm talking about, please read my last blog post about Dominick!
I got a great steal on a new Cricut mini, which is an automated cutter for vinyl, fabric, papers etc. I intended to use it for the sign, but I just couldn't figure out how to lay it out in 8x12 pieces and get all the letters sized properly etc. So I gave in and just hand-painted it. For letter placement, I designed the whole sign on my computer, and then ordered a 24x36 black and white engineering/blueprint from Staples. It's like $3 and saves SOOOO much time. Then I just used carbon paper to trace the letters onto the board. I used a red paint pen since the letters are small to fill it all in. Then, the finishing touch is hand painting over all the letters with glitter! In a small dish I mixed mod podge with a hearty portion of red glitter from Martha Stewart. She has hands down the best glitter!
 |
| here you can see the top has been glittered and the bottom hasn't been done yet. the glitter really adds depth i think! |
And the finished product with a red burlap bow to top it off. Like I said this was intended for the fireplace, which is dark and why I chose an off white sign. It looks fine on our greige walls, but I would have probably done the opposite colors with a red background had I known it would end up on the wall. Trying to scramble to have all this stuff done before thanksgiving, I'm bound to end up with some oopsies despite all the planning.
TREE STAND
Aaaaaand speaking of oopsies... we made a big one. I'm referring to physical size of the oopsie in this case. When we bought our new Christmas tree, which is a beauty by the way, the salesman gave us the idea to build a platform to raise up a 9' tree rather than holding out for a 10-11' tree, because there are so many more 9' trees from which to choose. We thought it was a brilliant idea, and then the project became the decorative outer shell that would disguise the tree stand and the platform and eliminate the need for a fabric tree skirt. I photoshopped different ideas to death, and we decided on a large round base to be faux painted like birch bark. By "large round base" I mean the inner diameter of the circle needed to be 36" to fit the tree stand inside it. I stumbled on a listing on craigslist for spare sonotubes and got a great deal on it! A handyman's project fell through after he purchased these for concrete forms. They're otherwise very expensive in that size so I got lucky! So we built the platform out of 2x12's and plywood (got the dimensions wrong, took it apart and started over - *sigh) and then cut the sonotube down from 6' to about 22". Even at 22" height it looked enormous but we went with it. I went through the whole faux finishing process - and the kids helped too! I used spackle to add texture and dimension to the bark and then we just went to town with craft paints.
Here's a shot of the kids helping. Yes, I strip them down when they help me paint. :) To relinquish control of the paintbrush is a feat itself so please don't ask me not to care about stains and spills!
It ended up looking pretty birch-like!
Here's the thing. If you notice, that last picture was taken in the scrap corner of the garage. It looked ridiculous because it was just too big under the tree, and we decided to scrap the idea in the end. So we just boxed out the platform with thin underlayment/plywood and added a trim piece on the corners and then painted and distressed it. It's a LOT smaller (almost a foot smaller) and more subtle and doesn't overwhelm our poor tree.
Here's where we landed:
I love not having a skirt, and I love that the tree is raised to allow plenty of room for arranging presents underneath! Anyone need a giant sonotube? :)
SEASONAL SIGN COVER-UPPER
The last big project, and this one is physically sizable too, is a temporary cover for the 8' long sign that hangs over our buffet. It's the salt water taffy sign that I love, but it really was ruining the warm Christmas vibe with the cool colors. Here's the sign I'm referring to:
I thought about making a different sign for Christmas that I could swap out, but storing one of these isn't trivial - it's 8' long! So I decided to make a fabric sign I could just attach at the corners on the backside with velcro! As usual I agonized over the design and was very torn. Then, I was in the guest room closet one day and saw the deep plum colored velvet window treatments that I bought for the office when the office was fit for a peacock. Still loving the lighter and brighter office by the way! So when I saw the velvet sitting there, instantly I thought of sugarplums! Sadly, the curtains were not long enough to wrap around the edges of the sign, but it was still the inspiration for the new sign. I decided to make the main background a gingerbread color and the sign would read "Visions of sugarplums danced in their heads..." and I would add all sorts of faux confections all over it. So that's exactly what I did.
I even made white frosting out of felt using a scalloped shape gathering stitch. The fact that I now know what a scalloped gathering stitch is is pretty cool. :) The letters are made out of flannel backed oilcloth, and then I edged them all with white yarn to look like piped icing. The letters weren't popping enough off the dark fabric. It's still a bit hard to read in the pictures.
I made peppermint candies wrapped in cellophane, hard candies out of colored tissue paper, cookies out of felt, lollipops out of pipe cleaners, but the piece de resistance is definitely the faux cupcakes! To make those I filled red cups with "great stuff" gap filling foam, and then once it was done expanding and curing, I carved it down into a cakey edge and left a tall form in the middle to add the icing. The icing is just lightweight spackle I piped on using an actual frosting tip and decorating bag. :) I painted them, added little sprinkles made out of scrap felt, and ultimately cut them in half so they'd sit better against the sign. These were really fun to make.
Here's the finished menagerie. lol
To be honest, I'm kind of over this sign already, though it's so much better not having the salt water taffy's cool colors up. Maybe I'll make another sign next year and I can trade off. Something a little more subtle next time perhaps. :)
THE BEGINNING OF MY NEW COLLECTION
Maybe you noticed these spectacular little critters under the sign in those photos? I've finally started collecting the Dash Away Reindeer collection by Patience Brewster which I've been coveting for a few years now. Fingers crossed I finish collecting all 8 before they're discontinued. This is Dasher on the left with his elf helper, and Dancer on the right. :) So I didn't make the reindeer, but I did make the little mossy boxes they're standing on. They're just paper mache boxes painted kind of birchy using crackle paint and then I glued moss on the top. It was a really easy little project and I love the whimsy it adds!
THE TREE
Aside from my little friend, Dominick, about whom I already posted... that's the end of the projects. Juuust in case you missed the Dominick post, here he is:
Here are a few shots of the tree and mantle all put together. I'm sure I'll keep adding a few things here and there, but I'm really happy with how the house feels now.
One last thing I should mention. In this mad dash to finish all of this in a month, I pushed my little craft room to its limit, and am ready to finish that sacred space. Since we moved in, it's had makeshift leftover furniture, which has been perfectly fine, but it's time and I'm really excited!!! Stay tuned for that project. The designs are in progress!
Merry Christmas everyone!!
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