Using Christmas Fillers & Picks

I like to pick up Christmas filler and picks {usually at the end of the season clearance sales}, but the dollar store makes it so easy to buy them now. I'm not always sure where I'm going to use them, but I like to have them on hand.

This piece below is all dollar store items. The holder it's in is the glass vase and candleholder I put together last week. The bells are sold in packages, with glitter and without; and there are four berry filler pieces. I wound up not using them on one of my mantels, so I put this together. The bells help hide the stems. This makes for a nice tall arrangement and I will probably use it on my dining room table Christmas Eve for the buffet I will have set up.

You might recall that my second trip to Goodwill netted me the finds below. The next two projects include the two pots you see sitting on top of my fab window panel find {that will become pillows}. The black and polka dot pot had cream/beige polka dots and I decided to keep the design ~ I just painted the polka dots white. The smaller pot was a peach/pink. Both were $.99 each.

Once the polka dots were white and dry, I took my floral foam and glued a piece inside.

I took this filler piece that already had the berries and a couple of pine cones on it, purchased at Michael's, and just stuck it in the foam.

A red ribbon, some reindeer moss, a few dollar store ornaments tucked in and Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown! A nice size table top piece.

Trying to incorporate some of the lime green color that is so popular this year, I found this craft paint at Michael's to be the closest to the color I was going for. I painted that little peach/pink pot, two coats plus a little bit of touch-up here and there. The existing paint was shiny and I sanded the pot before painting, but it still needed that little extra.

I had found these pick/filler pieces at Michael's and loved the pink color. When I saw them I thought they looked like they had a Christmas tree shape to them.

The other side appeared flat. So I put the two flat sides together and wired them together. This wire is great and so handy to have around. It even cuts with scissors. I've used it on numerous occassions for many different projects.

Added some foam {that I had to shave off bits to fit in this little pot} and stuck in the piece that I wired together.

Stuffed in some reindeer moss and added a ribbon around the edge. A perfect size topiary piece that will fit in just about anywhere you need a little decoration!




Okay, back to decorating. I've got Holiday house parties I'll be linking up to soon!

Linking this post up to DIY Day at A Soft Place To Land.

Covering Christmas Cones

I decided to start covering my cones and so I got some things together. Some very high-tech tools here ~ glue gun and glue sticks, scrap card stock, scrapbook papers, ribbons, scissors, coffee filters and two different size flashlights.



All kinds of trims from my stash.



And a paper plate, which I used to get the proper size from the scrapbook paper, that would wrap around the cone.



Coffee filters become trim and those circle ruffley things. I've seen them on other people's projects. I love them, but I don't know what they are called, and I don't think I've seen them to purchase at Michael's. So ~ I made my own. I've taken to calling them a "medallion". For the "medallion" portion I just kept scrunching the filter holding it from the back and working it into a smaller circle. I glued it a little bit just so it wouldn't straighten itself out.



I used a graphic from The Graphics Fairy. Using the larger of the flashlights, I traced a circle on the card stock and used the smaller flashlight to trace out the image. I glued the image to the cardstock and then glued that to the filter "medallion".

The top part is also a filter. I just put it on top and pushed it inside the cone to where I wanted the "ruffle" to fall. I then glued underneath the outside to secure it. I didn't cut it yet, but you could then cut the inside of the cone where the filter is and either glue it down so it hides that portion of your unfinished cone or cut it out altogether depending on what you put inside.

Here's another using some trims:

This one is scrapbook paper and trim used at the top and bottom, and ribbon as a hanger. I just stuck an ornament in each one for the pictures.

I tea-dyed two coffee filters and I'm going to try using them next. Still have several of these to go!

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