Christmas Front Door 2011

Being in a condo now, I’m keeping my outdoor decorations quite simple.   For Fall, I had a two pumpkin topiary in a black urn by the front door and a basket of faux florals.

For Christmas and Winter, I have some faux greens in the urn and I hung a “baby” sled with a red bow and a faux Christmas pick, tucked in above that.   I got that sled for $2.00 at a yard sale over the Summer before we left New York!

I was going to paint the sled, but I’m liking it the way it is.

And a swag for my front door.  I like the way it looks against the cranberry colored door.

Thanks for visiting!

Linking up with

Doors & Porches At The Picket Fence for the Christmas Blogger Block Party

Kathy

Christmas Mantel 2011

The fireplace mantel in our new place had me stumped this year.  Part of the problem is that I’m trying to decorate it like the two larger mantels I had in my old house.  This mantel is smaller and narrower.   I have redone this mantel three times and that’s it; I’m done. No more futzing with it!

The most recent addition was the beaded garland that I found in one of my bins. I’ve also decided to bring in some things that are not quite as big as what I’ve used in past Christmases ~ like these bottle brush trees that I bleached here. 

I also included one that I bought from Becky at Junk to Joy.  Love the one she did!

I added my Lladro Christmas tree, and the boy and girl that go with it, on the other side.  I had no other surface to really put it on, plus I need to keep them out of reach of little hands.

So that’s me this year!  I’m hoping to pick up some inspiration for next year though, because I’m not touching this mantel again until January, when everything gets put away!

Linking up with:

My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia for the Christmas Blogger Block Party

Mantel Party at From My Front Porch To Yours

Kathy

Christmas Copycat ~ Bottlebrush Trees

Joann’s had a great sale over Black Friday weekend and I picked up lots of things on sale.  Included in that was this package of green trees ~ originally $19.99 for the package they were 60% off and cost me $7.99!   That’s a lot of trees for $7.99!

I decided to take some in varying sizes and try my hand at bleaching and decorating them. 

This is not a quick project.  It took an hour for the first two trees to reach this point and they are the smallest ones!

After two hours, all the trees were in varying stages of, what would you call it? Bleachedness? 

I went through a bunch of supplies I had on hand to see what I could dress them up with and came up with this stuff.   Beaded garland! 

I found this picture at Country Living for inspiration.

I cut some of the beads off to do two trees and one I cut into a small garland.  I very carefully put a little hot glue on the actual beads and stuck them into the tree.

Now I have a new mantel display! 

I used three little ones under my mini cloches in my master bedroom.  

I added “Peace”, “Joy” and “Love” banners, and used some Epsom Salts in the base of the cloches for snow.

I could see making more of these; decorating them is definitely the fun part! 

Linking up with

Holiday Copycat at Debbie Doo’s Blogging & Blabbing

Metamorphosis Monday at Between Naps On The Porch

Wow Us Wednesday at Savvy Southern Style

Kathy

Sweater Covered Ornaments

A couple of weeks ago, Sonny at 155 Dream Lane shared her sweater ornaments here.  I forwarded this post onto my daughter because, while she’s not really crafty {yet}, I thought she might like this project.  Especially since she did just buy a whole bunch of sweaters at Goodwill recently for another project.  We used some of her leftovers for this project. 

I provided the rest of the supplies.

Once we got the circles sized correctly, we covered styrofoam balls.  After securing them with a rubber band, we added ribbons and button embellishments.

Here they are all together.

Can you tell which are mine? 

These are my daughter’s.

Here are mine on my tree.  Love ‘em and they will be something I will treasure when I decorate my tree in the future, remembering how my daughter and I crafted together today.

Except for the hot glue for attaching the buttons, this would be a great craft to do with kids.

Kathy

Little Bits Of Christmas & A Winner

I’ve been busy decorating and going through all my decorations.  I’ve already given a good amount to my daughter and I have a box to go to Goodwill, too.  As I prepare to join in the Christmas Blogger Block Party {button on my sidebar}, I thought I’d give you a few peeks of what’s going on at my house.

I don’t want you to wait any longer than you have to, so I wanted to announce the winner of my Merci Giveaway here, too.  The winner, via random.org is

#31 Debra from Bungalow

Congratulations, Debbie!  I’ll be contacting you for your mailing address so I can get your package out to you.

I’ve got another giveaway waiting in the wings. However, it is dependent on me getting a project done.  I’m hoping to get that in before Christmas, but I’ve learned not to make any promises to do things during the holiday season ~ not even to myself!

See you back here for the block party posts!

Kathy