My Holiday Home

Welcome to my home.  Come on in! Have a look around and make yourself at home.

The reason for the season- our nativity sets.  I've had the bear set on the cake plate since I graduated from high school.  I love the Little People set for the kids to play with.  I push the angel every time I walk by so I can hear it sing "Away in a Manger."

Our Holiday fun list is written on the chalkboard doors in the dining area.  So far we have completed

• build a snowman
• make gingerbread houses
• visit Santa
• buy our yearly tree ornaments

2 Santa's to keep you company while you wash your hands

even the restroom has a few decorations.

Thank you for stopping by!  I hope each and everyone of you has a VERY Merry Christmas!!

linking to: Hooked on Houses, Shabby Chic Cottage

stocking ornament

Remember my mantle with the stockings back in this post

I had a request for a tutorial for the ornaments.  It's super easy!

teacher gifts

Teacher gifts are hard!  Last year I was pretty close to my sons teacher and he told me that they get so much stuff for Christmas.  And how many times have you been to the thrift store and seen a bunch of teacher ornaments and mugs?  So what do you get the person that spends over 30 hours a week with and cares for/about your child? 

This year I went with chocolate.  I mean who doesn't love a bar of chocolate!!! (Don't ya love my craftin table- with pen, marker and glue all over it?)

Especially a festive bar of chocolate!!

It's super easy to do.  At first I used cardstock and cute patterend paper.  But the cardstock was pretty hard to work with.  I had to mark and score all the folds- it was a pain!

Then I tried using white copy paper and wrapping paper.  Much easier!  The measurements are: 

• bottom piece - 9 inches x 6 inches
•  top piece - 9 inches x 5.5 inches
• I also used about 12 inches of ribbon or trim to tie around each bar

For the gift tags, I dusted off some stamps.  The "to from" is from the $1 bin at Michaels.  The fancy note is from Stampin Up!

And there ya have it!  Inexpensive and easy!!

Linking up to:  Tatertots and Jello, Shabby Nest

Christmas Tree with red and Candycanes

I love decorating my Christmas tree!  Since red is my favorite color- and I'm the one doing the decorating- we have used red, white and green in our tree for the  past few years.

This year I added these large candycanes.  Super simple to make- I took large pipe cleaners (from Hobby Lobby) simply wound them around each other and bent one end.  I LOVE them sticking out of the top of the tree with the red and green picks

.

The garland is a premade red and white pom pom garland- purchased at Walmart many years ago. 

We buy new ornaments every year to represent what we did that year.  Here you can see some from years past- soccer and video games for my son and my angel ornament from my childhood almost 20 years ago.  (makes me feel old!)

One can't live in Nashville without having an ornament from the Grand Ole Opry!

Everyone's names are represented with glittered initials.

I am so happy with how our tree turned out this year!  It has such great family memories!

linking up to:  Thirifty Decor Chick and Poppies at Play

Christmas card holder

I LOVE getting Christmas cards!  But what do you do with all those cute cards we receive from our friends and family? Display them on a ribbon card holder! 
 

Red and silver

Some change their Christmas decoration theme every year. But I just can't! I've done red, white and silver for quite a few years now and I love it just as much as I did the first year. To me, red and white just mean Christmas! I love, LOVE, l o v e the color red! This shelf area is one of my favorite to decorate!



I built the hanging door knob shelf when we first moved into this house. The JOY letters are paper mache from Hobby Lobby. The black candle holder is made out of an unfinished wooden candle stick and wooden circle glued together then spray painted. The manger block was made last year from a cut down 2x4 and vinyl from Say it On the Wall. The Season's Greetings canvas on the other side is from Home Goods.



The glittery snowman is from Target clearance last year. Love that! The candles are just cream colored with polka dot ribbon wrapped around them, set on silver candle sticks from around the house. The box is paper mache that I decoupaged paper onto. And of course there has to be an apothecary jar full of ornaments!



No holiday is complete without jars of treats! See that strip of red ribbon? That's our Christmas card holder. A post is coming about it.



I'm linking up to Rhoda's Christmas Vignette Party

Girls Craft Day

I am having a craft day at my house on Saturday. These are the crafts that will be offered:





The Days until Christmas frame is inspired by this one .The words are printed on white cardstock, the edges are punched on the top and the bottom, mounted again on red cardstock and then framed. On top of the frame is a chalkboard square cut from vinyl. Anyone wishing to do this craft just needs to bring an 8x10 picture frame and I will provide the rest.

The Advent Calendar is made of many different elements. Each magnetic number is unique. I have dice, stickers, cardstock squares and circles, tickets, wooden pieces, number stamps and other ephemera. I wish I could offer the sheet metal holder pictured here, but I can't. I do have large metal circles (aka a pizza pan) that we can spray paint and cover with paper for the magnets to stick to. I will pre drill holes in the top and provide ribbon for hanging. The cost for this project is $10.

I am so excited for this day to get here! We will have soo much fun! Email me if you need directions to my house!

Mantle?

We don't have a fireplace- so I'll call the shelf above our molding a mantle. It's really long and a little daunting to decorate. Right now I have it seperated into 3 areas. I'm not sure if I love it, but here is how it is decorated today. With my CDS (compulsive decorating syndrome) it may be different tomorrow. And yes, my kids are watching tv and would NOT turn it off for the picture.

The section on the right is photos of my kids with a collection of silver trays. In the middle are my fave windows from my mom's old house with a lit wreath.



The left section has a temple picture, a few Christmas art pieces and our stockings.



I made this piece in Word and framed it. It was inspired by this.



This sillouette picture was purchased at Home Goods. (please ignore the ugly shadow - although I'm sure it's hard to now that I have drawn attention to it- we've been having rain storms for the past 3 days so I had to use my monster flash and it bounced off the mirror behind me)



Aren't those stockings cute? I bought them at Old Time Pottery a few years ago. My kids decorated paper mache ornaments with their names on them to personalize the stockings.

I'm linking up to:

Ready

We are all ready for the big day!

The turkey is thawed...



Our family is here...

Games are being played...

The plates are ready (I scored them all at Goodwill for $5)...

the pies are being baked (ignore my dirty oven)...

and the place cards are done! Bring on the food!

Happy Thanksgiving!

So thankful

Here is my take on a Thanksgiving banner.

I used kraft paper with recycled cardboard glued to the back then ran it through my Big Kick with the Stampin Up Top Note die

then I cut paper circles out of a dictionary (purchased at the dollar store)

stamped "Thankful" onto the circles with stamps, then glued the circles to the die cut notes.

I punched 2 holes in the top of each letter and strung then on some jute.

Today I am thankful for:

• my kids and husband
• our extended family-of which 3 members are coming to our house for Thanksgiving dinner
• good health
• my camera
• the ability to do craft projects
• McDonalds Coke
• all of you! Happy Thanksgiving!

Linking up to: Embellishing life, Today's Creative Blog