Ornament Ideas!

Just when you thought you where done decking the halls and Christmas tree, I have a few ideas and favorite pins of things to do with your ornaments. I love using ornaments in different ways! Check out these ideas:

Find a fun bowl or container and fill it with your extra ornaments:

Hang Them Up:

Picture on Left courtesy of Home Depot's ideas

Other great ideas from Pinterest:

Click here for the links to the project instructions and credits:

Project 1  Project 2  Project 3  Project 4  Project 5  Project 6

Project 7  Project 8

Have a good one!

Lauralee

Decorating with the Scents of the Season

Welcome to the Christmas season everyone. Now that Thanksgiving is officially over we can all change the channel to FM 100, guilt free and subject ourselves to "Rockin Around the Christmas Tree." It makes me happy to cement this song in my head for another 11 months. Just kidding! I love Christmas!

In the entry of our local Smith's, crafty Smithspeople have displayed a crate of cinnamon scented pinecones which fill the entryway with cinnamon. If you are the unlucky soul who has to actually stop and get a cart or a Redbox, the atmosphere literally stings your eyeballs until you run that cart into the produce section for safety. My dear husband has been wanting one of these pinecone cinnabombs ever since the display was erected- mid July, OK I'm exaggerating a little- and he happily bought one the other day since Christmas was finally closer than Halloween.

 This is not our first go round with the cinnapines oh no, no. Last year he caved to their siren smell and I had a lot of fun trying to make a garland out of them that didn't turn out. So this year to avoid the ugliness of my homemade garland I decided to display them instead.

This is my go-to vase from my mom. I've used it many times for decorating due to it's largeness. (It holds a lot, so if it looks bad, the busyness will make you feel like it's an artistic statement, not me being clueless.)

Then I took last year's pinecones that I had painstakingly painted and dipped in glitter (yes a big old hot mess I know now) and interspersed them with this year's freshies.

After tying a red bow around the vase I placed it on a tablecloth for an extra pop of Christmas cheer and stacked the pinecones around it. Now it's perfect and ready for any serious minded toddler to destroy. Happy decorating!

~Maren

Barn Wood Christmas Tree

Christmas on the Porch- Day 7

I was trying to come up with a new decoration this year, and I needed something free (or very close), and easy.  My husband builds barn wood frames so we have scrap wood in over-abundance. I looked at the outcast pieces of wood just going to the dump.  I realized that I could rescue that wood and make a very cute Christmas tree for our porch, or for a wall inside our house. Or even as a Christmas card holder. Hmmm... possibilities.

I drew what I had envisioned and asked my husband if he could do it. He said it would take him about 5 minutes. He's totally not a perfectionist, so every measurement was definitely not exact, but he whipped it out. It was a great project... free, and no work for me!

He took my five-year old boy with him to make it, and assigned him to be the photographer :), so bear with the pictures.

 If you want to make your own....

 1. Measure and cut 11 pieces of wood: 72", 40", 36", 32", 28", 24", 20", 16", 12", 8", 4"

 2. Put the 72" piece of wood upright. Nail the 4" piece on the top. 

 3. Leave and approximate 2" distance, and then nail the next biggest piece of wood. Continue to the 40" piece of wood.  If the trunk is taller than desired, cut off excess.

Add a star and that's it!

Now just figure out where you want to put it. It makes a fun outside OR inside decoration.

XO, 

Nancy