Christmas Spirit

It's snowing outside, my new wallflower is blooming with scent, and my tree is lit so I figured it was about time I did a post about Christmas! Christmas is my favorite time of year and it has been ever since I can remember. I am so excited for this Christmas especially because we get to spend it in our own home. I have had a lot of fun decorating for the holiday season-I don't want to take any of it down! Here is little tour of our Holiday Home:

The first decoration I made was this "joy" picture. I was inspired by something I saw at the Novemberfest and knew it would be pretty easy and inexpensive to make. It took me about 3 seconds to cut out the word joy on my silhouette. Then I added a red piece of paper and a nice white frame and this is what I got. I really like it because it is very simple which seams to bring more meaning to the word. 

Next is my ornament collection. I ran down the street to Dollar Tree and purchased some fancy ornaments for my tree and then realized I already had some in storage. I took some of my extra ornaments and bundled them up inside my glass cake stand lid. I really like how this turned out.

I have to thank my amazing mother-in-law for this decoration. It is a beautiful metal tree with fancy red and green ornaments to hang on it. I love what it adds to my homemade decorations.

Here is a shot of my entry table with the cute decorations. The cake stand is on the bottom so you can't really see it. I love that blue is now a Christmas color-it makes decorating a lot more interesting.

I also made/designed some Christmas pillows! If you like these, you're in luck. You can buy all of the fabric, rick-rack, and the patterns for these pillows at http://www.etsy.com/listing/87698206/christmas-pillow-kit so you can make some for your own house! These pillows are really easy to make. I am a beginner sewer so I made sure the instructions are easy-to-follow and the pillows wont take long to make. Let me know if you buy them and have any questions. 

Next I covered some Styrofoam balls in cute scrapbook paper using Mod Podge. This was the messiest thing to make out of all of the decorations. My original idea was to use them in a wreath but instead I ended up putting them in a little box on my dining table.

Last but not  least, I got this beauty in the mail! Have you seen all of the fun advent calendars that have been made with this? I was so excited when it arrived.

After looking deeper in to how many little boxes I was going to have to cut out my enthusiasm took a plunge. This was going to be a lot of work. I started out by making a list of what box/drawer I wanted to use in each slot.

Then I started cutting. I used post-it notes to mark each box and lid so that I didn't get them confused. My floor looked like this for a few days because I needed a break from the project for a little while. 

Finally I made time to put the boxes together. It didn't take as long as I thought it would! And I'm really happy with how it is turning out. I still need to put the numbers on the boxes (and figure out how to fold the ones that are missing) and then it will be done!

I'm just not quite sure where to put it...

Well there you have it. Our Holiday Home is complete and we are loving every part of it. What has been your favorite thing to make this season? 

New Additions!

Since moving in to our home in March, we haven't done much as far as decorating goes. I enjoy sewing and making crafts, and I have TONS of ideas (thank you pinterest) but I just haven't put forth the effort to actually create anything-UNTIL NOW!

My first project was for my dining table. I wanted a cute centerpiece that I could keep out most of the year. After I burned a few fingers off (I'm not very experienced with hot glue) this is what I came up with:

Some cute yarn balls! Originally I wanted to do about 6 balls but my fingers couldn't take any more hot glue at the time. These lovelies started out as plain old Styrofoam balls and look at them now! Oh and the cute dish? A Shopko steal-of-a-deal. 

The next thing I needed to jazz up were my new couches. How do you do that? Pillows! I wanted to find a fabric that had a few different colors in it that I could use as an inspiration piece for the rest of my house.  I found some Michael Miller fabric that I absolutely loved when I was down at Gardner Village during October and over the past few weeks I've been able to gather some coordinating pieces. To make things easier we set up a big table in the computer room so I had a place to sew. I love my little sewing nook. And this is what I came up with:

Finally some color in this house! The pillows look so great! I was especially proud of that ruffle baby. I have never done something like that before! (maybe that's why it took me ALL day to make it!)

The last spot in the house that I was ready to tackle was the entry way. On Pinterest I see all of these cute entry tables that are dressed up for each season and holiday. When my eyes fell on this beauty

But for $2,500? No way. I showed the Mr. this picture and we decided that we could make one ourselves. It took us a few months to finally finish it, but I am so happy with how it turned out!

Next step is to decorate it for Christmas! (That's right, I'm skipping Thanksgiving because it's next week and I don't have any decorations.) And according to Nate Berkus I need to find a mirror and a lamp to really make it feel homey. We had such a fun time making this table and would love to have a reason to make another one. The Mr. says he would gladly make one and sell it to whoever is interested so keep us in mind next time you're looking for something like this! 

UPDATE: I just joined my first link party and showed off the table! Go check out the other fun things at http://daysofchalkandchocolate.blogspot.com/2011/11/latest-and-greatest-friday-6-and.html

As you can see the process of decorating is a long one. I am such an indecisive person so it makes it even harder. We are really happy with what we've done so far and I'm excited to create some more projects! Next on the list? A cute holiday "wreath" for the door and an advent calendar. 

Here's the inspiration for the "wreath!"