Showing posts with label Glitter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Glitter. Show all posts

2016 Christmas Decor

It's starting to look and feel a lot like Christmas ... the presents are wrapped, the mantel is aglow, and our home is an explosion of glittery gold, bold red and deep green.




This year's mantel is decked out in three layers of garlands ... a base of vertically strung pinecones, and a lighted spruce garland, topped off with a gilded cascading garland.  Instructions for the DIY pinecone garland are HERE.



Above the mantel, a traditional spruce wreath with gold and red ball ornaments is surrounded by a gold open picture frame and a symmetrical arrangement of glittery cutout gold stars and red trees, red felt cone trees, and copper lanterns filled with gold wrapped candles.

A splash of red also warms the hearth area - this darling wood step stool painted with shiny red enamel was built by hubby's grandfather many years ago and is the perfect perch for the vintage red truck and tree.  Surprisingly, our gold painted Thanksgiving pumpkin appears to be alive and well to shine on through Christmas.



On our coffee table, a large clear glass cloche filled with red glass ball ornaments is resting on a gold framed mirror tray.  In reality, it's not a tray at all - it's a wall mirror found at Target.  Nice when items can do double duty.  

Accompanying the cloche is a little red lighted vehicle with Christmas tree.  It was originally green and received a festive makeover with red paint.  Read more about that HERE.



The two slipper chairs in the living room are adorned with red rosette pillows, and my thrifty find of the season ... a dark grey plush throw with super large fluffy pom poms.  I was thrilled to find it at Tuesday Morning for only $14.99!!!  If you're searching for these, they also had them in ivory and a light tan.



In a break from tradition, this year's large living room tree is decorated all in gold, with burlap garland and gold raffia.  It rests in a burlap filled galvanized container.  To see how we set up the tree container, click HERE.



The topper is a gold star with white lights, and glittery gold cascading sprays.  The sprays were found at Lowe's and the star topper at Target.  Tree ornaments were all items we had on hand.


Instructions for making the burlap and book page stocking ornaments can be found HERE.




The foyer decor (adjacent to the large tree) is simple and consists of a lighted tabletop urn centerpiece on the foyer table, and a simple  door wreath.

Our gift wrapping color theme this year is a combination of metallic gold, white and black.  I created and cut the gift tags from black card stock using my Silhouette Cameo, and shiny gold paper fills cutout tree openings in the tags. 




Names were written on the tags with a metallic gold Sharpie (from Lowe's).



In the dining room, a new addition this season is the hot beverage bar on the small antique chest.  The chest is just the right size for all the goodies needed to enjoy a hot cup of coffee, tea, spiced cider or cocoa.  In addition to the Keurig and K-cups, add-ins are ready to go - chocolate chips, marshmallows, flavored coffee creamer, sprinkles, candy cane stirrers and cinnamon.




The dining room table centerpiece is another large glass cloche, filled with red and gold glass ornaments and surrounded by gold and red beaded garland.  This cloche is displayed on a farmhouse style carved round wood tray with metal handles.  The tray was from Decor Steals and came in a set of two.    



A counter height bar separates our kitchen from our dining room and it's a great place for two lighted 4' counter trees in urns.  They're decorated with the handmade cinnamon ornaments from last year (instructions found HERE and HERE). 



 Next to each lighted counter tree are small gold metal ornament stands loaded with red and gold ornaments and "skirted" with red berry candle rings.  The gold metal stands were Goodwill finds this summer.



If you're still with me, have you noticed that pillows move around a lot in our home?  :)

In the kitchen, we continue the explosion of festive red.  Our kitchen is typically very neutral and at Christmas the red really makes it come alive.  



 The light fixture above the island is dressed up a bit with green garland and red and gold tinsel wreaths.  A similar wreath is also centered on the garland at the kitchen sink window.  

 Our framed Christmas countdown is in full swing on the kitchen counter, along with a mug of hot cinnamon flavored candy canes in a holiday mug perched on a white and gold dotted cupcake pedestal.  A trio of glittery gold cone trees add a little sparkle to the top of the fridge.

 The trio of cracked glass lighted orbs on the counter remain year-round because we enjoy them so much.

A white ceramic soup tureen is great for displaying Christmas crackers/poppers (which do you call them?) until Christmas day and a chubby little Santa is keeping them company.



Wrapping up this holiday tour, our master bedroom has a touch of glitz in the form of tinsel trees and matching gold wreath.


How is your holiday decor coming along?  Are you just beginning to decorate, shop for gifts and plan your menu?  Or, have you finished and are now breathing a sigh of relief?

Your comments are greatly appreciated and I look forward to your thoughts and ideas!  I try to respond to comments via email as soon as I can. If your email address isn't available, I will comment here. Thanks so much for visiting!

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DIY Patriotic Wood Plaque

I have another star spangled project to share with you - a super quick and easy DIY patriotic wood plaque ...





Materials:




The plaque is a 12" x 9-1/2" (actual size) scrap piece of board that was leftover from our DIY Wood Plank Lighted Headboard Project ... check out the details HERE.

Lucky for me, the plaque was already stained in Dark Walnut and only need a few touch ups.  

To begin, print the Pledge of Allegiance that Kara at Creations by Kara so graciously provides free for our personal use.  Be sure to also check out her design for a framed pledge with flag that's so adorable!

Print and cut out the Pledge of Allegiance and mount to the center of the plaque with double stick transparent tape.




 Next, cut the paint sticks to form a frame around the Pledge.  



Paint the stir sticks.  For a dark brownish red, I mixed Tuscan Red and Metallic Brown craft paint.  Let dry.




Attach painted stir sticks to plaque using hammer and small tack nails.




Paint the wood star using Navy paint.  When dry, brush on a top layer of coarse gold glitter and let dry.




Attach star to center of pledge with 4 layers of foamy double-stick tape to give the star a raised appearance.




At this point you could attach a picture hanger to the back of the plaque for wall display, or do as I'm doing and pop it into an easel.

This took about 2 hours to complete - including paint drying time.  Love those quick and easy projects!




Your comments are greatly appreciated and I look forward to your thoughts and ideas!  I try to respond to comments via email as soon as I can. If your email address isn't available, I will comment here. Thanks so much for visiting!

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Christmas in Our Home - Part Two

Continuing Christmas in our home .... I'll try not to clutter the Spirit of the Holiday with too much narration.  :)










This festive Christmas countdown (above) is a free printable from Sarah at Life{Sweet}Life.  It's available in a green and/or red background.  Just frame it behind glass and use a dry erase marker to change the number of days each morning.  Click HERE to get your own free printable. 


The adorable free printable above is available from Lucy at Craftberry Bush.  I made a quick mat from striped design paper - just used scissors. Click HERE to download the free printable.  And, thanks to Lisa at Texas Decor for sharing!


Above are Christmas morning treats for the pups.  To make them, we use empty paper towel rolls, cut to small lengths.  Stuff them with pup treats (Pup-peroni work great) wrapped in white tissue paper, and wrap the stuffed rolls with brown Kraft paper.  (I wrap the brown paper around the roll twice, to avoid having to use tape.)  Twist the ends closed.  The pups go crazy ripping the paper off and pulling the tissue paper out, to reach their treats - such fun to watch them!


 Just a touch of silver and white in the guest bathroom!


Thanks for stopping by!  
Hope your holiday prep is going smoothly
and that you're taking time to enjoy!

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Fun & Glitzy Holiday Pumpkin

Decorating pumpkins is such fun!  They're like round blank canvases ... ready and willing to be painted, covered and embellished in virtually any materials we impose on them.  




Materials used:

 (Click on individual items below for additional info)




This beast is huge - at 30# and a diameter of 50", it's a LARGE canvas!   Hubby brought it home to me after a recent trip to Sam's Club.  He jostled it into the house, stating that it just looked like something I should have!   :)

My goal was to create a design that was not occasion specific and would be appropriate to display thru all the Fall/Winter holidays.  

 Last year, I painted our Fall pumpkin with black chalkboard paint and it lasted for months and months - thru Fall, Christmas and into the following year.  It reached a point where we kept it just to see how long it would last - it turned into a personal challenge between us and "the pumpkin." LOL!  

 Finally, in May we gave in and and tossed it.  The pumpkin had won - it was still intact and showed no signs of deteriorating.  

The first step to tackling this year's beast was to paint it with two coats of primer (Zinsser's Bulls Eye 1-2-3 White water based primer/sealer for all surfaces is my favorite).  Left the stem natural. I liked the primer so much that I didn't add a layer of regular paint over the white primer.

 Next I used a stencil and a pencil to transfer a frame design to the pumpkin. 




 
Filled in the frame design with a black permanent marker and used gold metallic craft paint and a soft artist's brush to paint the natural and somewhat uneven stripes of the pumpkin along the deep ridges.  Did you know the ridges are actually called "ribs?"   

Then I filled the center of the frame design with gold/white patterned tissue paper.  Used the stencil and pencil again to transfer the inside of the frame design to the patterned tissue paper.  Cut it out with scissors and decoupaged to the pumpkin with regular white glue.

At this point, I really wanted to add gold dots in vertical rows, but knew it would take FOREVER to stencil or even dab paint dots on this beast.  

Fortunately, I found tissue paper in my stash that worked perfectly - white tissue with rows of shiny gold dots!  I cut long strips of single dots and decoupaged them to the pumpkin.  

 Perfectly aligned rows of shiny gold dots - much better than I would have been able to do by painting.  Love when an "unplanned" plan comes together!  :)




For the monogram, I could have used my handy dandy Silhouette Cameo cutter, but this was such a simple monogram that I made my own quick stencil by printing the "S" on my laser printer, and cutting it out manually with scissors (old school!).   

After tracing the "S" onto the reverse side of the black contact paper, I manually cut the monogram out and attached it to the center of the frame design.




The last step was to use a scallop circle paper punch to create two scalloped circles to place on each side of the monogram.

One last tip:  I've used all types of craft glues and, have found that with many projects, just plain old white glue (the kind that you used in kindergarten) from the dollar store works just as well.  



And, that's it!  Such fun to let projects like this just evolve and change as you work your way through them.  Have you decorated your holiday pumpkin, or do you prefer carving?  Have a great day and I hope that you are experiencing Fall-ness in your area!




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