An Early Christmas Present

Hi everyone! Remember this piece from Goodwill?


Well we were in Goodwill  last weekend and it was still there! I had told my husband about it but I was sure it would be gone. Not only was it there but that day all blue ticket items were 50% off so I got it for just over $30 dollars! When we went to check out the guy in front of me said that he'd been looking at it for weeks but that he already had two at home and couldn't figure out where to put another. Some things are just meant to be!

I told my husband that he should consider it a Christmas present from him to me. Like alot of families we're cutting back on the gift giving this year and we had agreed on one present each. Although, I'm sure he's going to ignore my suggestion~smile. I'm very very happy with my present!

I plan on painting it in the spring when I can do it outside or at least keep the door open.  I can just imagine all sorts of fun things to do with it for each season!

I had to take down all my black mirrors - so all those need to be re-hung. But I'll wait until after New Year's to do that.
Remember when I found this chandelier in a neighbors garbage? 

Well, the same neighbor threw this away! A perfectly good rattan loveseat!  Absolutely nothing wrong with it - nothing's loose, just needs some cushions.

I have a little protected area on my concrete patio which is a cantelivered portion of the kitchen that I'm going to put that under. It should stay dry there. She has a matching chair still sitting on her front porch (painted lime green btw). I slow down whenever I drive past her house! LOL


I hope you are all having a wonderful weekend! It's raining here (again) so we've been inside crafting and baking. I hope to be able to show you next week what I've been up to. I'm waiting for a sunny day to take photos of my Christmas decoration in my living room and looks like that won't happen until the middle of next week!

Thanks for stopping by!

Home for the Holidays - My Dining Room

Hi everyone! Today is the much anticipated "Home for the Holidays" Christmas party thrown by Rhoda at Southern  Hospitality. Click on the button to check out all the other participants. It should be loads of fun and maybe you'll get some ideas that you can still do this year, if not there's always next year!





I'm going to show you my dining room since that's the only room that's actually finished from top to bottom! Now, most of the things I either made myself, recycled from previous years decorations, bought last year after Christmas or found at the thriftstore. It didn't cost a fortune and I'm really happy with the way it turned out!



I like to call this "The Tower of Glitter".  Imagine James Earl Jones saying it! This is just all the little odds and ends that I couldn't cram fit into my china cabinet.

This three tiered stand is from the thriftstore and is one of my favorite things that I ever got there. You can do so many things with it! It's sitting on a burlap and velvet runner that I made myself. Yep, I sewed!

This is my china tree. I don't have quite  enough ornaments to go all the way around! I'll see what I can find at the end of Christmas sales this year. Last year I found nothing! In the mean time, I made two "ornaments"  myself.

These are little cups and saucers that I found at Goodwill this summer and I glued (E800) the saucers to the little cups.

I have a few that are actual ornaments that are cups and saucers, teapots, tureens but I also hung a few red and blue transferware demitasse cups to fill in some gaps. You can see a bit of a red one in the photo above. This little teapot ornament is one of my favorites!

This is my dining room china cabinet. Most of the time it houses my white ironstone/creamware collections. For Christmas I decided to add some sparkly silver.

My theme this year is "trees". So on the top of the cabinet I have a variety of trees. Some I made, some were bought and remade and some were bought and kept as is.

 Inside my cabinet.

This pretty little frame was found at the beginning of the year at Goodwill - 88 cents! I added the word "Joy".

I found this cute sparkly green tinsel tree at Goodwill this summer and had to have it. It has harlequins on the pot and glitter. Two favorites of mine!

I also wound some pretty wired garland up the chandelier cord and took off the center prism and hung an ornament.

 Thank you for dropping by to see my dining room. I hope you enjoyed it! I should have my living room ready to show next week.

You might also enjoy these posts:

How to Make a Christmas Pom Pom Wreath 
 Christmas Cloche Ideas 
 How to Bleach and Dye Bottle Brush Trees
How to Make a Felt Rosette Christmas Tree 

 

A Christmas Pom Pom Wreath

Hi everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!  I was busy making pom poms. I had a bunch of yarn that I've had ever since I tried to teach myself to knit two years ago.  I wanted to think of a way to use some of it, looked around the internet and came up with a pom pom wreath!

I  also love pom pom fringe so I decided to add some to my shelves for Christmas to tie it all together. But it's so cute I might just leave it up!

There are many many ways  to make pom poms. There are even pom  pom makers that you can buy. Normally I use the wind the yarn around my fingers or hand method but because I wanted to make different size pom poms I used different sized pieces of cardboard to make mine. Here's what I did.

Wind your yarn around a piece of cardboard. The more you wind around your cardboard the thicker your finished pom pom will be.

Cut an extra piece of yarn. This will be in the center and is what's going to hold your pom pom together.

Carefully take the yarn off the cardboard and tie a knot in the center with that extra piece of yarn.

Now cut the loops. It'll sort of look like a fluffy bow tie.

After you fluff it into a ball shape you may notice pieces that are longer than others , you can trim and shape your pom pom as much as you need to.

Then all I did was hot glue them onto a faux evergreen wreath. You can use a foam wreath or a straw one. I just happen to have extra evergreen ones that I decided not to use this year.

That's it. Very easy. I made my pom pom's while watching a movie and it's something the kids can help with also. I think it would be really pretty to use all one color! I might make an all white one.

Thanks for dropping by! Thursday is my friend Rhoda's ( Southern Hospitality ) "Home for the Holidays" party so I'll be back then.

Christmas Past

Hi everyone! It's a cold day in Georgia today.  I've got a pot of bean soup with a ham bone leftover from Thanksgiving simmering in the crockpot and the house smells so good and is so warm and cozy.  I'm staying inside and working on some projects while my crazy husband is outside putting up the Christmas lights...brrr!

I have a fun wreath project which I hope to share with you on Monday. In the mean time, I thought I'd post a few pictures from Christmas past. Maybe there are some  ideas here that you can use this year.

Wrapping the picture over my mantel was an inexpensive and easy way to make a big statement (plus camouflage the fact that the colors didn't go with my Christmas colors)! I'm planning on doing this in my dining room this year on a smaller picture.

This is a tin star that had something painted on it that I didn't like (can't remember what). So I painted it white, shook some of  that fabulous Martha Stewart glitter and mica flakes on it and hung it on top of this mirror.

The following are pictures from my screened porch from last year. I don't think I'm going to decorate it for Christmas this year other than put a tree out there. But we'll see!

These are little birdhouses from the dollar store that I decoupaged with Christmas scrapbook paper and used stick on letters to spell "Joy".

Some Christmas balls in a nest.



This is a foam snowflake from the Dollar Store.

This is the headboard in the guestroom (we weren't expecting guests that year so I thought I'd have some fun )!

I want to introduce you to a new blogger who has a really great project featured on her blog that I think you all might like.  Sherry @ No Minimalist Here did a wonderful knockoff of a Ballard item.

The original cost over $300 and her version above cost under $30! Love it! Go see how she did it - it's not hard at all.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!