Our Holiday Table and Pottery Barn Faux Fur Placemat Knock-Off

I hope you're all enjoying this week leading up to Christmas. This year I pared my lists down to the nubbins and got my shopping done early. I think it might be the first time ever I've had some time over the holidays to spend working on Christmas craft projects in my studio.

And I've been enjoying the heck out of it!!

Today, I'm sharing my favorite holiday craft project along with my holiday table.

I fell in love with (and I mean IN LOVE with!) Pottery Barn's faux fur placemats when I saw them online last month. At $28.00 each, it would have cost nearly $170.00 for me to purchase six for my holiday table. $170.00 for placemats doesn't even compute in my brain. It's unfathomable! And don't even get me started on the recommended dry cleaning. We're talking food here, people!

But, oh gosh, I really, really loved them.

So, one day when I was out buying a faux fur throw on sale for our bed for $15.00, it dawned on me, how hard could it be to make my own placemats? Well, guess what? Not hard at all!

While I machine washed and dried my $15 faux fur throw, I made a paper pattern an inch smaller than the Pottery Barn placemats which are 18" x 21". That fit my throw's dimensions perfectly. When the throw was dry, I cut the placemats out and then sewed an inch and a half seam around the cut openings to match the seam already on the uncut edges. I thought I'd have to slip stitch all the raw edges closed by hand while binge watching The Gilmore Girls for the tenth time, but the fur curled up on the edges and the placemats looked great when I laid them out flat. 

Seriously, it took about two hours to make six faux fur placemats from my $15.00 throw. That's only $2.50 each! The hardest part was vacuuming up the little fur trimmings that were kind of like chicken feathers. I even had enough fabric left over to make a fur runner for my buffet. 

It was like a big fat Christmas gift to myself. I love saving money and getting just what I wanted!

HO HO HO!

Merry Christmas, Everybody! 

Let's party!

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DIY Jewelry Frame

I've been doing some spring cleaning and organizing around the house lately, and I have a great DIY jewelry organizing project to share with you today.

I repurposed this wood picture frame into a jewelry frame for my bedroom in less than an hour. 

I have a large jewelry box sitting on my bedroom dresser, but not large enough to fit all of my necklaces. Some of the bigger necklaces ended up shoved underneath the jewelry box to keep them out of the way. 

Can you see them peeking out there? I would forget to wear them because they were pretty much hidden away under there. So I kept my eye out for a jewelry frame whenever I went to Home Goods. I saw cute ones there on past shopping trips, but when I needed one, there was not one in sight. 

Does that happen to you? 

If you snooze, you lose.

Lose?!?!  No way! 

When all else fails, make your own! 

I already had this big wood frame, but thrift stores are great places to find inexpensive frames if you don't have one at home to repurpose. My local Home Depot had small 10' x 2' x 1" rolls of chicken wire for around $6.50 (and as you can see I have some left over for other projects.) I flattened the chicken wire out on my work bench, set the frame over it and used my wire cutters to cut a piece to fit the frame. Chicken wire is stiff and sharp, so you can wear gloves to protect your fingers while working.   

After I had the chicken wire cut, I started in the middle of one side of the frame back and used my staple gun to attach the chicken wire to it. I stretched the wire to keep the lines straight as I rotated the frame around. I shot in a couple of staples, then rotated the frame, pulled the wire straight, and shot in a couple more staples on that side, and repeated rotating and stapling until it was all straight and attached.

 I covered the staples and sharp edges of chicken wire with a few layers of masking tape so it wouldn't scratch my wall.   

I used two picture hangers and hooked the chicken wire over them for attaching it to the wall. I bought some S-Hooks at the hardware store for hanging my necklaces on the chicken wire. I can take them off and move them where ever they're needed. 

Now I can easily reach up and remove the necklace I want. I'm wearing my necklaces more often because they're always in view as I get dressed. In fact, sometimes I pick out my necklace first before I pick my outfit! I chose to hang only necklaces on my jewelry frame, but you could also hang earrings and bracelets. 

I love the way the colors glow at night. My jewelry frame makes the perfect artwork for above my dresser. 

Need some jewelry organizing at your house? Make your own jewelry frame!

Thanks for stopping by! Have a great day!

What a great day for a party!

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Thanksgiving Jar Craft Project

Last year my daughter made us a Thanksgiving Jar, and we have loved it so much I thought I'd share this easy project with you today.

Our Thanksgiving Jar is a jar into which we put slips of paper where we've written things we're thankful for, to be read out loud during our Thanksgiving feast.

We put our Thanksgiving Jar out in early October, but you can leave your jar out all year if you want. We found that the perfect spot for it in our home is on the kitchen bar counter where we walk by it all day long. It's easy to stop what we're doing for a moment to write out a card and pop it in the jar when we think of something for which we're thankful.

My daughter made her own stencils using contact paper and etched the designs on our jar using cream etching paste she purchased from the craft store. She etched THANKS on one side.

And she etched an acorn and leaf design on the other side. For the lid, she decoupaged a mosaic design using some squares of scrapbook paper.

Here's a video from Martha Stewart Crafts showing how easy it is to etch glass using the etching cream.

Last year I simply cut out squares from brown paper bags for our thankful notes, but this year I saw these cute I'm thankful for cards designed by Michelle of the Elegance & Enchantment blog and downloaded them for free over at Remodelaholic. I just printed some on card stock and cut them out. 

Of course, the first thankful card that went into our jar after we got it was for the jar itself and for our thoughtful daughter for giving it to us! We've treasured this gift and the opportunity it gives us to slow down and note all that we have to be thankful for. And it inspires such a wonderful conversation around our Thanksgiving table.

Wouldn't a Thanksgiving Jar make a great hostess gift for that special person who hosts your Thanksgiving dinner this year? 

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DIY Snowman Box

Hello! I can't believe it's already the middle of the week. Where does the time go? 

I had the loveliest day Monday with my daughter, who had the day off from work. We went to lunch at an elegant restaurant near her new house and did a little window shopping, then we just visited the whole afternoon away. It was such a nice treat for us.

Thank you so much to everyone who left a comment about her new home and the idea of recording her adventures in a blog. She appreciated all of your enthusiasm and encouragement, and she's definitely considering it. You can be sure I'll announce it and share a link when the time comes if she does start a blog, and hopefully she'll let me share a photo or two here. 

Now, on to today's DIY project!

I enjoyed making glittery putz houses so much last month for Christmas I decided to make a glittery snowman, too. I didn't get this project finished in time to add it to my Christmas decorations this year, but looking out my window today tells me it's definitely still snowman weather around here! 

 This was one of the most fun and easy craft projects I've done, and it turned out really cute. I started out with some little paper maché snowmen like these from the dollar bin at the craft store. 

I always keep a bunch of these inexpensive cardboard boxes in various shapes and sizes on-hand for craft projects. I used a round one this time for my snowman's pedestal.

  

I painted both the box and the snowman with a couple coats of white chalk paint and used my hot glue gun to adhere the snowman to the top of the box. 

Then I just went to town decorating the box and snowman with paper, glitter, trims and embellishments from my craft stash.

Every snowman will be different depending on what you purchase or have on hand, but here are the details for mine to give you some ideas:

I printed some Jingle Bells sheet music from Knick of Time (convert it to black and white to remove the pink hue) and decoupaged it onto the box, then trimmed it with some pom pom ribbon and sprinkled it with chunky silver German glass glitter and fine white glitter. 

I painted the snowman's face freehand with a fine artist's brush and some craft paint. For the carrot nose I squashed a few drops of water and a small piece of torn paper into a carrot shape, let it dry, then glued it on and painted it orange.

The hat is covered with chunky silver glitter, and fine white glitter was sprinkled over the rest of the snowman, except on his face. A pipe cleaner is wrapped around his neck for a scarf and silver star shaped sequins and white beads make the buttons. Some shiny tinsel garland finishes the snowman's base. 

I printed the little Let It Snow flag on my printer and then glued it around a bamboo skewer that I painted white. Finally, I lightly sprayed everything with spray adhesive and sprinkled on some white mica flakes to look like snow.    

Easy, and so much fun! A perfect craft project for a cold winter's day.

I just love his cute little face!

If you have winter snow flurries at your house today, stay warm inside and think about making a snowman!

Let's go to a party!

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Christmas In Our Family Room

Happy Friday, everyone! 

Today, I'm sharing our family room all decked out for Christmas.

This is where our family hangs out whenever the kids come over to visit, so we have plenty of comfy seating here for all six of us. It's the perfect room to be laid back and casual.

We watch lots of movies together here too, so when I found these vintage film reels in my Ballard catalog last year, I thought they'd make great wall decor for our family room. 

For our chalkboard Merry Christmas pennants, I was inspired by Rachel at Shades of Blue Interiors to try making some like hers with my computer and printer. Using simple shapes, a chalkboard font, and rubbing some white chalk over the black parts of each print after I cut them out, gave them a sweet chalkboard look. 

I just love old toy farm trucks, so I waited until this reproduction went on sale for half off at the craft store after Christmas last year and snapped it up. It's been driving around the family room and finally found a spot to park here in my little forest of trees with the rag bunting curled around them on the ottoman. 

I really depend on pillows and cozy throws to add seasonal color to our brown leather sectional (from Bernhardt.) These throws are the best buy ever (at $14 each online from Target) for the warmest softest throws you've ever felt. I have them in just about every color they make. The solid pillows are from Pier One, and the Christmas pillow is from Tai Pan Trading Co. The leather and wood ottoman (from Costco) has big deep drawers to store extra throws and pillows and pull-out trays to hold popcorn and drinks. Our huge wood ottoman tray is from Ballard Designs and provides a stable flat surface for decorating the ottoman, while leaving enough room to rest lots of pairs of feet around it.

You know how much I love chalkboards. This unframed one on the wall is the one I made by painting an artist canvas with chalk paint for my potting bench last fall. It's lightweight and easy to hang quickly with just a push pin. My husband used to quote this Ren and Stimpy saying to the delight of our girls when they were little, and it's the perfect sentiment for how we all feel about spending time together now at Christmas. 

The chalkboard on the front of the wood toolbox is also great for portable sentiments whenever and wherever the mood strikes. 

Chalkboards are great!

For seasonal artwork on my photo clipboards (photo clipboard tutorial here) I turned to my printer again. I used some free printable tartan scrapbook paper from Scrapbook Scrapbook as a background and added some white snowflakes from PicMonkey.

Last year we had a small live tree in a basket here next to our little writing table, but this year I bought a fake tree half off at the craft store and put it up on an old fruit crate with my homemade tartan tree skirt tucked around it. 

I haven't found time to properly decorate this little tree yet, but it's nice to have its sparkle and shine in the family room. I have plans to make some charming new handmade ornaments for it in my spare time. 

(What?! Spare time?!)

Most of our Christmas decorations this year are new or handmade by me, since we've given most of our older decorations to our daughters for their own homes. Our raggedy snowman, a sweet gift from my sister in law, is one of the favorites we kept. 

We really miss having a fireplace in our home this time of year, and a cozy fireplace for the living room is definitely on our remodeling wish list next year if we can win approval from the National Historic Commission to move a window. 

For now, we are enjoying a virtual fireplace in our family room, complete with stockings hung on the mantle and crackling fire sounds. While sipping on a glass of wine with some soft Christmas music playing in the background, we can feel the heat coming from our big screen as we bask in the glow from the "fireplace" and tree lights. 

Well, okay, maybe after two glasses of wine...   :)

Go on, give it a try!

Feel the warmth? 

Thank you for letting me share our family room with you today. I'm looking forward to baking some Christmas cookies this weekend, and I hope to be back early next week to share our festive Christmas kitchen.

Have a wonderful weekend!

{Visit our Christmas living room and dining room and kitchen, too!}

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Christmas In Our Dining Room

Hi again! I hope you all are having a great week. Earlier this week I shared our living room decorated for Christmas. (If you missed it you can see it here.) Today, I'm back again to share Christmas decorations in our dining room. 

I decorated our dining room with a woodland winter wonderland theme this year. 

I wanted to marry our woodland themed living room with some new white decorations I purchased and made.

Our new white porcelain deer found a home on the dining room table. (I just love them!)

And some new sparkly silver and white homemade decorations have settled into the corner cabinet.

 I made these glittered Putz houses (tutorial here), bleached some bottle brush trees, and made a pretty PEACE banner from twine and craft store letters. I tucked some little battery operated press-on lights in behind the houses to light each of the six scenes at night.

This is the first time I've decorated the old white pine corner cabinet. I just moved all the dishes to the candle cabinet, which is now empty. 

Where did the candles go?

Up here on the other side of the dining room! In the evening with the candles and corner cabinet all lit up, it really does look like a winter wonderland in our dining room. 

My pretty burlap JOY banner was created from a tutorial shared by the lovely 
Yvonne at Stone Gable. 

My husband built this cute little pine bench for us, and it's come in handy in every room of the house at one time or another. Here in the dining room it holds my chicken wire plate stand filled with branch tips cut from our Christmas tree, some pine cones, a few berries, and two little white trees.   

I just love baking and cooking in the kitchen while looking out at all the Christmas decorations in the dining room and living room.

Thank you for coming by today to see our winter wonderland dining room. Next up, I'll be sharing our family room, all cozy and cute and decked out for Christmas, so don't forget to stop by again later this week!

{Visit our Christmas living room and family room and kitchen, too!}

It's a great time to party!

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