Blog Parties

Monday, December 31, 2012

New Year's Mantel

Happy New Year! 

Not quite at my house.  I still have 3 1/2 hours left of 2012.  

What are you doing this New Years Eve?  I'm sitting at home writing my blog post and watching New Year's Rockin' Eve Celebrates Dick Clark on TV.  So exciting.  I don't know if I can handle so much excitement at my age.  

I'd rather be at a fun party, or having a fun party at my house.  But lack of funds means I get to stay home and play on the computer.  

But having all this time on my hands gave me time to change up my mantel for New Year's.


I went with a chalkboard and clock theme.  


I'm having to take photos with my cell phone camera so they are not the best.  I really need to figure out how to use my SLR in manual.  I can take great photos outside during the day.  But inside I suck at taking photos with it.  



I decided to make a couple of party hats for the occasion.  I actually bought some cheapo ones from Dollar Tree.  I took one apart & used it as a template for making my own.  I just found some music online and printed it out on card stock.  The music is actually Auld Lang Syne.   

I hot glued some silver tinsel along the bottom and balled some tinsel up for the top.  The tinsel came from Dollar Tree in the gift wrapping department.  I've had it for a year or so.  

I found the clock print at The Graphics Fairy.   I was going to glitter the edges, but couldn't find my gold glitter.  Or any glitter.  So I left it plain.  


Here is the 2nd party hat I hade.  This one I used a French letter I found online. 




I love this chalkboard print.  It is a free printable from The 36th Avenue.  I love how it looks like a real chalkboard, without all the work.


All of my clock prints came from The Graphics Fairy.  I did add "Happy New Year" to a few of them.

I made the "Welcome" banner with free printable letters from Allsorts



I did make a chalkboard out of a Dollar Tree cheapo silver tray.  I sprayed the entire front with chalkboard paint.  I used chalk to highlight the raised edges.  I wrote "2013" on the tray.  I used a small command hook (another Dollar Tree find) on the back to hang it on the chicken wire on my frame.





I also made this chalkboard.  But I made it from black foam core from Dollar Tree.  I cut it out to fit my thrift store frame & placed the cut foam core in the frame.   I hand wrote the "Happy New Year, etc".  I copied a free printable you can get over at Sweet C's Designs.  Normally I would just print out the free printable but I needed a much larger copy.  So I had to free hand it.  I could have enlarged & copied it, but that involved too much work.  I decided just to free hand it.  Turned out pretty good. 


The countdown numbers are from The 36th Avenue as well. 







The last thing I made was this "Happy New Year" banner.  I used another version of "Auld Lang Syne" sheet music for the background & added the typewriter letters in Picasa.  Cut everything out & pinned each letter to some twine.  



And there you have my New Year's mantel for 2013.  I hope you enjoyed.  

Now I better get back to watching TV.  I still have 3 hours before the ball drops and I can have my glass of Martinelli's sparkling cider with my family. 

Happy New Year's Everyone!  I hope 2013 is much better than 2012.  But since we are falling off the fiscal cliff, I highly doubt it.  Yikes!

Kim



Friday, December 21, 2012

I'm dreaming of a White Christmas. White Christmas decor that is.


Can you believe that Christmas is almost here? 

Where did the month go?   Heck, where did the year go? 

Are you ready for Christmas?   I'm not. 

I finally got my Christmas tree up.  But I haven't had the chance to get decent photos of it yet.  So you will have to wait on seeing my tree. 

But I thought I better share the rest of my Christmas decor. 

I decided to go with a "White Christmas" theme this year. 

I live in southern California and it never snows where I live.  So there isn't a snowballs chance in Hades that we will ever have a White Christmas.  I guess I should never say never.  It did snow once a few years back.  But not enough to stick.  But enough to get everyone excited that it was snowing. 

If we want a white Christmas, we either have to drive up to the mountains, go on a trip out of state to where it does snow, or make our own.  So here is my version of a white Christmas:



We will start with my china hutch.  And don't look at the snowflakes that are not sticking to the plates.  Geez!  You'd think that they could cooperate while I'm taking photos.  I guess it is just to warm here in SoCal for the snowflakes to stick.  Ha  ha!



I used a lot of snowflakes and trees in my Christmas decorating this year.  I love these snowflakes from Dollar Tree.  I have like a gazillion of them.  But only used a few.  I was planning on putting them everywhere, just got too lazy.  


I love anything under glass.  I found the mercury glass tree cloche at an antique store in Arizona a few years back.  The small ornament cloche with the snowman came from TJ Maxx a few years back as well.  I love the bottle brush tree in the urn.  That was an accidental pleasure.  I thought the tree would look better higher up, so I plopped it in the urn.  And ta dah! Perfect match.  Plus I didn't want to have to find a spot to store the urn during Christmas.  


More trees and snowflakes.  


I am obsessed with little bottle brush trees under glass this year.  


The silver ball ornaments were a thrift store find last week for 50 cents.  They look fabulous in my ironstone dish (another thrift store find).  

Did you notice the snowflakes in the back?  Another Dollar Tree find.  I just added some sparkly iridescent glitter to them.  

The snowball & ice garland came from Tai Pan Trading a couple of years ago.  


Some more thrift store finds.  The wooden tree was bare when I found it at the thrift store for a quarter.  I painted it white and added some iridescent glitter.  The rhinestone necklace at the beaded wire necklace around the bottom of the cloche came from the thrift store as well.   

Thrift stores are another obsession of mine. I seem to have a lot of them.  Obsessions, not thrift stores.  But then again. 

I still can't buy clothes from the thrift store. At least not for me.  It's a I hate "hand me down" clothing phobia I've had since childhood.  But I love to buy decor stuff and dishes from the thrift store.  


Hubby made the candle holder for me out of a glass light cover we picked up at the thrift store.  He made about 4 of them for me.  

The felt snowflake on the plate came from Tai Pan Trading some time ago.  I added the iridescent glitter to make it sparkly.  

The small mercury glass votive holder came from a cool store in Temecula called the Western Eagle Bargain Store.  You never know what you will find at that store.  


I have an obsession for glitter houses, Putz houses, cardboard houses, or whatever you want to call them.  Surprised that I have another obsession?  

I only used two of them this year.  My white ones.


The bottle brush trees are falling off of my house and church.  Every year I tell myself I need to hot glue them back on.  And every year I don't do it.  As long as no one bumps them, they are fine for another year.  


I have a couple of tiny feather trees under glass.  I picked them up a an antique store a few years ago.  I just need one that is about 1-2 feet tall and I would be happy.  But I'm too cheap to buy a bigger one.  Remember, I'm a dollar store type of girl.   


If you look in the first picture of my hutch you will see I originally had ivory colored domino's in the middle apothecary jar.  I changed them out for these ivory bottle brush trees.  I bleached these ones myself.  I am so proud that I finally did something I have been wanting to do for the last 3 years.  

Anyone that really knows me, knows what an accomplishment that really is.  I tend to not complete projects.  

The snowballs in the other two apothecary jars came from Hobby Lobby this year.  

The glittery snowflakes hanging from the jars are a thrift store find.  


Now we will move on to the shelf in my family room.  


The goldish mercury glass tree in the middle came from Target years ago.  The gold and silver trees on either side are Dollar Tree finds over the past few years. 

Did you notice the gold bead garland?  I found it at the thrift store for a quarter.  I knew I wanted to use more gold in my decor this year.  I guess I am drifting away from my White Christmas theme.  


Here is something white.  I hung more Dollar Tree snowflakes from the willow tree branches that I've had in a bottle on this shelf for a few years now.  

The spiders in my house love these branches.  Great for hanging their webs on.  I kicked the spiders out and opted for hanging snowflakes instead.  



I just love this wire snowflake tree.  I think I found it at TJ Maxx a few years back.  It would be really easy to knock off.  I know I originally had planned on doing so, but the lazy girl in me said "It ain't never going to happen.  So go ahead & buy the darn thing".  So I did.  


I made this paper lollie a couple of years ago.  I just change out the middle part for each season.  


Below the shelf I have an old trunk full of who knows what.  I found an old wood tray last year at the thrift store to sit on top.  It was so hard before to place anything on the trunk because it was so uneven.  The tray makes it easier to decorate.  

I added some mercury glass candle holders, a mercury glass candle that I picked up at Kohls this year and a Christmas cloche under a cloche.  The candles on the holders are FAKE!  I LOVE real candles, just have a greater fear of burning down my house.  So I use fake.  I found this set at the Western Eagle Bargain Store for $3.50 for the set of 3.  It was on one of their half price days.  Fabulous!  And they smell like real vanilla candles.  Even better!

The tin sign in the background says: Wisemen still seek him.  I guess I really should have put it with my nativity, but there wasn't room.  


And speaking of my nativity.  I put it behind my couch this year.  


I did have a bit of green in this display.  I purchased the biggest 3 green bottle brush trees from Grandin Road on clearance about 4-5 years ago.  The smaller two green trees are from this year.  As I was bleaching my bottle brush trees, I loved when a couple of them got this lighter green.  So I took them out of the bleach mixture before they were completely bleached & added them to my forest of green trees. 

The smaller cloche in the front was made from turning over a small glass candle holder I found at the thrift store.  You can find these exact same ones at Dollar Tree.  A dollar is a good price, but when you can get the same thing for 50 cents.  Even better.  Just like Christmas to a cheapskate savvy bargain shopper like me.   


My nativity holds a special place in my heart.  My mom painted & antiqued this set for my Grandma when I was a teenager back in the 70's.  It was all the rage back then to paint ceramic pieces and antique them.  Actually it was the rage to paint everything and antique everything back then.  I think my mom painted and antiqued every piece of furniture we had in our house at the time.  And then stripped off all the paint a few years later when painted furniture was no longer in vogue.  

Guess what girls?  You are going to be stripping off the paint off your painted furniture in a few.  You heard it here first!


I guess I got a little off track.  Back to the subject at hand.  My mom had done a similar nativity set for herself and my Grandma loved it.  So of course my mom made a set for Grandma.  When my Grandma passed away back in the late 80's or early 90's the nativity set went back to my mom.  

Now my mom knew how much I loved both nativities, so she gave me this one that had been my Grandma's for Christmas one year.  It has been one of my most favorite Christmas gifts of all time.  




My nativity brings me much "JOY".  And so does this little cloche.  The white bottle brush trees are from the Dollar Tree.  I love the "Brrr" rocks I added.  I can leave this out all winter.  



Here is the little cabinet in my kitchen.  


I love the "Nutcraker" ballet and all the music. Have you been watching the battle of the Nutcrakers on Ovation? 

  I purchased this swan from Pottery Barn on clearance last year.  Or maybe it was the year before.  This is the first year I've used it in my decor.  It is actually an ornament.  But isn't she "purty" sitting under glass instead of being hidden on the tree?  Such a DIVA!

I'll let you in on another little secret.  I have a swan obsession as well.  It's not as bad of most of my obsessions, but still something I collect.  



This bottle brush tree is also suppose to be an ornament.  I found it at Kohls.  It gets to have it's time in the spotlight for this year.  Next year, who knows.  It may be shipped off to the Christmas tree.    


Another ornament that I found at Kohls this year.  Since I have a gazillion ornaments, I have to find other places for them, other than the tree.  This "JOY" one found a spot hanging from the apothecary jar.   This would be another ornament that would be easy to knock off.    

Well I hope you have enjoyed my White Christmas decor this year.  I really enjoyed using white, cream, gold and silver in my decor this year.  And I still managed to have a vintage feel.  You know how I'm obsessed with anything that looks or feels vintage.  I seem to gravitate to a vintage Christmas look. 

It seems like each year that I get older, the less I decorate.  I only decorated my family room and part of my kitchen.   

Maybe age has nothing to do with it.  And maybe it has everything to do with the fact that I'm lazy and a procrastinator.  Can you imagine what I could do if I weren't?  Maybe in my next life I'll get to find out.  

In case I don't post again before Christmas (I do plan on posting about my tree, but in case I procrastinate it) I want to wish you all a very Merry Christmas!  

Or if you prefer, Happy Holidays!  Heaven knows, I don't want to offend anyone. 

And in case you missed my Snowflakes and Silver Trees vintage style mantel, you can check it out here.  

Merry Christmas everyone!


Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Snowflakes and Silver Trees-Christmas Mantel 2012

I've decided it's finally time to decorate for Christmas.

Christmas is only 2 weeks away.  Yikes!

Are you ready?  I am not.

I did finally get my mantel and china hutch decorated this weekend.  But I've only take photos of my mantel. And it was this morning before I left for work.  So the light wasn't the greatest.  But hey, it's done.  Yipee!


I decided to go with a neutral color scheme this year.  As much as I love traditional Christmas colors,  I think I love neutral colors even more.


My theme this year is snowflakes and silver trees.   I only had to purchase a few things this year.  And not because I needed them, but because I wanted them.  Heaven knows, I don't need another Christmas item.  But I'm a Christmas junkie.  So I just keep on buying.


The giant snowflakes are a new purchase this year.  Found them at Hobby Lobby at 50% off.  I have been so happy to finally have a Hobby Lobby in California.  And one that is only 20 minutes from my house.  Hubby, he is not too happy.  But I am.    The glittery snowflake on the pickle jar is also new this year.  It was an ornament from Target.



I'm still in love with my chenille snowflake.  I purchased a couple of them online a few years back.  I'm now wishing I had purchased about 10 of them.


The silver mercury glass tree on the right was a new purchase from Kohl's.  I stood in line for 2 hours on Black Friday to purchase it.   That and quite a few other items.   I told you that shopping for Christmas decor is a sickness I have.  I'm willing to wait in line for 2 hours and something I don't even need.  Tell me that I'm not the only one with this sickness.  PLEASE!


I love my snowflake lights.  I've had them for almost 20 years.  And they are still going strong.  Well, they are now after hubby fixed them.  I had them all arranged, plugged them in and..... nothing.  They wouldn't work!  UGH!   But lucky for me, I have a handy, dandy hubby who can fix almost anything.


I had planned on making a fabulous banner for my mantel this year.  I have the same plan every year.  And every year, it never gets done.  Being a procrastinator and a lazy one at that sure puts a cramp in my plans.  But I did have this JOY banner in my stash.  I'm happy with it.  At least for now.


The larger mercury glass votive candle holders came from Target a few years ago.  The smaller two in front I found at a fabulous store in Temecula called the Western Eagle Bargain Store.  I love that store.  You never know what treasures you will find there.  And for cheap!  My kind of store.


I can't remember where I got the tree on the right as I've had it so long.  But the tree on the left came from Dollar Tree about 2-4 years ago.  It was a disco mirror tree.  Much to bright for my taste.  So I used some watered down brown craft paint on it & wiped it off.  Made it look more like mercury glass.  Much better.


I put some Epsom salt in a couple of large pickle jars (the kind you get at Costco or Sam's Club).  Placed a battery operated candle inside.  Tied some jute twine at the top to hold my new glittery snowflake ornament from Target.  I love it!

I love real candles more than battery operated ones.  But I've almost burnt my house down a couple of times using real candles.  So fake it is!


I'm so glad that mercury glass is still in fashion.  Can you ever have too much mercury glass?


Well, I hope that you have enjoyed this years Christmas mantel.  Hopefully I'll get photos of my china hutch soon.  The lighting in my family room isn't the best.  I might have to wait until the weekend when I will be home during daylight hours.

I'm hoping to get my Christmas tree decorated by this weekend as well.  I just need someone to help me take down 6 boxes that are in the way up in my attic.  Hopefully this year, I'll actually get it done.  Last year was the first time in my 50 something years that I didn't have a Christmas tree.  



Linking to:





Feathered Nest Friday at French Country Cottage