Christmas Garland

A couple weeks ago I shared with you items from my birthday purchase. If you want to read about it you can click here. What I ended up using those supplies for was a 15ft garland for my stairs. I have seen these garlands in stores from $75-200 depending on the quality and quantity. Again I figured I could do it myself. I am quite pleased with how it turned out. It does have battery powered white lights wrapped in in. Since I don't have a power outlet nearby I had to go with a battery operated one.

The only problem I have with it is should I take the candles and glass candle sticks out of the display? If you peak real close you can see that the candles are still wrapped. I am trying to decide if...

1. I should take them back.
2. If I should apply glitter all over them.
3. Leave them as is with their wrapper off.

So if you have any suggestions please feel free to comment.

Copy Cat Wreath

On Saturday, my mother and I were in a very cute home decor and holiday novelty store. They had a ton of wonderful Christmas decorations. Some were priced fairly and others were a little out of my budget. A beautiful red and lime green wreath caught my eye but when I looked at the price tag my smile turned to disappointment. There was no way that I was going to pay $150.00 for a wreath for my front door that would proabably be marked down at the end of the season. So I reached for my camera took a picture and went to Hobby Lobby. Again everything from the wreaths to the swags were and continue to be 50% off this week. I found a plain wreath for $3.99 (originally $7.99 but with the 50% off sale). Then I found some swags and picks that I thought looked similar to the original wreath from the fancy store.

Today I spread out all of my supplies and went to work. 45 minutes later..TaDA! It's finished, I love it and it only cost me about $29.00. How do you like that Dave Ramsey????
Here is the photo of the stores wreath...isn't it beautiful!


Here is my wreath....it will take permanent residence on my front door after Thanksgiving.

Christmas Bargin Rehab

I wanted to share with you two Christmas bargin finds. We have a local gift shop that has AMAZING decorations. The store is one of my favorites and have top of the line gifts. The store has a one a year liquidation sale in the spring. They marked down all of their "un-sellables" that had some sort of defect. Of course I had to take a look and see what I could find. I found these two Christmas trees and I knew immediately that I could fix them up to make them look like new.

Before: This red tree was originally $30. The sale price was $5 with an additional 50% off. Total price $2.50. I say SOLD!The tip of this tree was missing beads and it was a little loose.

AFTER: Finished!

BEFORE:
Here is tree #2 that was originally $32.oo. Marked down to $4 with an additional 50%. So I got it for $2.oo. You can see that the tip was missing beads as well as a section on the bottom.

AFTER: Perfect! You would never know that these were damaged goods.

My only wish was that they had more of these trees that were damaged! It just goes to show you that if you give a little TLC to something that is defected it can look good as new!

Projects in the making.....

Today was the first day I have been allowed out of the house for 5 days. I have recently been sick with pneumonia and per my doctors request I have been under house arrest. So where is the first place I go after my doctors appointment....non other than the infamous HOB LOB (aka Hobby Lobby)! I had some birthday money that was burning a hole in my pocket. Fortunately EVERYTHING I wanted was 50% off. It was my lucky day. I did not even have to use my 40% off coupon! WHOO HOO! Anyways I thought I would give you a sneak peek at a project I am going to get started on. Can you guess what I am going to make?

Stay tuned and I will show you the finished product soon!

Another Chalkboard Paint Project

A couple years ago my sister was selling this mirror in a garage sale. I quickly snagged it from her "for sale" pile and gave it a new home. I hung the mirror on our mantle for about two months until we got a canvased family photo to replace it. It was not until I saw the mirror in photos that I realized it was incredibly streaky.

This mirror has been sitting around for over a year without a purpose. Fast-forward to a couple weeks ago. I was in my kitchen thinking about changing out the decorations on my wall by my fridge. I keep a red berry heart in this spot and thought I needed something else up there for fall. However I realized that if I put something fall-ish up there, then I would need something Christmas-y up there, and the cycle would be never ending. I thought what could I put up their that would stay, and would be useful? Ah-HA! A Chalkboard! Immediately I started thinking about that mirror and painting it with chalkboard paint. Here was the process...

Tape the edges of the mirror to paint the frame. Once that dried I did a second coat. Then I had to tape the frame to spray paint the chalk board paint. After two coats of that...I was ready to hang and post my first message. I love the new look and I think I will get a lot more use out of the chalkboard than I will seasonal decor. Total price of project....NOTHING. I already had the paint, paintbrushes, and the mirror. YEAH!

Name Sign

This is a name sign that I made for our basement book shelf. Again we did not have any decorations for our basement so I took it upon myself to make some. First I purchased a wooden board. I got this one at Hobby Lobby. I think it labelled $5.99 but I had one of their weekly 40% off coupons. Then I chose my paint color and painted it. For the name I used the rub-on letters that you can find in the scrapbook isle. It was super easy to line up because each letter was on the same size of paper. After I got the name & the "established" part on there I thought it needed something else. A little color, so I put a teal ribbon on it. I used a hot glue gun to glue the ribbon on. Then I found some lime green raised stickers from my scrapbook closet to put on there for extra color and decor. My advice is dig around in your house for things to add to the board...you can always glue magnets, stickers, photos, etc. You do not always have to go out and buy something. Here is the final photo.

Decorative Plate

This is a very easy and inexpensive way to add some decor to your house. When we finished our basement and got new furniture I realized that I did not have "stuff" to fill my bookcases. I also did not have extra money to spend on "stuff" for my shelves so I started to look around my home to find things. I found a white square plate that was purchased at the dollar store...I actually had 4 but the other three were in my kitchen on a plate rack. I brainstormed and then realized that I could adhere a clear sticker on it. I went to my craft closet and found the perfect thing it was a pre-made scripture sticker. I know Hobby Lobby or as my husband says, "Hob Lob" has them and so does Mardel. If you can't find a clear sticker with what you want on it then I would run some clear Avery labels through your computer and cut around it. Next, I wanted to add some color. So I used some rhinestones that already had sticky adhesive to the back of them. Voila! I was done. I propped it up on a plate rack (you can find these at Gordmans or Wal-mart for $3 or less).

Upclose Picture of my scripture and rhinestones
The final look on my bookcase

**Disclaimer: Please do not leave the rhinestones around your children. True story...while I was doing this plate Zachary took an pink rhinestone off the sticker paper. Next thing you know I hear hysterical crying. He had shoved the rhinestone up his nose. I called my mom who is a school nurse. She said to put pepper under his nose to increase mucus secretions. He was so mad at the pepper that he kept crying more. Nothing happened so I called the pediatrician. While on the phone the rhinestone slid out of his nose and on my floor. Mom was right..Pepper did the trick. Therefore do not let you curious children put the rhinestones up their nose.

Antique Silver Plated Trays

I got this idea from a blog titled Bless Our Nest. Shannon always comes up with some super cute, creative decorations for her home. To be honest, I am not sure how I found Shannon's blog but I am glad that I did. One of her blog post was titled Tray Transformations and I fell in love at first sight. I thought those are awesome! I want one. So one morning my mom, Zachary, and I had some free time and popped in an antique flea market booth store. In my mind I did not want to spend more than $7 for a silver plated tray. I have to admit the "hunt" of the plate was very exciting for me. That day I did not find a tray that I wanted for my price. But a few weeks later my mom and mother-in-law went to lunch at a local tearoom and low and behold I found this tray for $4. SOLD! I had to have it.

Because I have been so occupied with summer and stuff I just finished my tray. Here are some photos from the project. Thanks to my wonderful two year old for his camera skills.

Before: Chalkboard Paint and My $4 tray

*I recommend taping the edges of your tray prior to painting :) You'll thank me later!

Painting my "taped" tray in the garage on a rainy day. Thanks Zachary for taking the photo!

After: Isn't it cute on my welcome table in my entry way!


My finished tray!


Thank you Shannon for your wonderful ideas. I love your blog! Keep up the good work!