Not Really Here

I'm not really posting today.  I am home working on this.  Hopefully I will have things in good shape for a Christmas Party Saturday and The Nester's Tour of Homes Monday.  And then my house will stay clean until company comes for Christmas, right?  RIGHT???

Handmade Ornaments

 I joined Centsational Girl's Ornament Party!

Here's my tree.  It's huge.  We got the biggest one we could find.  More on that here.

I needed something for a few bald areas in the tree where there weren't any branches.  I was also working on a little garland so did what I do best--I cheated and made something work for me (as in, I ditched the garland idea).

This really requires no explanation.  Just cut circles out of scrapbook paper--mine aren't perfect, I just cut them freehand.  Make them double sided since they'll decide to spin around once you get them up.  Then I sewed (in the loosest sense of the word) it together with some white thread (you could also just put your string or thread in between the papers as you glue them together).  Write words that will help you remember what Christmas is really about.

 

This guy was NOT having a photo shoot--apparently HOPE can be very rebellious.  Had to hold him down to get a picture of all four letters.

I may make a few more and put up around the tree.  I really want to use "Believe" and "Rejoice" and "Noel".  What words would you use?

Cleaning Up

We're having our Sunday School class over for a Christmas party Saturday.  So I'm probably going to spending most of my week cleaning messes like this:

How did such an odd assortment of stuff make its way into our house???

Our First {Real} Christmas Tree!

For as long as I can remember I've been begging asking politely for a real Christmas tree...and I finally got one!  We went to Lowes last night and picked out the fattest tree.  I didn't want a skinny little wimpy tree.  I wanted a chubby one!  When Shane took it up to get trimmed, the guy thought it was two trees--yes!

The top of the tree was about an inch shorter than our ceiling.   (I think this is when Shane told me to quit taking pictures and make sure the tree didn't fall over while he scooted it.)

Cutting the plastic mesh off!

We put 900 lights on this tree!  I wasn't sure how many to get but The Nester said you can't have too many lights on the tree and actually 900 on our tree is just about right...if you want to be normal.  I'm going to buy another 450 pack and light this tree up!  I need to do something with our star, too...I just love it but it doesn't light up so it doesn't show up very well.

I still need to grab something to use as a tree skirt and put up some ornaments (I think I have about 7 on it now) but overall I'm SO happy!!!  I just hope I don't forget to water it!

What kind of Christmas tree do you have?  Oh and does anyone want to join me for Favorite Things Friday next week?  I'm going to do Christmas ornaments!

Husband Hijack

My wife made the mistake of leaving her blog up.  I am filling in for her at work, and I am taking full advantage of the situation.
No, I'm not interested in anything she's making.  I don't do crafts, and I hurt inside when I step over her in-progress projects on the floor.  They are like oil spills.  I'm fine as long as they don't touch me.

Looking at crafts is just as bad as reading about crafts.  Nothing, however, is more painful that crafting itself.

However, looking at my wife and reading about my wife is wonderful.

Your support of this blog is adored by my wife and greatly appreciated by me.  She puts a lot into this.  Thanks for reading.

Favorite Things Friday--Christmas Movies

Welcome to Favorite Things Friday.  I like to take Fridays to look around my house and appreciate the things I have.  I seem to spend a lot of time in I-wish-I-had and so Fridays I take a step back and go to I'm-so-glad-I-have.  Today I want to talk about Christmas movies.

There are a lot of Christmas movies.  A LOT.  Here are my two favorites:

A Charlie Brown Christmas--who DOESN'T like this?  Complete with dancing Snoopy, Sally's letter to Santa ("Did you have a nice summer?"), Lucy yelling at Schroeder because she doesn't recognize Jingles Bells except in its simplest form, Linus reciting the Christmas story from Luke, and of course, the little "Charlie Brown" Christmas tree.  Perfection.

Mickey's Christmas Carol--Ok, fine, the part where the Ghost of Christmas Future (Black Pete) throws Scrooge McDuck into his grave still scares me...but still, it's the best.  When I took British Literature my senior year of college I didn't even read A Christmas Carol like I was supposed to, I just remembered everything from Mickey's Christmas Carol.  Go here to see the wikipedia article on it (if you're a nerd like me it's pretty interesting.)

Little Women my only favortie book/movie combination.  I LOVE both!  It's not necessarily a Christmas movie, but the begining is set during Christmas, so I can get away with it.  I love watching this all by myself curled up on the couch.  I still cry at some point in the movie every time I watch it.

The best thing about these movies?  I have them all on VHS.  That means I have to rewind them and then fast forward through the previews at the beginning--I just love that!

What are you favorite Chrsimtas movies? 

Borrowed Projects

If you haven't figured it out already, I like to steal swipe borrow flatter people by copying their ideas and designs.  I mean, that's what blogging's all about, right?  Showing off your ideas so we will ohh and ahh over them and then recreate them.  So here are three projects I'm finished with, working on, and soon will start that are copy-cats.

I made these last night.  I copied this straight from Chelesea at Room to Inspire.  I mean literally copied.  I enlarged her bird on the computer and traced it onto copy paper, took it home, cut mine out.  I did use a Digiorno box instead of Goldfish, though.  I made mine bigger than ornament size, too, with cute plaid scrapbook paper on one side and solid green on the other.

Here's a closeup of the birdies:

I may, someday, hang them up somehow other than taping ribbon to them, but it works for me for now.

Copied project #2--I'm going to work on this today.

I know everyone's seen this 1,294 times while blog-hopping, but I just can't get enough of it.  We have a Christmas banquet to go to tonight and I'd love to wear it, so I'm going to work on it at work--don't worry, my boss won't mind.  I don't have any organza, but I'm going to see how it looks with just tulle.  For the directions, go here.

Next on my list is to make some of these little reindeer guys:

I saw them at Pier 1 the other day and they're $6.95 each which isn't crazy expensive, but I want some non-votive free ones.  So I'm going to shop my yard for some sticks if it ever quits raining long enough for things to dry out.

Anyway, there's my to-do list for the next couple days.  How's your to-do craft list coming along?

Another book wreath!

Yesterday while browsing through people's projects on A Soft Place to Land I came across Cottage and Vine.  And fell in love. With this:

You know I love wreaths!  And the people who linked up had great wreaths.

Anyway, I know I showed you my first attempts at book wreaths, but I've gotten MUCH better, I promise!  Check out this one:

I haven't found the perfect home for it yet but to take the picture I hung it in a big empty frame in our den.  I kinda like it there, actually.  The pages are from an old hymnal, see?

AND...there's no naked Styrofoam (I have a little problem with that appearing in my wreaths) because I covered the wreath with pages first.

I MAY give this to my brother and sister-in-law for Christmas, if I can part with it.  For Living with Lindsay's instructions to make your own book wreath, go here.  The next one I make I may try to fold the paper in different ways like she did to create a more chaotic feel. 

I am also working on a pine cone wreath, but I'm making it with little pine cones and it seems like lately all the pine trees in the backyard are only giving me big pine cones.  But don't worry, I haven't given up.  Every few days I walk around picking up two or three and in about five years I'll be done!  It usually takes me a long time to do a project simply because of procrastination but this is crazy!

Do you have a project that's taking you too long for reasons other than procrastination?

Christmas Cards and DIY Projects

Got my Christmas Cards and pictures ordered.  I got these cards from here and after shipping paid $0.20 each:

Inside:  Matthew 1:21 "And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins."

And here is our picture to put in each card (I just saw a report on tv where people's personal pictures are stolen from the internet...hence my new watermark).  I ordered the pictures here and paid $0.15 each. 

Add a stamp and it all comes out to $0.79 each card sent out.  Not too bad.  My goal is to have them all out by the 12th.

See the clock on the far right above Shane's shoulder?  My mom's dad, we called him Pop, collected and fixed up old clocks.  This is one of the two I got after my grandmother (we called her Abuela) passed away and is one of my favorite things (need to do a Favorite Things Friday about clocks, don't I?).  I'm going to include a quick note in the cards we send to my family about the clock and honor my Pop and Abuela this Christmas.

Ok...moving on to the DIY part of this post.  I actually have two little projects.

The first one is the one I mentioned a few days ago.

From Better Homes and Gardens

From Abbey @ Practically Perfect

This really requires no explanation, you just cut a globe in half and add some potpourri.  I already had an old globe so this only cost me $2.50 for the potpourri (I was going to get pine cones from the yard but I really liked the colors of the potpourri).  The end.

This next one is a rip-off of about five million other bloggers' ideas.  (Sorry the pictures are so dark, I had to take these last night.)  First I made this little garland.  Cut out felt circles, stitch them together. 

Then I draped the garlands (they're actually 3 very short garlands) around a couple sticks I picked up from my yard.  I stuck them in a vase I found at Goodwill.  I didn't LOVE the vase, but I liked it.  I wasn't totally sold for $7.99.  Then I looked at the bottom and it's Pottery Barn.  So I bought it.  I'm nothing if not a sucker.  Anyway, I put some foam balls in the bottom of the vase to hold up the sticks, used a pipe cleaner to hold the bases together and poured popcorn kernels in the bottom.  Hey, just working with what I have, ok?  If you found a bag of popcorn kernels with your Christmas stuff you'd use them to hold up some sticks, too...don't judge.

The vase looked too gray against all the silver things I had on the piano so I hung this Noel sign from it.  It's from Hobby Lobby and I just love it.  Later I added a red bead garland to the top of the vase (you can see it in the next picture) but I think I like the naked look better.  Anyway, I already had the thread and felt (and foam balls and pipe cleaner and popcorn kernels) and paid $8.00 for the vase, $2.50 for the Noel ornament...so $10.50 for this project.

So here's a picture of my piano so far.  I'm still moving things around.  Some of this will probably end up on the mantle above the fireplace once we get that in place.  And I think I'm going to switch out the light switch cover above the lantern (and have Shane patch the wall if he has time).

What looks out of place?  Should I add some greenery or something?

I'm linked to Kimba's DIY Day at A Soft Place to Land and to The Inspired Room..go check out some more projects!

Currently Reading

 I'm participating in this today at J. Kay's Book Blog:

 
To Kill a Mockingbird -- This is actually a reread.  I read it as a sophomore in high school and remember loving it.  Even though I've always loved to read, I've always hated reading for school.  I don't remember too much about the book, so I'm counting it as a new read.  I'm reading this at the store.

I'm also reading Remembered by Tamara Alexander.  It's the last of the Fountain Creek Chronicles trilogy.  It's one of those series where some characters overlap but the main characters change.  I loved the first book, Revealed.  It was predictable, but still original.  The second book was pretty good.  More predictable, less original.  And I've read the first few chapters of this third book but so far it hasn't really grabbed me yet.  And I'm not much on finishing books that don't grab me.  So we'll see how it goes.  I'm reading this at home.

I usually have book I'm reading at the store, one at home, and one in my car, but I'm not listening to a book in my car right now, I'm soaking in all the Christmas music!  I'm alternating between the all-Christmas music radio stations and Christmas cds (Point of Grace's Winter Wonderland for now).

And I'm not reading these, but my husband is.  Yes, that would be my 25 year old husband who teaches high school English, has an English degree from Mercer University and studied at Oxford University in England for a semester.  Him.  He's reading the Diary of  a Wimpy Kid books.  And he laughs like a little kid while he's reading it (which is actually pretty adorable, but don't tell him I said that!).

Want to know which books I just finished?  Look at the sidebar to the right and scroll down.