"trimming" the tree

Over the weekend I finally took down my Halloween decorations to put up some Christmas goodies instead. Unfortunately we can't get real tree this year (the why is still yet to be revealed) so I busted out our old fake one so that we could still have something to decorate. I have to admit, it does look a little pathetic sitting in our high ceilinged living room at a measly 4(ish) feet tall... but it still makes me smile. I also managed to put up our stockings and the wreath I made on the front door. Little victories.

The best part is that my dad brought me a little box of my favorite childhood ornaments that I have been trying to locate for a while. There is a set of little mice that I loved to play with every year and thought I had lost, so I am extremely happy that they are safely on our little tree this year. The box also contained some of the old wooden ornaments with little messages on them from my Grandparents that I used to receive every year, including my "Baby's First Christmas" ornament. :)

[[ our little christmas tree. ]]

[[ old ornaments from my childhood. ]]

beginning to look a lot like christmas

Saturday we spent part of the afternoon Christmasifying our place!
Check it out!

[[ our christmas tree! homemade wreath. our stockings. closeup. snowflake. santa gnomes. childhood ornament. i spy. my paper ornaments. nordstrom bag. osu. the matrioska doll i made. new ice cream ornament! beavers snowman. santa. teenage mutant ninja turtles, pats childhood ornament. stockings up close. me and the tree. ]]

homemade paper ornaments

I love the way text looks, even pages from a book all jumbled together. After experimenting with making a wreath out of a novel for my mom's birthday last summer, and then coming across an image of an interior display with 'floating' paper orbs, I knew I just had to recreate the concept in ornament form. This could work out really nicely with some mixed paper as well. hopefully people like them.

My materials were:

1) A hot glue gun/glue. 2) A circle shape paper puncher. 3) Foam balls 1 for each ornament. 4) A recycled book. 5) Ornament hooks. I already had the hot glue gun and bought the paper puncher from the local craft store. Everything else came from the dollar tree.

I punched a bunch of circles from pages of the book, and began to layer them around the balls in a circular motion. this project was fairly time consuming, and pretty messy, so I watched two christmas movies while I worked and before I knew it I was almost done.

home made wreath project

Ok, as promised... as part of my Christmas decoration attempts I made a pretty sweet tinsel wreath. Ideally, I really want one of those AMAZING silver tinsel trees that were popular in the 60s, but remakes are expensive, and I have not been able to find one I like. So for now, this will have to do I suppose.

My materials were:
1) A hot glue gun/glue. 2) Two strands of tinsel (silver and gold). 3) A medium sized whicker ring. 4) Some black ribbon. I already had the hot glue gun and the ribbon, and bought everything else at the dollar tree.

I seriously just wrapped the strands of tinsel around the loop, and used the glue gun to make them stay. I added a little bit of ribbon in order to hang it, and tied a little bow. Viola! Super simple.

trim the tree

Well actually, there was no trimming involved, our tree is a fake one, small enough to accommodate our previous apartment dwelling lifestyle. However, it is still festive and heavily decorated with miscellaneous ornaments collected/made throughout the years, including a few from me and Pats childhoods.

I also made some stockings for the new roomates, including Loki, and hung them up tactfully on our "mantle" slash giant shelving unit from Ikea. our living room is Christmas ready, now if only we had some lights up... (*hint*hint*)

[[ the tree in all of it's glory. stockings. pat's tmnt ornaments, circa 1990. peak-a-boo. my santa ornament from my grandparents. ]]

Bare with me, I will most likely be posting Christmasy theme things over the next week. I can't help it, I love the whole season. :) Tomorrow I will talk about the awesome tinsel wreath I made for our front door for under $5! Believe it or not, I have quite a few DIY projects in the works right now that cannot quite be revealed... Ok, it is past bedtime. Goodnight!

is it saturday night yet ?!

I am so ridiculously excited for this weekend... well, more specifically Saturday night and our Halloween party! Me and Megan have been collecting decorations to add to my already existing stash for well over a month now and have a ton of awesome stuff to work with. Tonight we started working on setting everything up, and it is starting to look pretty good, but we have a loooong way to go. Poor Megan will be home all alone for most of the day while me, Pat, and Tony are working at the football game. Hopefully I get home early so we can get it all done!


I also made some sweet double sided mustaches for me and Pat (one side is hairy, and the other side is being used for part of pats costume).

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[[ ribs. decorations. living room shelves in progress. candle i made. streamers. sweet illustrations. sparkly skull. masks (from monster mash last year. ]] 

That was a sneak peak of some decorations in progress. 

Alright, now I need to seriously go to bed, I have to be at Reeser Stadium at 8am (ewww). Sorry the post was so late tonight! I almost didn't make it in time. I guess I was excited to play Halloween.