Category Archives: Christmas

Christmas 2012: Our Tree

Our Tree

We have been waiting a year to see this tree up and decorated. For those who don’t remember we scored a great deal on a tree after Christmas. Which was perfect because our previous $30 tree just wasn’t cutting it anymore.

This one is though. I love how tall and elegant it looks. It fits the size of our room a lot better and is the perfect height for our angel on top.

Thankfully, what you can’t see in the picture above is that the ornaments stop about a foot from the bottom of the tree. Why you ask? Noah. Even though many of them are shatterproof I don’t want her learning to play with the ornaments or to think that the tree is a toy. So I figured for this first year I would try to keep them out of her reach as much as possible. Sometimes the best way to resist temptation is to remove the temptation.

Besides our shatterproof ornaments we have a few special ones decorating the tree as well. Some of them I shared last year, others are our anniversary ornaments (still working on this years, and a few of them are Noah’s.

Like this one that is an imprint of her hand from last year. It was crazy to put her hand up to it and see how much it had grown in one year! And don’t let that little ornament fool you. It was a lot of work to get that handprint. Besides the fact that we were working with a newborn baby we, ML had quite a time getting the mold to do right. It was so frustrating that he even went and complained to Buy Buy Baby about what horrible product it was. Thankfully, we managed to get a decent handprint out of it.

Plus with the left over clay or whatever that stuff was we made a little imprint of Emma’s paw. You know… just in case it grows form year to year.

Here are a few more ornaments that we have dotting the tree.

This one was a wedding gift. I love all the glitter on it.

Here are our shatterproof ornaments or fillers.

This little guy was on Noah’s door decoration at the hospital.

And this one shows her birthdate, weight, and length. Is anyone else baffled at why length is so important at birth?

So there you have it. Our new and improved tree for 2012.

Is anyone else sporting a new tree this year? Or maybe just some new ornaments? What are some of your favorite ornaments on the tree?

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Christmas 2012: Glass Bead Ornament

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Earlier this week I participated in a Secret Santa Cyber Ornament Swap. Using the website Elfster we were assigned a name and spending limit ($20) and given a few days to make an ornament. Our deadline was today so I haven’t received mine yet but I am looking forward to getting it in the mail.

Today, I thought I would share with you the glass bead ornament I made as my gift. The end result is really very pretty but the best part is that it takes around ten minutes to make.

Supplies:

shatterproof ornaments
glass jewelry beads (or plastic if you want to cut costs), I used various sizes
hot glue

I used red ornaments in case any of the background happened to be peeping through after I glued on the beads. To start with I applied a line of glue around the ornament. Then I started placing beads around.

For this particular ornament I worked in rows and alternating colors. You could use any pattern though. I think it would look pretty one solid color with beads of random size glued all over. It’s your ornament decorate it how you want to!I continued the banding around the ornament starting at the top and working my way down. Once I made it to the center, I reversed the pattern and worked my way to the bottom of the ornament. At this point the ornament was beginning to get a bit top heavy. The weight of those beads really start to add up!

You can see in the picture above that a tiny bit of the background does show through. So make sure whatever color ornament you use you don’t mind showing through. Might not look so hot if an orange background was peeking through.

I took a small strip of yarn and tied it on as a hanger and then gave it a test ~~drive~~ hang on the tree.

Quick. Easy. Beautiful.

Thats the way we roll around here.

I used the left over beads to decorate a few of the ornaments for the mantel. I like this look too and think I might have to make some more like this for next year!

So there you have it. A simple DIY glass bead ornament in under ten minutes (two if you use my simpler design above)!

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Christmas 2012: Our Mantel

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This little ~~elf~~ momma has been busy decorating the house for Christmas. Now if I could only clean up the mess I made doing it. Does anybody else run into that same problem? Sometimes, I’m like a tornado… leaving a path wherever I go!

So while the house may not be back in order yet, the mantel is decorated and spreading the Christmas cheer and warmth throughout the house. So without further ado here is a picture overload (because that’s what we really care about) of the mantel.

Like before, I mainly used what we had in our Christmas decor stockpile. I did splurge a little though by buying the beautiful poinsettia and the red ornaments on the garland. But that’s my goal… to add a little each year.

I kept with the traditional red and green for my decorations this year. Mainly because that’s what I have but I have to tell you I am really digging all this red. It is so cheerful and is really refreshing to see such bold color in our living room. Could this be a sign of things to come decor wise in our home?

This is one of my favorite pictures of Michael Luke and me. It was taken on our honeymoon and we used it as our first Christmas card together! I love how the green contrast with the red so well and love setting it out every year. Don’t we look young? Not so much now but up until we frequently got asked if we were teenagers! I’m 28 now and judging by the latest responses of the cashiers at the grocery store I might could pass as college student. Forward progress!

The red ornaments are simple inexpensive shatterproof ornaments. I bought some glass beads and hot glued them on to add a little pizzaz to them! They are so cute I might have to add more next year.

The little red flowers were only fifty cents at Jo-Ann. In the past I have used them for decoration on gifts but I thought they worked perfectly placed sparingly in the garland. The white trees I have had for a few years but originally came from Wal-Mart. Score one for EDLP (Every Day Low Prices)! The best part about them is that they are plastic so I don’t have to worry about breaking them.

I think I have used this cross for every season this year. It seems to always be appropriate and I couldn’t resist pairing it with our nativity scene.

Originally I didn’t plan for these little glass ornaments to hang over the ledge but the garland sort of fell that way I like the end result.

All our stocking are hung by the chimney with care. (For more on our stockings click here.)

And here’s little Noah displaying her awe and wonderment of our tree. Let’s just say it has been a real learning experience for her to restrain from grabbing every ornament off the tree!

I’ll be back later to share pics of our new tree (see our old one here) and our new ornament that symbolizes our anniversary from earlier this year (see all our other ornaments here).

Are you through decorating your house for Christmas? Do you leave a path wherever you have been while decorating? What are your favorite colors to decorate with for Christmas? Traditional? Blue? Pink? Silver? Gold?

See how I worked with what we had on our Spring, and Fall mantels earlier this year. Decorating for the season doesn’t have to be a huge expense… shop around the house.