This Year's Decking Of the Halls

A very, Merry Christmas to you and yours!! I'm thankful to have found little pockets of time throughout the season to spread the joy throughout The House! Come on in!

I really focused the efforts on the first floor and outside. Because, time, amiright? And, really, the focus was on what made it all fun and not stressful or in the "have-to" departments. So, that being said, here's the family room:

You've seen the stockings, but here they are in action:

You'll note I moved the fireplace from the wall on the left. That's because I can do that in a fake house to show off the stockings. 😅 I found the little Noel sign at Michaels. My favorite mantle decorations are the snowmen on the ends. These are from a stash of decorations from when I was a kid!

I love this table of goodness:

The Santa is also from the childhood stash, so it gets a prominent viewing spot! I love the bowl of ornaments. They're beads pulled off of tree picks which you will see when we go outside. They were just too pretty not to use elsewhere, so I created a bowl of color! The bowl, by the way, is actually cut from a sheet of candy molds. I recently read about someone cutting those apart to use for dishes, and, gosh-darned, if it doesn't work GREAT!

Over in the corner, there's a pile of goodies under the tree!

And, I must highlight the Christmas pillow I managed to make. I had plans for about 4 pillows but have since congratulated myself on finishing the one:

Moving across the room, check out the stairs!

That's wire-edged ribbon cascading down! I didn't attach it in any way, so, for a few days, it would randomly pop up and elevate above the stairs keeping the staircase form. 😆 I think I have it anchored just enough against the banister pole that it will sit still for a while! I really don't know where I found those elves, but I love them. And, the beaded garland actually goes up to the third floor. See?

Yup! That's one, continual string! I attached it to the railings with some elastic string. That'll make it easy to pull and cut off when the season is over.

Back downstairs, there's just a little project going on in the kitchen ...

... before heading into the room of treats!

This family has yet to have much by way of normal or nutritious food, but they have the goodies covered!

I didn't make any of these (ha! 'Sounds like my real Christmas baking endeavors!) but have collected them over the year as I spy them with my little eye at Hobby Lobby and Michaels. The more colorful bowl are "candy" pieces which was really a string of beads I found at JoAnn's. Let your imagination happily run wild as the kids eagerly take the little sugar plums that are larger than their mouths! Mmm ...

My favorite creation, though, was to realize I could take real, cake/cupcake sprinkles and, effectively, preserve them:

In the little, white plate (which is not from a candy mold) are gingerbread men that were in my stash of sprinkles/cake decorations. I smeared them, one side at a time, with Alene's clear glue letting them dry in between coats. The glue basically soaked into the little sugar pieces and ultimately hardened them!

I did, indeed, feel pretty clever here! I do have decorating plans for them, but that might not happen this season!

And, directly across from the treats, we have the reason for the season:

This is just part of a full nativity set from when I was a kid, so I love having a cool place to display it!

Full disclosure: It's a miracle this baby Jesus is still around. It's about the size of a dime to give perspective. My brother and I used to put it on the cargo car of the train that ran around the family Christmas tree. And, we made the train go full speed even around turns, so, there were multiple derailments each season. Of course, most of those derailments happened in the back of the tree where it was tricky to reach anything. Let's just say baby Jesus went for the ride of his little life. Often. So, that it is still here is an actual Christmas miracle!

Moving on, there is just a little Christmas happening upstairs:

Oh, yes, you know there's a place where the parents must stash gifts! And, of course the biggest ones are always peeking behind the hiding place!

That's what up on the inside! And, now, we head out!

Ta-Da!!

You'll note we don't have a snowy Winter here, but that doesn't keep it from being festive! Let's take a closer look:

The patio is all spruced up with so many fun things! The other two poinsettia pots are on both sides of the double doors. I went extra fancy on those and glued on red bows.

I'm a big fan of the candy canes! They are mini ornaments off of which I cut the hanger loops. Then, I made a pool of hot glue and stuck them in to dry. It only took a few minutes for them to be steady enough to stay upright to dry completely. I did put a little something next to them for extra, please-don't-lean-and-dry-crooked support (I happened to use a glitter glue bottle, but what it is doesn't really matter). The glue pool was on a piece of waxed paper which worked well enough to let me pull them up and off. It still stuck a little, but no one sees that!

That big, ol' tree is fabulous, too! I found it at a garage sale this Summer. I really wanted the lights on them. I find Christmas bulbs to be scrumptious, and these little, wooden guys are so cool! I swung the big deal getting the tree for 50 cents instead of the price-tagged dollar, and, once I saw it near the patio here, I decided the whole shebang, rather than just the lights, would go on display!

On the other side of the patio ...

... it's also festive with the other poinsettia and wooden Christmas tree farm tag! You'll recognize the beads in the bird bath as they are from the garland going up and down the stair rails inside!

And, right above the doors, there are some new friends:

They're just charming. 😊

Across the front of the house, the Christmas greetings continue! Welcome!

The beads in the jar are pieces of the tree picks I mentioned when showing off the bowl of ornament beads inside. I just love all of the color!

I'm also particularly proud of the hanging of the wreaths on the front door as well as on windows in the breakfast nook. Here is one from the outside ...

... and, here is how that works from the inside:

I know it's a little tricky to see, but I stuck the wreath to a magnet and then put another magnet inside the window. SUPER EASY! It worked for the 3rd floor balcony wreath, too!

On the other side of The House, allow me to show off the show-stopper spot:

There are presents a-go-go under that tree! See?!

But, my personal, favorite part are the hanging bells! The favoritism reasons are twofold. First, I got a hook in the ceiling just for this purpose. I didn't think of putting one there during the original build, but I wasn't going to go without one now because these bells needed to be hung! I contorted myself quite a bit to get it in there, but, it's there!!

The other reason this mattered is because I have loved these bells since I can remember. They were a little decoration on a huge candelabra which was a really, lovely centerpiece for the many, formal Christmas dinners our family had. It was huge, though. So, I salvaged the bells and love that they have a great place for display!!

Along the front of The House, I crafted a way to have candy canes lining the porch:

As I did with many flowers this Spring, I attached straight pins to them. But, unlike the flowers, where I used floral tape to attach and hide the pins, I simply ran a line of hot glue along the straight part of the cane leaving enough pin at the bottom to go into the floral foam under the mulch. Stick-stick-stick-done!!

Of course, up on the house top, reindeer pause ...

I found these at an estate sale a few weeks ago. They were shoved in a little ziploc bag and, pretty much, left for dead. There were more reindeer in the bag, but many were missing limbs. I figured as long as Santa and Rudolph were okay, then it was worth my dollar. I love them!

And, what's checking out Christmas decorations without seeing them in the dark?!

After seeing it all lit up, it was nice, but I wasn't satisfied. Suddenly, it hit me that the big tree with the wooden Christmas bulbs needed some real lights, too.

Ah, yes!! But, oh! One more thing! I can't forget to light up the family tree!

Ah, yes. Satisfied!

A very, merry one from this House to yours!!

Christmas In Bloom

With anticipation of Santa in the air, I have been poking around working to make sure The House is ready for his arrival!! There have been all kinds of preparations going on from decorating to gifts to goodies! While I've acquired a number of decorations that are already made, this is the one I created last night!

It all started with these 3-D poinsettia stickers I picked up at Hobby Lobby:

I evoked my outdoor planter technique of gluing together bottle caps and then wrapping them in covering them with fancy ribbon-rope stuck on with a ton of hot glue:

I also stuffed some floral foam in the bottom of the cap before piling some glue on top to get the fake dirt to stick. I think they look fabulous!

Then, I pulled apart a floral piece I have in my stash to get some stems:

I chose these because the wire thickness is just enough to be sturdy without being too bulky. They look like crap now, but, just you wait. 😁

So, all I did take the poinsettia and wrinkle it up just a little to give it some realism:

By the way, that's hot glue making my fingers look like I'm about to be recruited for a lotion commercial. When I say the ribbon-rope part of this project had hot glue everywhere, well, that's an understatement. And, it was really fun!

After the flower smush, I put a blob of hot glue on the back of it. And, with a little bend in the wire, I then stuck on the stem:

Easy. Peasy.

Here's just one of them after "planting" in a sneak peak of how the house looks!

I really, really love the outcome!! And, in just a little bit, you get the full reveal! Stay tuned ...

The Stockings Were Hung By the Chimney With Care ...

By the title of the post, you know what's coming!! I'm pretty proud of this one, so let's just get right to it!

At some point in the last, few months (the days run together, don'tcha know ...), I was wandering through the Christmas goods in Hobby Lobby because I was lured by the 50%-off signs. There are the most fun, little tid-bits that can be used for all sorts of reasons in there, and I figured I'd find something fun for The House. I was weaving between the aisle displays when what to my wondering eye should appear  but the package of Santa hats! I immediately saw stockings in them and grabbed a bag.

Today, the vision came to fruition. From left to right, I reveal THE STOCKINGS:

I didn't take a ton of process pictures because I was on a roll, but I can tell you about it. Basically, in the store, I turned the hat package upside to see the white trim at the top. And, to me, that said "stocking." I figured I could just sew the stocking shape from the hat. And, yes, that's as far as I got. I have this thing about usually being able to do it if I can see it. (It's like getting somewhere because you know exactly where you're going but you couldn't give directions if you had to. Your brain just knows what to do.) Besides, what did I have to lose when it was 50% off of what I seem to recall $1.99. I'm a low-risk kind of gal.

How it happened: I cut the pompom off, turned the hat inside out and freehand-sewed the shape. I didn't get to use quite as much of the red as I anticipated because I needed to keep the white trim level at the top of the stocking. But, it turned out perfect in terms of size, so that limitation became built-in excellence.

The process pic I do have is this one:

Here you see inside-out hats with the pompoms gone. At this stage, I also roughly drew around the first stocking onto the hats so I wouldn't have to keep an eye on where I was really headed with the needle and thread.*

* I had a Hallmark Christmas movie on, after all. I didn't want to be too, entirely distracted! And, for the record, this is the first Hallmark Christmas movie I've seen where the big-business guy actually won the heart of the lead over the small-town, flannel-wearing doctor. I KNOW!

Okay, so in the span of movie time, I got 5 stockings sewn. As there are 5 people who actually live The House, that made sense to me. The most difficult part of this stage was turning the stockings right-side out after sewing. The opening at the top is so small that this was quite an effort. I used the end of a spoon to encourage the turning process by using it to try and shove the material through the top. It was still a bear, but, I got it! Fortunately, the material is reasonably strong, so none of the efforts tore anything. That would have resulted in tears. Just keeping it real.

So, that was last night. Today warranted a trip to Hobby Lobby to see what they had to use as hangers. I have some little hooks that could be used, but they would have to be drilled into the fireplace mantle. I wasn't entirely against this as I had an overnight realization that, worse-coming-to-worse, I can get a second fireplace so I can leave the hooks screwed in to one. (The fireplace is $7, btw. I'm willing to have one in the Christmas stash.) At the same time, I didn't want to have to get a second if there was another solution.

Well, we found one! In the jewelry-making section, the Hub and I found clip-on earring backings:

I saw two possible ways to use them, so, they came home with me. While in the store, I also had the inspiration of trying to attach them to the mantle with the Elmer's putty stuff I use for hanging things instead of having to purchase a second fireplace.

Upon home investigation, when I opened the clasp ...

... it became very apparent what to use. I straightened the hook the pen is pointing to so I could cut off the smaller hook with a wire cutter. Then, I just reshaped the hook with some pliers. I chose the particular hook I used because you can see a little "nob" thing at the top on the back. I wedged a butter knife between the nob and the back of the hook to bend it up to a 90-degree angle. This is what I knew I could use to attach to it the mantle. The process to bend them up was easy enough but a little tricky as too much bending just snapped it off. I only blew two of them, though. GO, ME!

In no time, I had hooks on the mantle!

The putty, of course, got cleaned off between my fingernails and some detailing with the side of a needle:

Now, it just needed the stockings! They got their finishing touches by creating hangers for them. I braided embroidery floss (red and green) and white string (because I have no white embroidery floss 😬):

Then, I sewed it to the back of the stocking:

I went in through the back, went through both ends of the braid on the inside of the stocking and came back out. I did one more round through the back, around the braid and back out again because it helped keep the little knots at the end of the braids under control.

And, when they didn't behave, they got shoved in the stocking with the end of the pliers:

You gotta do what you gotta do ...

And, then, there was this:

How SCRUMPTIOUS is this?!?!?

It looks fab in the living room, but I'll show that when The House gets the full Christmas treatment! I anticipate giving at least some of them more decoration, but, for now, they hang in anticipation of tiny treats ...