Holiday Greenery

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Mom and I made use of our country setting and ran around the farm and dirt roads acquiring various bits of greenery for our holiday decorating. We gathered pine cones, pine cones on pine branches with pine needles, dried red sumac, strange hot pink berries, thorny berries (those hurt when I cut them) and cedar branches.

Mom wanted to decorate her front porch with her old sled and bench. We used the greenery we found along with an oversized ornament (two for $1.99 on sale at Shay's in West Plains) and a couple little ones. We also used some of her existing outdoor decor (birds on the branch and wall vase) for some extra umph.

So with a little imagination, some gloves and time, we were able to transform her porch into a winter wonderland. Oh. And some canned snow.

More pics to come!

Holiday Candle Arrangment

Mom and I went to a bunch of holiday open houses the first day of deer season. Apparently around here, it's the thing to do!

We saw a TON of great ideas. Us being us, we took some pictures of our favorites and decided to make some of them.

Today's project for Mom was the candle arrangement we saw at one of the floral shops. I'm not sure how much it cost in the store, but considering that it can be used year after year, it's final price to DIY is much cheaper! And so easy!



Supplies:
box or tray
candles in various sizes
candlesticks
greenery

Mom didn't have a tray on hand and around here, without any kind of Hobby Lobby or Michael's, when you do find a tray for sale the price is somewhat outrageous. We found a shiny green box for $2.99 at Alco. The actual box was too deep but the lid was perfect. We chose green to offset the color of the red candles. You can buy an unfinished wood tray from a craft store and paint or decoupage it.

Some of you may even have Holiday trays around with Santas or what not on them! Use those!

Mom hit both Dollar Tree (everything is $1!) and Walmart for her candles. All in all, she spent no more than $2 for each of them, even the bigger ones! She used candle holders she already had for the tapered candles. She arranged these on the tray to her liking.

Next, we took advantage at our setting in the country and took a drive around the farm and along the back roads. We found a good collection of dried, yet still red, sumac and pine sprigs we snipped straight from the trees. Mom then took some fun sprigs and sumac and arranged them around the candles on the tray.

Finally, for additional color and bling, she added some of the glittered pine cones I had decorated earlier in the evening.

We think the final look is much more exciting than the version in the store!

Glittered Pine Cones

Today's project is incredibly messy and time-consuming but well worth the effort. Plus, it's very easy!

Supply List:

pine cones
glue (Aleene's Tacky Glue is always my top choice)
paint brush
glitter

Optional Supplies:

bowl
paper plates

Directions:

1. Brush the tips of a pine cone with a thin layer of glue.
2. Dip or sprinkle glitter onto pinecone (sprinkle over a bowl to collect glitter to be put back into container after use).
3. Allow to dry (paper plates work best).
   

See? Easy! Even Randy (hands shown in pictures) joined in the glitter fun! Now we have a ton of blingy, glittery pine cones for decoration! Woo!

Holiday Wreaths

Hi!

I don't know if you're excited about a craft post, but I certainly am!

I have been spending some time at my mother's house for the last two weeks. Of course, what do Mom and I DO when we get together? We craft!

Since it is so close to the winter holidays (i.e. Christmas) we've been working on various Christmas projects. We've been working on Christmas presents and decorations. This post will be all about wreath making!

I actually stole my idea from an Etsy project that I fell in love with a few weeks ago. I have an adoration for owls and decided to look around for an idea incorporating owls and wreaths. I found this wreath by Red Marionette (for $55 - 75). Cute!

Here is a list of what you will need for this project:

12 - 14" styrofoam (rounded) wreath
yarn
hot glue gun
hot glue
felt
embroidery thread
embroidery needle
popsicle sticks

Optional Items:
white pom poms
garland or ribbon
foam snowflakes
holiday decor (bells, Poinsettia sprays, Holidays leaves, berry sprigs, flat ornaments such as snowflakes)

First, unroll a whole bunch of yarn by winding it around your palm.

Take one end of the unrolled yarn and attach it to either the back or top of your styrofoam wreath using a dab of hot glue. To keep from burning my fingers, I held each side of the yarn and pulled it down onto the hot glue, holding in it place until it was dry. Then I snipped off the extra.

Wrap the yarn tightly around the wreath until you run out of yarn and lightly glue the end.

Repeat until the wreath is completely covered. It took me about 2 hours!

I'm sorry I don't have pictures of the finished yarn wrapped wreath!

The next step is to make your cute little felt guys. I chose the owls, as I stated above. I made a template so my owls would be similar in size (and symmetrical).

After I cut out the cute little felt owls, I sewed them together by hand using the embroidery thread (matching closely to the felt color) and needle.

I then took some fuzzy yarn and wrapped it around the bottom of the wreath where the owls would sit to make it look like snow.

Before mounting the owls to the wreath, I wrapped silver garland around the wreath to add a little bling to it.

My next step was to secure a piece of the popsicle stick to the back of each owl by sewing them on. I then mounted the owls onto the wreath using hot glue.

I then arranged various faux holiday flowers and stuff around the wreath until I looked like I wanted. I also added white pom poms around the owls feet to look like snowballs. I went a little crazy on mine. Oops. I also added some foam snowflakes for fun.

As you can see from the pictures, Mom made two wreaths with blue yarn and snowmen. She made a mini wreath (with a shorter snowman) and a larger wreath.

We also made a wreath for Mema using red, gold and green. We made a red felt dove with a gold and red beaded tail and glittery feather wing.

Oh. And my all green owl is Bernard. The green owl with purple wings is Gertrude. I can't wait to welcome them to my front door!