CHISTMAS DECOR 2011 {FAMILY ROOM}

Welcome back to the Christmas House Tour of the Parsonage!  In my last post, I showed you our dinning room all decorated for Christmas.  Today we'll move on to our family room.  The two rooms join together so I wanted to continue the same theme/color in both rooms.

Here is the view looking from our dinning room into the family room area.

This year I decide to place the tree in our family room instead of the living room.  We sit in our family room every day, while the living room only when we have guests.  We have been enjoying having the tree in our daily view.  Of course this meant moving furniture.  This area usually looks like this.

The tree is decorated with silver and blue and a lot of glittery items.  I love the sparkle and bling the tree has this year.  Of course, a lot of the items are from garage sales and thrift stores.  Here are a few close up look at them.

 This pretty garland was only .49 cents, and the sparely spike was free - thrift store finds (I got several of these glittery spikes free).  Free makes me happy :)

 More thrift store ornaments.

In the past, I had a burgundy tree skirt under the tree.  Since I have a new color this year, I had to come up with a new skirt.  Here's my solution using what I had.......

 ... a scarf from our daughters wedding. I simply wrapped it around the tree base adding more sparkle and bling!

{My camera doesn't do justice for this photo...it's so much prettier than the picture shows.}

Next to the television stand, I placed a poinsettia in my grandmothers old red wing crock.

Here's the arrangement on my desk.  

{The tree is a $1 garage sale find.}

Coming up in my next post will be the living room in the Christmas House Tour.

CHRISTMAS DECOR 2011

Things are starting to look very festive and a lot like Christmas at the parsonage.  I started to decorate for Christmas the day after Thanksgiving.  This year I decided to change things a bit, and most of the decor is done in blue, silver and white along with some beachy accents. 

I'm planning to give you a little tour over the next couple of days.

I'll begin by showing you our Dinning Room.  Here's  the Hoosier cabinet all dressed up.

Of course most of my decorating is done on a budget and inexpensively.  The two wreaths and greenery were purchased at a thrift store last year.  The candle vases were also a real steal!  The one on the left is a vase from a garage sale bought for 25 cents.  I just added a small candle holder and candle on the inside so that it matches the candle sconce on the right. The sconce on the right was my best find.....FREE at a garage sale!  It had an old dirty dusty melted candle in it.  I had to work at getting the candle out, but the effort was well worth it for something free.

In fact most of the decor on the Hoosier cabinet is from thrift stores and garage sales with the exception of the mason jar, blue candles and the starfish. 

Did you recognize my DIY Epsom Salt Candle and Ornaments from last year?  If you missed my post on how to make them, the DIY information is here.

A snowball candle, snowflake ornament and stands, greenery and some faux snow create this little vignette.

In the corner of the room sits the cabinet my husband made for me the first Christmas after we were married.

I placed a silver cloth on the top of the cabinet and added two small trees.  The one tree was in a red pot, but I fixed that problem by placing the trees in white bowls.  For finishing touches, I added a starfish and a sprig of berries along with a few ornaments.  On the wall beside the cabinet, I hung a shutter (the one I made over last year) to display our Christmas cards.

Please come back to see another room in my

Parsonage Christmas Tour!

LOW COST DIY CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS - {JOY}

The past few days, I've been busy making the Parsonage look festive for the Christmas holidays.  Wanting to add something new on top of my curio cabinet, got me thinking about what I could make using things I already had.  (If you recall, I did a makeover to our living room this fall adding a lot of color changes to the room.  If you missed that post, you can read it here.)  My previous Christmas arrangement was in burgundy and gold.  Those colors don't work well with the new colors in the room: tan, brown, and seascape blue/green.

Here is what I came up with.

Below are the DIY instructions for making your own.

I shopped the house for things to use that I already had.

- Cylinder vases left over from our daughters wedding (purchased at a garage sale.)

- Ribbon

- Dollar Store battery operated candles

- Transparency scrapbook paper

- Mirror (also leftover from the wedding)

- Mounting putty

- JOY letters - downloaded to my computer

Last December I was visiting a blog Crafty Ever After; and I came upon her JOY printable letters.  She's so gracious to let you down load them for FREE for your own home use.  I loved them, and put them away for a future project.  Today I found a great use for them.

I began by printing the letters off on translucent paper, just like I did for my thanksgiving "place card" candles. 

Taking the vases, I glued ribbon at the top and bottom and then attached the paper letters in the middle using glue. A candle was placed in each vase to give it the pretty flickering from the candle light.

To create the "O," I used a small wreath I had from other years, and placed it on the mirror using the mounting putty to hold it in place.

It gives me great "JOY" to have something on my curio cabinet that I didn't have to spend another dime to have.  I could use this arrangement in my office when the holidays are done, since it spells out my name as well!

Have a great weekend!

 

I'm linking this post to...

Weekend Wrap up Party over at Tatertots and Jello 

 I {heart} nap time

Thrifty Decor Chick - Before and After Party 

Best DIY Projects of December ~ Beneath My Heart

MY HIGH LOW PROJECT

It's hard to believe that November is drawing to a close already.  A new Pottery Barn magazine just arrived in the mail this week; and it got my creative juices flowing.  I saw these pretty jeweled crystal wreaths . You can see them hanging on the wall in this photo but they come with a price tag of $69 - $99.  I decided to try and make my own for less.  

Here's what I did to make my own.

1. Got a wire coat hanger and bent it to the shape of a wreath.

2. Purchased 3 packages of snowflake Christmas ornaments @ Target for $1 per package.

3. Using the hot glue gun, I glued the ornaments to the coat hanger. 

Very easy to make with little time or money involved! 
The high end version $69 - $99
my low version $3!

Are you working on any inexpensive creative projects for Christmas?  I'd love to here about them!

Linking this post to...

20 Below Thursday # 49