CANDLE STICK MAKEOVER

While shopping at my local thrift store this fall, I came upon a pair of brass candle sticks.  I bought them at the 50% off sale, making the total price for the candle sticks $1.49.

I knew I would give them a makeover eventually. It was while decorating the living room for Christmas that I decided to make them over.

CHRISTMAS TREE VIGNETTE

Hello everyone!  I hope you had a great weekend.  I sure did.  Over the weekend, I was able to add a few  more Christmas decorations, and our home is starting to look pretty.

I've chosen a winter wonder land theme for decorating this year.  Over the past two years, I've been collecting little Christmas trees.  This year I've added a few more home-made trees to my collection.  I thought clustering the trees together in a vignette would be a great way to display the trees.  If we had a fireplace mantle, I would place them on top of the mantle, but since we don't so placing them on top of the cedar chest was the best alternative.

I've been waiting for a sunny day to take photos but I've given up, so please forgive the dark photos.

DIY METALLIC BAY LEAF TREE

I hope you had a great thanksgiving weekend.   I've been greatly blessed once again over this past year. I'm also thankful for the wonderful day we could spend with our children and grandchildren.

It's hard to believe that thanksgiving is past and Christmas is right around the corner.  While browsing through the Pottery Barn catalog recently, I came across their beautiful Metallic Bay Leaf Christmas Trees.  They have these trees available in gold and silver.  I was really drawn to the silver tree since I plan to decorate with a winter wonderland theme this year.  The trees are $89 to $99 dollars each.  All the silver trees were sold out, but since I'm a real DIY gal, I decided to try and make one my self.

Here's what I did to make my own.

DIY EPSOM SALT ORNAMENTS AND CANDLE

I have some exciting news to share with you today.  Way back in July, Peter from the Epsom Salt Council contacted me in an email.  He explained that he'd seen my Epsom Salt Candle and Ornaments.  He told me that the Epsom Salt Council was going to add a new section to their website: crafts and projects people can make using  Epsom Salt. He was wondering if I minded being featured using my Epsom Salt Ornaments and Candle.  Of course I said "yes," and that it would be an honor to be an addition to their website.  The link  is now up and running just in time for the holidays.

The Epson Salt Ornament and Candle are something that I made back in December 2010.   I thought I'd share it once again since Christmas is fast approaching and some of you are new followers to my blog and may not have read the post.  The DIY candle and ornaments receives the most hits from readers.  Kinda crazy, because it was a craft I just thought up and decided to do on a whim while decorating one afternoon. 

DIY Epsom Salt Ornaments and Candle

I know there's been candles and ornaments
made with Epsom salt floating around blog land for a while now,

DIY CHALKBOARD LABELS

 I hope you all had a great weekend.  As you know, I've been  working on a closet makeover in my office. While working on this I made a little promise to myself.  I'm going to get our home more organized.  Not that it's a total unorganized mess, but it definitely could use some sprucing up.   Thus began the process of sorting, purging and organizing.

As part of the organization process, baskets were added to the closet shelves.   Wanting to know exactly what was in each basket, I add chalkboard labels.

You can buy  ready made labels in stores like Pottery Barn, but they come with a price tag of $8  for a set.   I thought making my own labels would be more budget friendly and a  fun project to try using some chalkboard paint.

Here's is what I did.

FAUX MERCURY GLASS TREE ~ Tutorial

Do you love mercury glass as much as me?  I love its vintage look with its shimmer and bling.

While shopping, I noticed that Pottery Barn has some beautiful mercury glass trees.  However, they are asking $39.50 for a small tree up to $74.50 for a large tree. Sad to say, those prices are not in my budget, so I decided to create my own.   As I told you in my last post, I'm working on a few projects to get ready for the Christmas holidays.

I started out with a glass tree that I found at Goodwill for .99 cents.

DIY CHRISTMAS TREE

Can you believe it's almost the middle of November and Christmas is right around the corner?  The weather is turning colder, I even saw a few *** snowflakes this morning. The stores are starting to look festive with all their Christmas decorations.  I usually don't even think about Christmas decorations until after Thanksgiving, but we'll be out of town the first part of December.  So I've started thinking a little earlier about Christmas projects.

 This weekend I made a Christmas tree to use for a part of  my decorations this year.

Here's the DIY instructions if you'd like to make your own tree.