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.

THE OFFICE REVEAL

The day has finally come that you've all waited so patiently for: my office makeover reveal!  As you may recall, it started out as a closet makeover, but turned into a larger project when we had to treat a mold problem and do a lot of painting .  We also decided to add new baseboard and trim while doing this makeover.   I also did a lot of purging and organizing of this space including going through all drawers and files. The end result - a prettier more organized office that functions well for me.

 I present to you my new office closet.

I really had planned to go to IKEA to buy storage boxes and containers for this space, but we ended up not taking our daughter to the airport in October.  I couldn't justify a four hour round trip just to get them.  I've instead reused many items I already had in my home.

THE OFFICE MAKEOVER PROGRESS

I had hopes to share my office makeover last week, but I was unable to upload photos or blog posts because of the bad weather causing our  internet connection to be down.  A very small inconvenience compared to what the people on the East coast are dealing with.  Today I want to show the progress of the office closet; and hopefully later this week, I'll be able share the whole room.

Wanting to keep to our budget (which is small and limited), I decide to keep an eye out for used materials.  I couldn't believe my good fortune while shopping our local thrift store,  I found a shelving package.  It had 4 lament shelves along with rail and brackets. The only problem was that I wasn't sure the shelves were the right length, so I passed them by.  A week later when I saw the price of materials (a package of two brackets at Lowe's - $13.37 and the rails for $12.60 each), I decided to go back to the thrift store and see if they were still there.  To my great surprise, they were still there and on sale for half price with a price tag of five dollars!

In the photos below you can see the progress of the shelves going up.

My husband decided it would be best to have 3 rails with three brackets for each shelf, because of the weight these shelves will be holding.  We ended up having  to buy two more brackets costing $13.37.

Total cost for materials = $18.37
Cost for labor = FREE, thanks to my dear husband for doing the work.

If you've missed any of the posts on the progress of the room, you can read past post by clicking on the highlighted area below.

Chair Makeover
New Baseboard and Trim
Lamp Makeover
Office Closet Painting
Deciding the right wall color for the office closet
Office Makeover
Office Makeover Progress
The Closet Makeover Has Begun
Closet Makeover

This makeover is almost finished and I can't wait to share it with you!