2013 REVIEW AT THRIFTY PARSONAGE LIVING

It's hard to believe that 2013 is already coming to a close. With the new year right around the corner, it has us looking back at what the years has held.  Below you will find a collection of events and projects that have happened at Thrifty Parsonage Living.

HOT COCOA BAR

I had a wonderful and blessed Christmas and I hope you had the same.  It's hard to believe Christmas has already come and gone. Today I thought I'd share my cocoa bar from our Christmas party. We had a large party of twenty five guests for Christmas at our home. I set up a Cocoa bar as part of our beverage serving area. I got very busy with last minute preparations before our guests arrived, so I only got a few photos of the area. They may not be the best photos, but a least you can see what the bar looked like.

You may recognize the snowflake buckets from my Christmas Home Tour.  They are filled with candy canes, peppermint candies and jingle bells.  The counter had snow flakes purchased at the Dollar Store scattered around on top of white quilt batting.

CHRISTMAS GREETINGS

DIY CHRISTMAS CARD DISPLAY

I created a new display for our Christmas cards this year. You may have seen it in my 2013 Christmas Home Tour.  A few years ago, I used a made over shutter to display my cards. It worked out great for that year, but we've been receiving more cards this year and I needed something larger to display our cards on.

Here's what I came up with.

OH HOLY NIGHT CHRISTMAS CANVAS ~ twinkling stars

In my recent Christmas Home Tour, you may have noticed several projects that I created ~ DIY.  One of these projects can be seen as soon as you come in our front door ~ The Oh Holy Night Canvas.

2013 CHRISTMAS HOME TOUR

Welcome to our home!  If your are a new visitor here, I'm so happy you stopped by.  If you're a regular visitor here, thanks for coming back for a visit.  Christmas is such a wonderful time of the year; and I love getting our home ready for the festive holiday.  I'll be joining other bloggers seeing their tour of homes.  So today I'll share my home as it's all decorated for the holidays.

Most of my Christmas decor is centered around a Winter Wonderland theme this year.

DIY FAUX FUR CHRISTMAS PROJECTS ~ {Fur tree, Fur topped stocking, Fur wreath, & Fur pillow}

In my last post, I said that I would show you how I created my faux fur Christmas projects.

It all started when I made my Faux Fur Tree Skirt, and had left over fabric.  I love the fabric, and really didn't want to waste any of it.  It comes with a price tag of $20 a yard, but I got my yard and a quarter @ 65% off on a Veteran's day sale.  I was able to make quite a few projects with the remnants,

FAUX FUR CHRISTMAS DECOR

Oh, the weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful, since we have no place to go, let it snow, let it snow , let it snow!

(written by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne 1945)

We woke up this morning to four degree temperature and a wind chill of - 27 degrees Fahrenheit.  Now that's cold !!!! for this girl having moved from the Pacific Northwest where temperatures are very mild in the winter.  With that being said, I find it very fitting to continue showing you my winter themed Christmas decorations.  In my last post, I showed you the Fur Tree Skirt I made.  The tree skirt was cut in a circle leaving quit a bit of fabric around the edges.  Faux Fur is perfect for holiday decor; and  I thought there is no since in wasting this lovely fabric.  It's warm and fuzzy resembling snow and adding a festive design perfect for the season.  I decided to make a few additional projects from the fabric.

Here's what I created:

A Faux Fur Pillow

and

DIY NO SEW FAUX FUR TREE SKIRT

We woke up to snow on the ground this morning.  There's nothing like beautiful snow covered ground to get you in the mood for winter and Christmas decorating.  Since we're in a new parsonage this year and not enough room for our large Christmas tree that we've used other years.  We decided to buy a new smaller tree.  It was while shopping at Wal-Mart that we found the perfect little tree.  It's an artificial  six foot flocked tree with a smaller circumference.   I've been wanting to do a winter theme Christmas in our living room this year, and this tree was just perfect.  The past few years we didn't have a tree skirt and I improvised by using a table runner wrapped around the tree.  I thought a beautiful white fur skirt would look lovely under our new flocked tree.