My Little Guy’s Christmas Bedroom

OK.  I swear this is the last Christmas posting I will do!  I just had to share this one.  Mainly because it was a fun adventure. 

One Sunday afternoon in October we went out to some land that my husband hunts on just west of town.

My main reason for going there was to look for some old wood.  Maybe a smaller tree that had fallen.  Plus I wanted to find some sticks that I could use as branches.  Once again my husband thinks I’m a little crazy.  He doesn’t see the picture in my mind of what I want to construct with this old wood.  And once I tell him he still is somewhat skeptical.  I remember watching this clip on the Martha Stewart show on a upcycled table top tree.  I found the video and watched it again and knew that this was something I wanted to do for my little guy’s room. 

Once I gathered what I needed we had a little fun in the woods. 

After we got back my husband cut the tree to the length I wanted along with cutting several stumps in various sizes.  If you watch the video it will explain the procedure on how I’m making my woodland tree so I’m not going to describe it in detail.  It was not hard but you do need a saw, drill and some wood glue.

Of course little guy needs to help.  He was my helper in cutting the branches.  For this picture I told him to just “do what he was doing”.  Can you see him being all stiff and looking out at the corner of his eye.  Too cute!

And here it is all decorated and displayed in his room.

I had all the red and brown ornaments from last year but added a few woodsy items for this year’s woodland theme.

I’m really impressed at myself with the star I made.  Several years ago I cut and scored cereal box cardboard and glued it into a star.  Last year I glittered it for his tree.  This year I attached a wire to connect to the top of the tree and I wrapped it in twine.  I wanted to incorporate twine into it because of the woodland theme.

I added some wood “stumps” and “logs” for added affect.  The bottle brush trees are from my Department 56 village collection that I attached a wood stump to.  And the green yarn cone trees I constructed last year.  Wrap yarn around a cone and add a small ornament to the top.  Super easy!

I also made these snow globes minus the water last year as well.  An old pickle jar with some bottle brush trees and some faux snow.  The kiddos love playing with these. 

The stuffed bears throughout his room are from my childhood and theirs. 

Isn’t this old toy truck neat!  It was once my father-in-law’s when he was a boy.  It still has the string attached to the front where he used to pull it outside.

I tried to incorporate all kinds of animals in the forest.  There are bear, deer, beaver, squirrel, chipmunk, fox and a ceramic owl.

And here’s the little guy again hard at work.  I told him “to pretend” putting some Legos together.  As you can see he couldn’t quite do it with a straight face nor did he know what to do with his arms and hands.  Too cute!

Sorry you have to be reading about our Christmas in January.  I guess I’m still trying to figure it all out on how to get everything in.  Until then…

Thanks for reading!

Bye for now.

A Look Back At Our Christmas

It’s now January and Christmas and New Year’s have come and gone.  Most of you have taken down everything and don’t want to think about it again for another 11 months.  I’m right there with you!  All our decorations have been taken down and put into storage and won’t come out again until next December.  It’s exciting to put it all for the celebration but it sure is nice to have your old house back again.

There were several things I wanted to share but simply ran out of time.  The first being our Christmas tree.  I waited until the very last moment and I mean last moment to take these pictures.  I took these Christmas Eve morning when the house was decorated and all our presents were wrapped.  My thought was that I could crank out a blog post after lunch that day.  I don’t know what I was thinking!  With hosting a dinner that night and getting 3 children and myself ready for church in the afternoon, writing a blog post was the least of my thoughts that day. 

So here I am.  Kids have returned back to school and children are napping.  This is the perfect time for me to share pictures of our living room with our Christmas tree and kitchen area.

My color palette for this year was white, gold and silver.  I threw in some black clustered ornaments on the tree and in patterned wrapping paper. 

When we were setting up the tree this season some of the strands of lights were out.  So I call my husband, who was already at Menards, to pick up a few boxes of lights.  He came home with LED lights. 

Now….!  If you don’t know me you will soon will know that I have a thing for LEDs. 

I don’t like them!  I don’t like the bright white light they give off.  I guess it’s more of a selfish reason why I don’t like them.  No one looks good in the bright white light and it somewhat gives off a greenish color.  Gosh!t  This is MY house I want to be able to look good in it!  Plus it also makes rooms seem too much like a warehouse.  I realize that incandescent lights are on the way out, but I’m going to ride that train for as long as it’s available. 

That being said, I thought I would give the LEDs a try on my tree which would be taken down in a month.

Nope!  No way!  Once they were strung around the tree and the room lights went off, it looked too much like we needed to be packing up boxes in a warehouse. 

Here’s where my husband really thinks I’m crazy!

I packed up all the lights and returned them and purchased just some plain inexpensive old-time Christmas lights.  So long story short our tree has brand new white twinkling lights and I love it!

My cone trees were super easy to make; no tutorial necessary!  Plus they can be customized to what ever color scheme you have.  Just wrap fabric around a cardboard cone.  I made my own cones using cereal box cardboard.  I looked into buying cones at the craft store and thought twice about it after I realized what it was going to cost me. 

All my greenery is faux including the tree in case you wondering.  Again I thought about adding some real stuff here and there for the scent but I just figured why?  I can buy a candle and it will be just as good and a lot less of an expense.

Years ago I cut out initials for my kiddos and tied them to their packages.  Just adds a extra touch of sparkle.  I’ve kept them for year to year and reused. 

I didn’t forget about my 2 starburst mirrors.  I added snowflakes in my coordinating colors to the rays.

Also my Dad’s deer antlers didn’t go untouched.  I dangled more snowflakes from one side.

I clustered ornaments together and then tied them to the light chain.  I also draped greenery around the light fixture and finished it off with white satin ribbon bows.

I just had to get a picture of my new favorite dessert…peanut butter chocolate balls!  They are sooo yummy!  Family members really couldn’t believe I made them or so they say!

An ornament wreath in shades of white, gold and silver is flanked by 2 simple evergreen wreaths.  A black satin ribbon is draped in between and connects everything together.

And one more look with the lights off.

And finally the happy kiddos right before church.  With excited faces and anxious hearts they couldn’t wait for Christmas to come!

We all had a wonderful day spending time together with family and opening up gifts.  Thank you for all the wonderful memories that I will always hold to dear of this Christmas season.

I will be back this week to show what I did for my little guy’s room.

Thanks for reading!

Bye for now.

Christmas Entry Area and Book Shelves

Our little guy had his 6th birthday a couple of days ago!  Doesn’t seem possible that he was born 6 years ago!  My how time flies!  He’s become a super little guy that is filled with excitement, thoughtfulness and a selflessness abundance to want to help.  It’s a crazy good on how much he just wants to help!  I just love him so!  Here’s a picture of him that night.

I have so much to share and very little time to do it in.  Thank goodness my shopping is done!  A few more presents to wrap and this Christmas season will come to an end.  But first let me share my Christmas entry area and book shelves.

I didn’t do a whole lot of rearranging of the shelves from what they looked like here.

I picked up a few more books from my Grandma’s house to fill the empty spaces and added some Christmas sparkle.

I twisted regular garland with a lighted garland to give it more thickness.  Then I clustered ornaments and tied them to the garland.  I didn’t have enough to span the distance of the book shelves so I just draped it over one side. 

It you remember my DIY vase I didn’t have much luck using gold leaf.  Well I did some research and decided to give it another try.  I did paint it gold first then applied the gold leaf.  Which in some areas the gold leaf rubbed off completely and just the gold paint is showing.  I can’t even tell those areas so I decided to keep it.  Plus it’s somewhat covered in the book shelf so no one will ever completely see those areas.

My small entry tree has now become this fun whimsical kids’ tree.  It has all my Hallmark ornaments from when I was a child plus our children’s collections.  It’s fun with it’s oversized bulbs, snowflakes and curly red glittered wires coming out of it.

On to the other side of the room, we repainted our cabinet in a fresh coat of black paint.  Placed above it is a Pier 1 mirror I got for my birthday a couple of months ago.  I spray painted some curly branches and applied white glitter to a few of them and placed them into a glass candle holder.  I hung a collection of ornaments from the branches.

I wanted a simple holiday wreath to hang over the mirror.  I made this one from greenery picks that were bent and then wired together into the shape of a wreath. 

Again for the holiday season, I used my vanity tray from my bedroom and placed a bowl up top with a few sparkly ornaments within.

In the past I’ve had wreaths for my front door that have been made by me.  Made by me in the fact they took hours and hours to make.  This one was also made by me but it’s simple; it only took an afternoon!  I combined 2 existing wreaths.  Cutting greenery from one and hot gluing it onto the other.  It made a full wreath that is close to 22” in diameter.  I originally had planned on adding some pinecones and ornaments but I rather liked it in it’s simple base form.  I tied some gold trimmed red ribbon into a bow and hung it from the top of the door.

I’ll be back soon to share my little guy’s bedroom all decked out for a woodsy Christmas.  I think someday I’ll have to stop calling him my little guy or maybe not.  He will always be my little guy no matter what age he turns!

Thanks for reading!

Bye for now.