Merry Christmas
Well it is the end of the day, Christmas is almost over and I am exhausted, as I am sure you all are as well. I wanted to take the time to thank you so much to all who have stuck by me and continue to read my blog. I can not tell you how much it means to me to have followers who take the time to read and comment on my posts, it is so very thoughtful of you. You all have become my new blogging friends, and I cherish each and every one of you.
I hope your day was filled with laughter, love and lots of new memories made with family and friends, I know mine was.
Merry Christmas.
{photos by stephanie}
Gift Card Tree
Here it is Christmas Eve Day, and I decide to do a project, as if I have I don’t have anything else to do! But luckily this was pretty simple. I got the idea from BH&G website here.
See, there are 11 grand kids coming over tomorrow, ranging in the ages of 2-19. It has become way too hard to buy them each a special gift. So this year I went with the one thing I hate to give…gift cards. Seems so impersonal to me. But buying for all those age ranges and so many of them, this is the only time I feel good about giving a gift card. Hand making these felt envelopes for each gift card just made me feel better. A personal touch behind the impersonal gift. I hung all 11 of them on a white feather tree to make it more festive and fun. It didn’t take long at all, and I am happy I took the time to do it, I feel much, much better now about giving them a gift card.
Anyone else doing last minute projects like me?
The Dresser Re-do That Compliments My Sign
I am feeling Christmas overload in my google reader. Not that I am not enjoying seeing everyone’s beautiful decor and crafty ideas, but it is making me feel a little over whelmed and inadequate on my decorating and craftiness this year. So I thought instead of posting about my Christmas decorations (which are few and far between at my house this year) I thought I would share a furniture make over I did recently. You know, change it up a bit and distract you from all the madness we are all experiencing that comes with the Holidays. 
My daughter, Shannon and her husband, Nate, were in need of a dresser for their master bedroom, and buying new wasn’t an option in their budget. So I started searching Craig’s list for them and I found this dresser for $45.
I just loved the mid century style of it and knew it could easily be taken from drab to fab inexpensively. Usually, paint is my “go to” when I want to update a piece of furniture. Which was my intent on this piece as well. The first thing that I had to do was remove the ugly red stain. I sanded it down to the bare wood, and low and behold there was a beautiful wood grain underneath. This time I decided I just couldn’t paint over the beautiful wood. So I opted to just stain it with an ebony stain and see how it would look.
Wreath Obsession
Did I ever tell you I love to make wreaths for all holidays? No? Well I do. I love the creativity that you can put in a wreath, and it just looks so festive on a door. But I rarely, if ever, do I make one for myself. The reason being is because I have large double iron glass front doors. If I want a wreath on my door I have to make two, and they have to be big, otherwise they look wimpy on the doors. And hanging just one looks lop sided and odd. So in order to feed my addiction of making wreaths, I make them and give them to my family and friends.
I usually go with a theme on my wreaths. This one was a platinum and red theme with a cute snowman to add a little fun to the mix. It now hangs at my daughter’s house on her front door.
(I took these pictures with my iPhone, so pardon the quality)
Just to show you how obsessed I am, here are a few I did last year for the different holidays for my family
(this one was for spring)
This year I decided it was time to put wreaths on my doors too. Get into the spirit of things. So I took my lazy self down to Costco and got two fresh wreaths and hung them on my doors. It worked for me!
Etsy on Sale
I just love a good sale don’t you? I just stumbled across this new page on Etsy
This is so perfect for me because I love handmade anything and I especially love giving them as gifts. And now Etsy has a sale page! Even more awesome. As a crafter and a DIYer I truly appreciate the time and creativity that goes into making something handmade. I don’t have the talent to do all crafts, ok, who am I kidding, my craft skills are limited, but I like to think I have many. As I was browsing this new found shopping haven, I thought I would share a couple of cute affordable gifts under $15 that caught my eye (I have no affiliation with any of these sellers I just thought their stuff was cute)
Little girls zippered coin purse $6
For the dog lovers on your list (I might be buying one of these for Daisy) Dog Fleece Winter Coat $12
Make it official! Man Cave Sign $7.61
Great stocking stuffer Watermelon Hair Clips $2.85
I could sit here all day showing you pretty things I found! But I can’t cause I have to do my own shopping. So, go check it out, I am sure you can find something for some one on your list.
In My Own Style Christmas Mantel
I think I may be one of the last few people who haven’t gotten all their Christmas decorating done. Oh well. It will get done eventually, right? Instead of decorating, I decided on a whim to finally clean out my office. I needed to get rid of all the junk that has accumulated in the nooks and crannies. Bad timing I guess with all the Christmas decorating I should be doing. I unfortunately didn’t get it all done, but am feeling less of a hoarder now. In between my “winter” spring cleaning I did manage to get the smallest mantle and the biggest mantle decorated in my house. Today I only have pictures of the smallest mantle to show you. I will take pictures of the larger mantle and post it this week. (after I get some more Christmas decorating done of course! Times a tickin)
This mantle is in my office, measuring a whopping 4″ deep. The beautiful picture molding that is above the mantle, which I love, takes away another inch. Every year I seem to spend more time on decorating this one mantle in my house than any other spot. This year I decided I wanted to use what I had and what I love. It may not be your traditional Christmas design, but since I spend a lot of my time in my office, I wanted to include things that make me happy to look at and then add a little Christmas.
Santa’s Magic Key Giveaway Winners
First of all, I want to thank those of you who took the time to participate in my giveaway. I didn’t know how it was going to go, or if I would even have 3 people participate! I ended up with 12 comments, woohoo! I am so excited to have homes for my Santa’s Magic Keys. I wish had an extra 12 so I could give everybody one! I will be contacting the winners via email to get the information to send them out.
Here are the winners of my little giveaway.
I’m a new follower but love getting your new blog posts showing up in my email 
I would probably give the key to my 3 yr old daughter but would display it somewhere in our living room because it is just too darn cute! Thanks for all the darling ideas
The second winner is Barbara (I took it down to 11 since Caitlin had already one and I didn’t want to count her comment twice) and she left this comment
– I love this idea of the Santa key. My kids are grown and I have my very first grand-daughter who is one year old. If I won, I would give the key to my son so that he can start a new tradition w/his daughter – Thank you so much for sharing – Merry Christmas!
And the third and last winner is Sandy (I took it down to 10 since Caitlin and Barbara had already won) and she left this commentI’m not a subscriber nor a follower …. BUT I track you with google.com/reader … where I have all my favorite blogs. Love the key. I’d give it to our newest GC born this summer. LOVE you site.
Stripes to Damask
I have had this lamp laying around for a couple of years. It was one of those lamps that I loved but my husband didn’t, so I put it away just in case I might find a use for it one day. Recently I was looking for a table lamp for the industrial/chic design I am working on in my daughter’s guest bedroom. I wanted an “I dream of Jeannie” style lamp to offset the industrial floor lamp, and then I remembered this lamp. The stripes weren’t going to work, but the shape was perfect! So what is a girl to do? Yep, spray paint it. Why not right? I got out the Heirloom White spray paint, and sprayed 4 light coats, waiting 10-15 minutes in between coats to make sure the paint would stick. It turned out nice, and the white covered all the stripes, but it was kinda plain. So I decided to incorporate the damask (of course!) that is on the curtains I got from Anthropologie.
I purchaed a damask stencil from Joanns and some gray acrylic paint and stenciled over the white
Working on a curved area was challenging, but I wasn’t going for perfect since the pattern on the curtains has a loose feel to it. Using repositionable spray adhesive and masking tape helped a lot.
And here it is all finished and sitting on the industrial side table waiting for the rest of the room to get done.
