Home Decorating Ideas

Santa hat craft

Hey there! Have you checked out the Holiday Home Mantel Party at Layla’s yet? Some serious inspiration going on!! (You can see ours here.) Even if you don’t have a mantel, you’ll be sure to find some great ideas for your holiday decorating. :)

Late in the season last year I did a Christmas craft that I absolutely LOVE – I wanted to show it to you again in case you wanted to try it out yourself.

I had seen some Santa hats at Stein Mart one day, and just thought they were adorable!:

Killing me. So fun! But I knew I could recreate them myself for less cash, so that I did.
Now I think mine are actually cuter, if I do say so myself:

And making them was way cheaper than buying them – score!!

Since I made them so close to Christmas last year, I just threw them in a tray I had laying around. But this week I found the most adorable tray at Hob Lob and it is just perfect for my cutie hats:

It was only $5 on sale! SCORE again. :)
I filled in around them with some extra Dollar Tree ornaments:

Well hello there!:

HA!

My Santa hats are one of my very favorite Christmas decorations. Partly because I made them myself. Partly because they are stinkin’ cauute!:

I’ve heard that some of you have made them with your kids, students and with friends – I LOVE that!! Makes me so happy. :)

For all of the details of how I made these (they were SO simple), check out last year’s post here. If you’ve made them, I’d love to see pictures!

So are you done decorating? It takes me a few days…or maybe a week. :) But I’m trying to take my time and enjoy it, especially since the Bub loves Christmas decor as much as me this year. I have a partner in crime and I love it!

P.S. I can’t believe how much our family room has changed since the pictures in that Santa hat post last year – all because of a $100 Craigslist dresser. ;) Love.

Let the magic begin! (The mantels.)

Well hello there!! I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving week! We had such a fantastic time, but there wasn’t much resting, shopping or decorating going on.

Just a lot of this:

And this:

And this!

And watching our sweet Bub experience many firsts – first subway ride, first musical, first trip on an airplane:

That’s him watching our plane pull up to the gate. Giddy. Adorable. :)

Since we’ve returned, I’ve finally done a bit of resting (cause NYC kicks my booty!), way too much shopping and some Christmas decorating. I started with the mantels to kick off our Holiday Home linky parties!:

The first one goes up Tuesday at noon over at Layla’s place. :)

I’ve discovered the perfect recipe for Christmas decor that I luuuurve. It’s so simple – greenery, red stuff and a few touches of nature. That’s it. I mix up those three and I’m one happy chick.

I’ve also discovered I love fluffy greenery so much it’s just sick. I need someone to stop me from adding and adding and fluffing and fluffing…big fat greenery makes me HAPPY. :)

My mantels haven’t changed much since last year, I just added a little more greenery (shocking) and some HomeGoods finds. The base started with some basic greenery I’ve had used for years. But it needed some poofing, so last year I found some fantastic greenery at Big Lots of all places, and I’m kind of obsessed with it. I got a few more this week:

I just snip it apart and stick it in here and there in the basic, cheap greenery. It works GREAT and makes it look so much more expensive! In my opinion full and fluffy equals expensive looking.

After that, it’s just more fluffing and adding – sticks:

Beady stuff, dollar store ornaments and pinecones:

And there. you. go. I would stuff a cat in there if it would stay, seriously. I just can’t stop. :)

A few weeks ago while shopping for my Mom Cave, I found an adorable (big! lighted!) reindeer for $20, so I paired him with my little red adorable reindeer I found at HomeGoods last year:

By the way, I saw that exact same large reindeer at Pier 1 for I think $60? It’s identical! Whoohoo!

My dollar store stars (from last year) hang from the ironwork, and it’s done:

Ugh, that fluffy garland just rocks my world. I love it!

Upstairs, I did almost exactly what I have in years past, but couldn’t resist a bit more fluff, of course.

Because I try to use what I have as much as possible in Christmas decor, I wanted to keep the current stuff up there, but the garland kept falling off around it. I picked up some Command Strips at True Value and laid a couple right on the top of the mantel:

I just hooked the greenery to it and it worked perfectly!

Here’s a shot of the difference some fluffing can do – on the left, I’ve started stuffing my Big Lots good stuff in. On the right, it’s just the basic garland:

Here it is again, with a bunch o’ stuff thrown in:

Again, I just add till it looks right – ornaments, pinecones, the cat, whatever!

A few years ago, I got some cheap wood letters from the craft store, painted them red and then hung them from ribbon. I hang them from my wallpaper art every year and it’s such a big impact for so cheap!

Instead of hot gluing them like usual, I picked up some tacks from True Value and used those to secure the ribbon to the backs of the canvases:

And that’s it!

I just love the bright red against the black!:

RED makes me SMILE. :)

Our bedroom mantel, transformed with some greenery and a few changes to what we already have:

YES, I know…the cord. It’s giving me hives. But I have two more trees to get up and ten more bins to empty, umkay? Priorities people. But OH YES, it will be covered…

The candles are fake, no worries. :)

And of course, I love them best at night:

Ahhhh…that’s the magic!! :) LOVE. Be sure to link up tomorrow at Layla’s. I can’t wait to see what you’ve created!

P.S. I think I said “fluff” 89 times. Or so.

*I was one of the bloggers selected by True Value to work on the DIY Squad. I have been compensated for my time commitment to the program as well as my writing about my experience. I have also been compensated for the materials needed for my DIY project. However, my opinions are entirely my own and I have not been paid to publish positive comments.*

Thank you to my sponsor!:

Eight more hours!

Well HELLO!

The Silhouette giveaway is open till tonight at 8 p.m. (Eastern time) -- and I had no idea Blogger limits comments to 5,000. Probably because I never thought I'd hit 5,000 ever. :)

So if you haven't entered yet, please do so on this post, and I'll include you in the giveaway! Good luck!

1. Leave a comment here.

2. Visit the Silhouette site here, take a look at what it can make, and pick one of your favorite ideas that you’d like to try. Come back and leave a comment telling me what that is.

3. Tweet about the giveaway with a link to this post.

4. Write about it on Facebook and link to this post.

5. Blog about it and link back to this post.

**The winner has to be in the US, due to customs and shipping. And a winner may only win one Silhouette, even if it's from a different host.

Silhouette Craft Cutter Giveaway!

Yep…you read that right. I get to give away another Silhouette Craft Cutter machine.

Please say it with me…

WHOO. HOO!!!

If you’ve read TDC for a while, you know how I’ve fallen in love with this machine:

We’re likethis. LOVE.

This giveaway is full of so much good news, you may just pass out from the greatness. Not only is one of you going to WIN one…but the folks at Silhouette are going to have a crazy, wild, amazing deal on these beauties next Monday – now affectionately known as Cyber Monday. :)

This deal is only valid on Monday, November 29, starting at 4 a.m. (Eastern time) and ending at midnight that day.

Get ready…the Silhouette, that’s normally sold for $299, will be sold for $199!

Aww yeah! Awesome!

They have also sweetened the deal with a few other goodies with purchase that day:

- One roll of Cream vinyl ($7.99)
- One roll of transfer paper ($7.99)
- Home decor CD (value $55)

That’s more than $70 in FREE stuff! All for only $199!! (If you’re doing the math, that's almost $200 in savings!)

You will have to use a discount code to get this saaahweet deal – I’ll be announcing that code first thing Cyber Monday morning so you can get the great discount!

This is the newest version with more capabilities and newest technology, (Silhouette is now available to MAC users too!) and they have NEVER sold them for this cheap.

The possibilities with this machine are endless – your gift budget could be cut in half with a little imagination and the Silhouette!

Here’s the different ways I’ve used it (click on the picture to get to the post):

Big. Fat. Sigh. It’s awesome. :)

And one of YOU will win one a Silhouette of your very own!

The winner of this giveaway gets ALL of the following:

A Silhouette Machine (a $299.99 value)

It will include...

- Software for Windows XP/Vista, Mac
- Power cable, USB cable
- Two cutting mats (one for thick media, one for thin media)
- One cutting blade
- $10 gift card to the Silhouette Online Store

Get ready…there’s a bunch of ways to enter!

1. Leave a comment here.

2. Visit the Silhouette site here, take a look at what it can make, and pick one of your favorite ideas that you’d like to try. Come back and leave a comment telling me what that is.

3. Tweet about the giveaway with a link to this post.

4. Write about it on Facebook and link to this post.

5. Blog about it and link back to this post.

That’s FIVE ways to win, if you’re counting. ;)

**The winner has to be in the US, due to customs and shipping. And a winner may only win one Silhouette, even if it's from a different host.

So there you go! Enter to win a Silhouette here this week -- the giveaway will end Sunday evening at 8 p.m.

I’ll announce the winner in the wee hours of Monday morning, and if you don’t win, you can order your own at 4 a.m. Cyber Monday – don’t forget to watch for the code on Monday’s post!

Have fun and have a wonderful Thanksgiving!!

The garage decrapification (again)

Awww, you SQUEEZIES. Thanks for your sweet comments this week. :) (If you haven’t seen The Nate Show segment, you can see it below. Ignore the cat.)

So, there’s one thing about blogging – I’m held accountable to finish up certain projects. I finished up one this week that I mentioned about six weeks ago. It would have been so easy to let the little final details slide till…oh…the spring. Or summer. Or next fall, when I’m sure I’ll have to tackle it all over again.

But I told you I’d show you…so I finished up and I’m showing you. I hate being responsible and stuff.
This all started when my Sis (affectionately known as Stink Eye) decided to go and get a new, boring, well paying, professional job instead of being my ~~minion~~ assistant. Whatev.

Before she started her new job, I paid her to help me out with a few spots in our house that were overwhelmingly full of crap. I showed you the completed Sanford and Son deck here, and this week I finished up the garage.

It was bad. BAD. Here you go:

Receipts all over the floor? Check.
Sheet hanging from wall? Check.
Christmas tree stand from eleven months ago? Check.
We are AWESOME.

Here’s the other side:

Chaise lounge waiting to be reupholstered? Check.
Weight machine we haven’t used in ~~five years~~ six months? Check.
No access to my BFF…my SAW…check. (That’s a problem.)

Here’s a closer look:

You can imagine my glee every time I had to get back there to cut something. And my saw sat on this since the day I got it:

It’s about 18 inches off the floor. Talk about comfortable! NOT.

So…the decrapifying started. It was fun. It felt GOOD. I think we took four SUV loads to Goodwill?:

I lost count. There were also three bins full of trash.

When I get to this point, I have zero patience for a garage sale or Craigslist. It has to go NOW. The weight machine was on Craigslist for two weeks for a steal, and no bites. So it, and most of the other stuff we didn’t use or need was GONE baby!

Once we got it cleared out, we took a trip to True Value for some organization goodies:

Ahh…just look at it. Beautiful!

My goal was to get anything and everything possible up and off the floor. If I could hang it, it was going up. We got some holders that worked great!:

And a TON of these:

I use these a lot just because they’re so easy to install and they hold quite a bit:

And we picked up a packet full of different sizes and shapes of these screw in organizers:

I hung everything:

Last year, I was trying to avoid spending much on the clean up, so I organized the back wall full of wire shelving as best I could:

But I gotta tell you, it was driving me NUTS. And open shelves meant we would stuff things into them wherever we could. It was a MESS. So this year, I made the investment and got a few storage pieces from Target:

OH MY GOODNESS. So, so, SO worth it. Ack!

I used my dollar store bins and tried to organize things by shelf:

Do you see my spray paint shelf and how it sags in the middle?

:) I’m just happy to have it all in one spot. Giddy, actually.

So here’s the before and after goodness – before, the pit of despair:

And after, with everything off the floor:

If I could hang the lawn mower, I would have. :)
Here’s my little workshop corner before:

And here it is now:

We had a light installed in that spot last year so I can see while using the major power tools. A good idea – I recommend it. ;)

I picked up another storage chest at True Value and it turned out to be a perfect spot for my saw!:

No more kneeling down for every cut!

I have to tell you something – my scrap wood was out of control. I’m not kidding. It was insane. But of everything, it was hardest for me to part with. I swear I was shaking – I love my molding peeps. Sis would stand in front of me, giving me a pep talk – Do you really need an eight inch piece of wood? Really? Do you really need the wood filled with nails? Really? Do you really need 200 scraps of beadboard? REALLY?

It was hard. I waffled often. I’d put something in the bin to get rid of it, then I’d sneak back, pick it up, think about it, take it out.

Then, when I wasn’t looking, STINK EYE got some red spray paint, went over to the bin and sprayed it all over the scrap molding I was supposed to be getting rid of.

CURSES! She’s brilliant! I hate her!
No really, I love her, but you know. I hate her and her smarty pants!

I did keep a fair amount and the smaller sections were organized on the wire shelving, the long pieces we placed in an old trash bin:

I cleaned up everything as best I could, including wiping down the black door I painted last year:

Don’t use cleaning wipes on a black door. They don’t work so well. :)

A little organization and a whole lotta decrapifying, and we have a garage that’s so much more relaxing:

It makes such a difference when we drive into this clean space every day! As always, the decluttering was FREE! And that is the very best part, in my opinion. :)

Of course, there’s some huge projects we haven’t tackled yet -- someday I’d love to paint the walls, but seriously, I have about 2,949 things I want to do before that. Our plan was to insulate and drywall the exterior walls this year, but we haven’t gotten to it. And I’d LOVE to do a treatment on the floors, but that requires taking everything out of there for days – and that gives me hives just thinking about it. :)
Is there a space you want to tackle before the holidays? I know, time is running out -- but everything we did only took about six hours, over two days. It was SO worth it!

Now, if I can just keep the Christmas tree stand out of there this year! That would be a first.

P.S. No idea why Live Writer is shrinking my text this week. Sorry you’re going to need glasses for this one!

*I was one of the bloggers selected by True Value to work on the DIY Squad. I have been compensated for my time commitment to the program as well as my writing about my experience. I have also been compensated for the materials needed for my DIY project. However, my opinions are entirely my own and I have not been paid to publish positive comments.*