20 Free Christmas Printables to Deck your Halls!

Hello there! I'm excited because this is my first holiday post of the season! Don't worry -- I won't be posting much Christmas decor for a couple more weeks, but I've joined in with a bunch of awesome bloggers for an Ultimate Christmas Round Up and together we are sharing 200 holiday ideas with you today!

I link to everything at the end of this post -- you'll be able to find everything from holiday cookies to  wreaths to mantels. It's a fantastic round of up of some beautiful Christmas inspiration! We shared these early so you have plenty of time to incorporate them into your home this season. :)

I'm sharing one of my favorites for any season -- free printables! You know I love 'em! I use printables for every season because they are a super cheap way to change up your decor and most importantly, pretty. :)

I've gathered 20 of my favorites for you! They include art you can frame, gift tags you can print out, a couple of kid-friendly options and even some cute labels for small bread loaves (totally using those). You'll need to visit each blog (at the link below the photo) to get the full resolution image to download:

Lil Luna/Joy to the World

The Domestic Heart/Merry Christmas

Today's Creative Life/Special Delivery Tags

Today's Creative Life/Christmas Animal Tags 

Chic Fetti/Tartan reindeer

Little Glass Jar/Tree Farm

Finding Silver Pennies/Holly Watercolor

Tatertots and Jello/Christmas bread printables

Tatertots and Jello/Christmas countdown printables

Crazy Little Projects/Christmas bingo

Yellow Bliss Road/Merry Little Christmas

Clean and Scentsible/Sleigh Rides

Mommy Suite/NOEL

Thirty Handmade Days/Spread Christmas Cheer

Ella Claire/Nativity Printable

Moritz Fine Designs/Christmas car

Shades of Blue/Silent Night 

The Cottage Market/Merry and Bright

On Sutton Place/Holly Jolly

Mad in Crafts/Filthy Animal

SO fun, right?? I love them all! That's what I love about these printables -- you can usually find exactly what you're looking for whether it be cute and fun or pretty and elegant.

Now you can check out the rest of the Ultimate Christmas Round Up tour! Each post has been created to bring you beautiful home design ideas, gift giving ideas or tasty and delicious recipes that are sure to delight your guests and family throughout the holiday season:

20 Awesome Christmas Appetizers & Party Ideas
{from Nest of Posies}

20 Gorgeous Christmas Tree Ideas
{from Ella Claire Inspired}

20 Beautiful Christmas Wreaths
{from Flamingo Toes}

20 Festive Holiday Drinks
{from Today's Creative Life}

20 Creative Christmas Gifts Ideas
{from Just Destiny Mag}

20 Free Christmas Printables to Deck your Halls
{from Thrifty Decor Chick}

20 Delicious Christmas Cookie Recipes
{from Clean and Scentsible}

20 Gorgeous Christmas Porches
{from Home Stories A to Z}

20 Handmade Christmas Ornaments
{from Positively Splendid}

20 Beautifully Styled Christmas Mantels
{from Tatertots and Jello}

20 Homemade Christmas Treats
{from Tidy Mom}

You can pin this image to remind yourself to check out all of the round ups later!:

Read More

Awesome before and after projects (and link up your own!)

Hello all! Guess what?! It's the first Monday of the month and I remembered that it's the day of the Before and After Link Up! I haven't been great at getting this up on time the past few nine months so this is a big deal for me. I'm getting old. ;)

As always, I show off some of the awesome projects linked up from last month first. I was blown away by April's pretty kitchen makeover!:

SO lovely! I love all of her little details in this space -- those lights and the chairs are my favorites.

If you are considering a kitchen makeover but the cost of new countertops is too much, you need to check out Jennifer's post on how to build your own laminate counters:

Laminate has come such a long way! Doesn't that look like soap stone? She shares a great tutorial on how to do this project -- it's a fraction of the cost of buying them ready-made. 

Jenny shared a couple more awesome kitchen makeovers -- if you remember she's the one who came over and taught me how to paint our kitchen cabinets like a pro. She has been busy painting oak cabinets left and right since then!: 

I LOVE these dark gray cabinets with the pretty white backsplash! 

Megan showed how they built a DIY countertop over their front loaders in the laundry room: 

I know many want to do the same and she shares every step of the process. What a great, spacious spot to stand and fold clothes!

Samantha shared her home dressed up for fall and her dining room is such a pretty space!:

You can see more of her fall home tour at the link!

Becca's sunroom is gorgeous -- they added a little something to this space that added to the character even more: 

Oh man, I want to get cozy on that sofa and read for hours! This is such a peaceful room.

If you'd like to be considered for next month's round up, please link to TDC in your post or you can copy and paste this code into your post:

<div align="center"><a href="http://www.thriftydecorchick.blogspot.com/" title="TDC Before and After" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.homestoriesatoz.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/beforeAndAfterButton_thumb1.gif" alt="TDC Before and After" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

Now let's see what you've been up to recently! Can you believe we only have two months left of 2016? It's blowing my mind!

Read More

My favorite recent projects and posts!

Well hello! Hope you have a wonderful weekend planned!

I'm back with another round up of posts from the past few months today. I used to do this monthly but I don't remember to do it most of the time -- so now you get them in batches of two or three months. ;) It's always nice to look back and what I've accomplished around here and it may show you something you've missed!

I finished up our loft makeover at the end of the summer -- I shared how I made the giant chalkboard for this space:

This is a room that's meant for the whole family so I wanted to make it a fun space. We created a Disney art wall that we'll add to over time. We are going back to Disney World soon and I can't wait to add new memories to this wall!:

You can see how we made that Disney pin art in that post as well! 

I showed you how I made the large desk with butcher block and how I finished it here: 

I also shared my new favorite sanding technique in that post -- it is a SUPER cool trick! 

If you missed the reveal on this room, here was the before: 

And here's a shot of the after: 

You can see all of the before and after photos here and find out sources for all of the projects and items in this post. 

I had heard that Magnolia Farms had come out with a less expensive furniture and accessory line (they already had a higher end line I'd seen in boutique stores). I decided to check it out at our local store and shared the pieces with you:

It sounds like they are available all over the country, just at different stores. I loved the furniture but the accessories were my favorite part! 

I did a little fall crafting with some items from the Target dollar spot:

This post was a favorite -- I shared the MANY ways I've added character to our "builder" home over the years: 

That one is chock full of before and afters, which I love! Seeing the progress we've made over the years is so satisfying. 

I completely made over our mud room and absolutely LOVE how it turned out: 

It went from a dark space to light and bright and it fits in so much better with the rest of our house now. It was a ton of work but totally worth it!

On a recent trip to IKEA I took a side trip to the Ballard outlet and got a fantastic deal on this new light fixture for over the table: 

I'm still obsessed with it. :) You can see the other new flush mount lights in that post as well. 

Barn doors are still the rage and I don't think they're going anywhere! I shared some of my favorite barn door tutorials for both modern and rustic versions: 

It's been four years since we finished our basement and it was time to do something about the carpet down there. It was not the best decision in our house full of animals (and the kid!) to have carpet. 

We put down new water-resistant flooring, moved the furniture around and started the fireplace build:

That space was completely transformed with those changes! We were getting really excited about it. :)

Then we decided the fireplace needed a hearth, so we had that added and the mantel as well:

You can see the tile we picked out and where I got it in the post too. I started tiling and staining (check out my Instagram account for progress along the way) but it's sat about a third of the way done for a couple weeks. I'm hoping to finish up the tile in the next week or so! 

Because we pulled out everything to install the flooring we went ahead and added to our basement kitchenette as well: 

We've been wanting to do that for awhile but waited till the carpet was torn out. As you can see this project isn't done, but we LOVE it so far! It'll be great to have more counter space when we entertain and the beverage/wine fridge has been awesome. 

Our basement is going to be the bomb when we're done with these projects. At least we think so. :) I want to have them all done by the end of this month.

And finally, because we've had such a beautiful fall (although a little warm for me at times), I took advantage of it and spray painted this piece I found from the Habitat Restore: 

I transformed it into the bar cart I had always wanted and LOVE it. It's such a pretty addition to our home. 

There you go -- some of my favorite projects and updates from the past couple of months! Did you miss one? My favorite has to be our loft/office/craft room redo. We use it nearly every day now and before we used it maybe once a month. I'm writing you from this space right now! :) Have a great one!

Read More

How to make your own hand lettered signs!

Hey hey! I've got a cauute DIY sign to share with you today! This has been in the works for weeks -- I had a scrap piece of wood cut down back in September and painted it...and then let it sit while I tackled other projects. This is how I do things around here. 

The other day I finally sat down at my computer to finish it up. I saw this phrase on a sign in a store months ago and knew I wanted to make my own. I think it's just perfect for our family room:

The sign is about 14 inches by a couple feet so I played around with the size of the words to fit the wood. I used two fonts -- the script is free one called Stonestick. Do you recognize the other font? Once I say it you'll be all oh yeahhhh...it's the Pottery Barn font and you can download that for free too. (Just do a search and they should come up.)

I've shared a couple different lettering techniques for signs over the years -- this one is more of a stencil version and this one is perfect for chalkboard lettering. For this sign I did another technique similar to the chalkboard version. 

I cut out the words to space them out how I wanted (as you can see above) and then taped them to the wood. Then I traced the words with a pen: 

You want to press hard enough so that the pen leaves an imprint on the wood. It's not crazy hard -- you can pull up the paper to see how it's doing during the process. (Just make sure to lay it back exactly in the same spot!) I used a cheap ball point pen for this. 

Here's how the words looked after I traced: 

Do this on a sunny day or near a light so you can position the wood in a way that makes it easy to see the imprint. 

I used paint pens and followed the imprint to paint the letters onto the wood:

I've also used the Elmer's paint pens in the past -- here's the medium tip and here's the fine tip version. 

You can use a brush but you need to have a really steady hand! I'm not that talented. :) I prefer the paint pens because you can really control your writing: 

As you can see, it doesn't have to be perfect because you'll be filling it in. You can make adjustments as you go and that's another reason I like the pens -- it's way easier to make small fixes. 

I used the thin paint pen for the tracing and smaller areas and the larger one for the bigger letters:

Then I stained a piece of wood in one of my favorite stain colors (Provincial by Minwax) and framed the art with it. 

Oh my goodness. I love it!:

It will stay up all year but it looks perfect with the fall decor, right? 

So cozy!: 

I love the combo of the two fonts -- and I have to say, I like my version even better than the one I saw in the store! I'm really digging that Pottery Barn font. 

It leans against the large mirror I made years ago. This Everett hall table is still one of my favorite pieces in our house. I love the pretty finish on it and the hardware I added years ago:

We see the sign right when we walk in the house and and it makes me smile every time! And yes, those baskets hold dog toys and basketballs. Form and function at it's best! 

It's simple but sweet -- it is always SO good to be home!

Have you tried this lettering technique? I actually find it soothing -- I find the tracing and coloring in to be relaxing. :)

If you love the look of signs that are so popular right now this is such an easy DIY project -- it just takes time. I finished the tracing, letters and filling in under an hour while I watched TV. This cost me the price of the piece of wood for the frame and the paint pens -- after coupons it was less than $10!

Here's an image to pin for later if you'd like to try this yourself!:

Read More