Christmas Pillows

I decided to make some Christmas pillows this year.  After "pinning" a bunch this is what I ended up with!  For the first one I already had this plain red pillow and decided to add a white felt poinsettia to it.  I followed the tutorial found at centsational girl.  She sewed on her petals, but I just used hot glue since the pillow was already put together.

Very easy!  I love the pop of white against the red.

For my next two pillows I used the fabric I had leftover from my fabric poster board Christmas Trees (click here to see them).  I also got the great tip from Mandi over at Vintage Revivals to use feather pillow inserts from clearances pillows at TJ Maxx.  I found some clearance pillows for $5 and after throwing away the ugly cover, kept the feather inserts to use in my new Christmas pillows!

Here is my inspiration photo for a deer pillow I decided to try my hand at.  

The full tutorial is on the Sew Homegrown website (click here to see it).

Here is how mine turned out-

I did buy have to buy some red fabric for the deer head, I found it at Ben Franklin's.   The "inspiration" pillow looks a lot better than mine but I was afraid that if I tried my hand at zigzagging all the way around the deer head I would only make it look worse (not to mention I think it would take forever!).  So I just went all the way around the head with just a strait stitch.  Hopefully that is good enough!

Finally I used this picture from Ballard designs for my last pillow inspiration.

Basically, the same idea as the deer head.  I did zigzag around the ornaments on this pillow.  I found it a bit tricky, it's definitely far from perfect (but looks ok) - thankfully I made this one first and as a result decided NOT to zigzag all around the deer head!

And with that, I am wishing you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.  Look forward to BIG CHANGES next year  - we're planning to finish the basement (and more upstairs too)!  I'll keep you posted - see you in 2012!

Decking My Halls - Part 7

Christmas touches in the Kitchen and Dining Room

I added some red dishes to my kitchen hutch (I found them at TJ Maxx).

In the dining room I hung two wreaths together in each of the far windows.  Also I finally got a rug!!!!  It is my Christmas gift and I'm not about to wait to unwrap it!

Here it is close up.  It has a grey tone with different shades of blues and tans.  I love it - it ties in great with the colors I already had going on so that is nice.  It is from Ballard Designs (click here for more details).

Decking My Halls - Part 6

At Christmas time I like to switch out the pictures in my frames for more "Christmasy" ones along with red mats.  I keep the christmas photos and mats stored in the picture frames all year long then just rotate them to the front at Christmas time, then rotate back to the regular pictures once Christmas is done.  Same frames and same hanging arrangement so that makes it very easy!

Before

After

These ones are my favorite!  The bottom picture is of the LDS temple in Salt Lake City, we go there every Christmas time to see their beautiful light display - it's gorgeous!

Before

After

You can find the Christmas Subway Art Printable from this website.  I like that it has blue in it that ties in with my secretary desk.  The snowflake is one of my ornaments that I took a picture of, I played around with it using some picture editing software and then printed it out at Costco.

Decking My Halls- Part 5

We just got out house lights up.  I know - we are on the slow track this year!  

Our Elf is having fun around here too.

I am getting my elf ideas from Pinterest!  Or check out these two websites for lots of ideas.

(blossom bunkhouse, design dazzle)

I think on Christmas Day our elf might be holding our camera with this picture beside him for our kids - 

check out this website. 

Decking My Halls - Part 4, The Christmas Tree!

We finally got our tree up on Monday.  I had to wait for it to ship since I just purchased this new tree from Home Depot on line the day after Thanksgiving.  We needed a new tree for this house since our old 7 ft. tree looked way too short with our 10ft. ceilings (plus our old tree was not of the "pre-lit" variety, I'm excited for that upgrade!).  After some searching I decided on this one because it had good reviews, a good warranty, a lot of lights and branches, and it was a decent price (on sale it was $297 and they offered free shipping!).

Years ago I bought a red berry garland from Target and then cut it apart to create a bunch of berry "sprigs" that I could poke in the branches all over the tree.  Most of the balls on the tree are silver, some are large jingle bells.  I also have quite a few large metal stars that I spray painted red and use for ornaments.  The last thing I add to my tree are about 12-15 of these wire star strands, it adds some subtle sparkle.

at the end of the season I wrap them around my hand to create a small wire circle, then the next year when I  pull apart the wire circle it has a nice curly-cue effect that works well to stretch between the branches of the tree.

I'm not going to lie, it took FOREVER to spread all the branches out to make the tree look natural, I am hoping that since it is brand new -this year was the worst that process will ever be!  Otherwise I am really happy with it!

Decking My Halls - Part 3

Well this was fun while it lasted!

Unfortunately after only 2 days of misting the garland with water to try to keep it alive - the command hooks started popping off the wall.  They do not like water misting!

So I am converting to fake garland for my indoor arches!  

 For now I decided to use the live garland elsewhere.  Since it seems that live garland has a tough time indoors because of the dry heat that is constantly blowing around, I decided to move it outside.  Hopefully it won't dry out as quickly.  On the plus side, now I don't have to constantly clean up the droppings! 

For the rest of the outside decor I hung lit wreaths in the windows.  They were on sale for $5 each at the end of the season last year from Walmart.  

The wreath above the entrance way I got at Taipan for around $25 then added some sprigs of red berries and ornaments that I had on hand from end of last season sales as well.

It is so much cheaper to buy a plain wreath and add stuff to it yourself rather than buying one with ornaments or berries already on it.  At taipan the same wreath I bought with berries added doubled the price to over $50 (sprigs of berries don't cost that much and they are very easy to add to a wreath with some floral wire).

Decking My Halls - Part 2

Many of you already saw my fabric covered poster board Christmas trees (if you wan't instructions here is the original post).  Anyway they look great with some live garland on the sofa table.

Here is another favorite Christmas project I did a few years ago.  I got some Styrofoam sheets from the craft store then cut them out in the shape of letters.  For a pattern I just printed out the letters on my computer.

I then covered the letters in moss (just hot glued it on), and then glued berries on the fronts of the letters.  I love this star Christmas tree topper just sitting in the window next to it for some sparkle!

It's an easy project you could adapt for lots of different holidays and spell out lots of different words.  They now sell wood letters of all shapes and sizes which would make the project even easier - but it may be cheaper to go the styrofoam route!