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.

 

Thank you to my sponsor!:

A Blue and White Wedding

When I saw the photo of Minnie Mortimer's wedding reception in The New York Times, I thought the table looked beautiful.  I never found any more photos until last week when I was looking at Carolyne Roehm's website.  The rest of the details are just as lovely as I knew they would be and are definitely going in my wedding inspiration folder.  I also love that Minnie didn't wear a strapless dress.  They full announcement of her nuptials to director Stephen Gagan in the Vows section is worth the read.



Fold up workshop

Materials: Bekvam kitchen cart

Description: I used the kitchen cart as the core of a fold up mobile woodshop or craft station. I also use the same cart for mobile tool stands after making the necessary modifications.

~ Donald Henderson, Orleans Ontario Canada

Bookcase with scratching post and hammock

Materials:Expedit Bookcase, LACK Wall shelf, Shelves Carriers, Material from an old scratching post

Description: I took an Expedit bookcase and a LACK wall shelf to create a storage cabinet which also functions as a cat playground.

~ Siebrenna

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.*

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