Merry Christmas!

I know that Christmas is less than a week away but I'm going to take a small break. David is off work until the new year and we will be spending lots of time together as a family.

I wanted to share a few random tidbits about me and Christmas.

* David and I have only had a real tree once or twice since getting married. We were given a fake by my grandparents after getting married. Then a few years ago we purchased one with the lights attached and I gotta say it's hard to beat.

* We don't have a "theme" for our tree and never have. We always have random ornaments that we've collected over the years and I love it! Maybe someday we might if we have enough room to have 2 trees.

* We usually celebrate Christmas with David's side a week before Christmas due to his brother's work schedule. We actually really like doing it this way because we get to spread out the fun rather than having it all smooshed into 2 days.

*David and I don't like the traditional Christmas food fare. My side will do the traditional food, but when we celebrate with friends or his side it's always something non-traditional. This year it will be sandwiches with his side and street tacos with the friends and vodka pasta for us.

* We celebrate Christmas with our besties "the K's" every year. We take turns hosting the celebration and we girls get excited because we know that we get to use our china at least every other year!

* David and I actually like going to the mall on Christmas Eve. We are never there to shop (we're always done before then) but we love to go and watch people and just take in the Christmas spirit. We try to do it every year.

* When David and I were engaged he wanted to start a new tradition and picked going to a movie on Christmas Eve. We included my sisters and kept it up until Trey came along. We'd like to restart it again in the future when Trey is old enough to enjoy the movie.

* David and I exchange gifts and stockings with each other as well as with Trey. David loves doing stockings.

* We love Christmas music. Our favs are: anything by Bing Crosby, Oh Holy Night, I'll be Home for Christmas and the Chipmunks.

*Our favorite  Christmas movies are: White Christmas, Christmas Carol and a Christmas Story.

* We go to a Christmas Eve service every year. This year we'll be going to LifeChurch's service.

* This year we'll be celebrating just the 3 of us on Christmas Eve and my side on Christmas Day.

* Every year David and I open our gifts to each other Christmas morning (with Trey now of course). He usually fixes cinnamon rolls the day before and then we bake them when we wake up. We start a fire and turn on some music and then exchange gifts. This year we'll be fixing something different for breakfast, something with a lot less sugar!

* My side of the family is big on traditions, David's isn't at all. With my side we read the Night Before Christmas and then the Christmas story from the Bible before we exchange gifts.

 Thank you for taking time to read my words, it means a lot to me! I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy Holiday's.

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Christmas Pillow Covers

Last year I saw some pillow covers on Etsy that I loved. But I didn't love the price especially since I thought I could make them myself. I never got around to it before Christmas last year, so it was on my list for this year.

Here's my version.

I have 2 throw pillows on my couch with removable covers and that's where I wanted my new covers.

I found some scrap fabric in the remnant pile at the store. I think it's a soft burlapy kind of fabric. I had enough to make 2 covers and whipped those up pretty quick. Then they sat on my desk for a long time.

I knew I wanted to use my cricut to make some stencils and then use fabric paint. I used some freezer paper to cut the stencil and then used my iron, without steam, to get it stick to the fabric temporarily. I'd never used the freezer paper as a stencil before but it worked really well. I guess since I ironed it down it kept paint from seeping under it.

I didn't have the exact color green I wanted so I just mixed 2 together to get what I wanted. After painting the words I just peeled the paper off easily.

All done!

Here's a couple of other views.

I really like how they turned out. I wanted them to add a little Christmas without being busy and they look great! And very inexpensive to make since I only bought the fabric and it was super cheap. Yeah!

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Christmas Decor '11

Ok, here's my Christmas decor for this year. I have to say I'm enjoying it much more this year. I've parred down and added simple items. I used a lot of pine cones and some Christmas tree branches cut from my sister's tree for most areas.

First our bedroom. The white is salt, used for making ice cream, in a glass bowl that was my grandmother's. I did buy a couple of packages of glass balls in the turquoise and teal. The bowl is sitting on a very old reprint of The Night Before Christmas and a copy of I Believe (it actually was a botched print as there are 3 copies of the story bound in one book).

Just a simple set up which brings a bit of Christmas to our room without making it cluttered and heavy. Glass balls, pine cones, tree branches and this lovely little sign.

This set up is in our master bathroom. I really love how this looks with some tree branches, a vase I found this summer at a garage sale, a canvas I painted last year and a clearance glass ball. So simple, light and natural. LOVE it!

This is in Trey's room. The house was given to me by my grandmother my first Christmas. It's suppose to plug in and be a sort of nightlight and a music box that winds in the back. It has pics of Santa and elves and reindeer on it. Over the years the cord has been damaged and so it won't light up but the music box part still works. One day I want to get the cord fixed. I had the pics of me receiving the Santa house framed years ago, so I always set them up together. And of course it seems fitting to put it in Trey's room.

We put our tree by the fireplace this year. Since we don't have any furniture right there usually I liked the idea of not moving something out. I like it there by the fireplace especially when we light a fire.

My glass nativity set on a china plate with greenery and my coffee table basket with left over glass balls in a bowl from my great aunt with greenery.

Our piano. The green frame is up all year long, I just found a Christmas printable on Pinterest and stuck it in there. The silver vase I bought last year and just stuck some fake branches in it along with some more greenery. The candlesticks were glass that I spray painted to look like mercury (I'll share about that some other time). I used some extra glass balls on a china plate under a small cake dome. The sign in the back is hard to see even in real life, it's a canvas I painted last year, it says Believe.

This is not a very clear/good pic but I still wanted to throw it in. The bottom shelf is another free printable from Pinterest, with my nativity snow globe. The next shelf just pine cones, glass and greenery. The picture is the original print of one of the pictures from David's book. The artist we hired was so kind in sending us all his original works for the book. I wanted to use some of them around the house since they are special to us and I love that they are black and white so they fit in easily.

The top shelf. I just stuck a bunch of greenery in the vase that's usually up there, a clearish Santa sign leaning on the books, a large Santa ornament and another book illustration. The next shelf is the stacking dolls my parents got while in Germany. It's sitting on a red plate with some antique glass ornaments from my grandmother.

And last but not least my mantle. It looks SO much better since last year! I was so excited to decorate it this year since I redid it in May I used an apothecary jar from last year and used some more salt in the bottom then added pine cones and 2 shades of green glass balls. A pine smelling candle with some greenery. The 3 glass jars are mason jars from my stash that have more salt with a votive on top. I got this idea from Pinterest as well and it looks great at night when they are lit with the glass and the mirror reflection. And it was cheap and simple. The joy canvas is one I painted last year as well and one of my favorites.

Overall I'm very pleased with how things have turned out. I've mostly achieved my goal of a simple, natural Christmas. I wanted to bring in Christmas without it being busy and cluttered. I wanted to have light fresh colors, greens, whites, turq/teal, silver and then the rustic browns of nature.

Love it!

I have one more thing that I want to put up, that's in the works, I'm hoping to be able to share before Christmas! I'll be sure and let you know!

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Christmas Table Scape

 In years past I'd decorate every surface with tons of "Christmasy" decor. It would be so overwhelming and cluttered and claustrophobic and I couldn't wait till Christmas was over to get my house back. Over the past couple of years I've been downsizing our Christmas decor, getting rid of stuff I didn't love. This year I'm really trying to decorate with natural items, soft colors and use my china and glassware.

So this is what I came up with for my dinning table. Trey and I have been picking pine cones around the neighborhood for a couple of months so I had tons to decorate with. I found the white platter at Target and the glass balls at Hobby Lobby on sale. Then I made a table runner with some burlap from Hancocks.

I love the way it looks and I love the way it fits in with the way the room is already decorated. And best of all it doesn't feel cluttered!
Ok here's a few other pics of it.

 
I'll show off more Christmas decor pics soon, as soon as I can get some decent pics.

I'd love to see your pics of your Christmas table. Share a link or post a pic.

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Turning King Sized Pillowcases into Standard Size

Like I mentioned in my headboard post I picked up some new sheet sets over Thanksgiving weekend, well actually Black Friday sales. David loves to check out the sales, and we were in need of some new sheets. We have a king sized bed but we use 3 standard sized pillows instead of 2 king size. Well, if you buy king sized sheets they give you 2 king pillowcases. This obviously doesn't work for us.

I was planning on just buying some standard cases, but was dreading it. The cheapest I could find 2 standard pillowcases was $10 and I needed 9 (3 per set, 3 sets). I just didn't want to do that. Then one day I was looking at the king cases and thought I could convert them to standard.

I had some cases from my previous sets that were never used and 6 new cases. So, I had enough for what I needed! Yeah!

Ok, here's how I turned my king pillowcases into standard cases.

I first measured the standard case to see how long it was, 29". And then I measured the cuff, 4". After looking at the way some cases were cuffed I decided the best way to convert it was to cut the cuff off and make my own.

I measured off 33" from the end of the case (29 +4=33) and cut the cuff off.

Then I turned the case inside out and folded a cuff down about 4 1/2 to 3/4". I wasn't exact, just ballpark. Then I ironed the top to create a crease that would be the top of the case.

Then I folded the raw edge up about 1/4", again not exact. And I ironed it too.

Then turn the case right side out and smooth the folds into place and pin it. You don't have to pin it but I don't mind pinning if it makes things stay in place while I sew, because I like to sew fast if I can.

I wanted the cuff to have a little personality to them so I picked out a pretty turquoise thread and found a stitch on my machine that I thought would look good.

I like to start sewing at the edge because it hides the start and stop parts a little more. I lined up the inside edge of the cuff with the opening on my foot as much as I could. Since my cases are white I could see it and used that as my line to keep it mostly straight as I sewed. In the picture I'm pointing to the edge which you can't see in the picture but could in real life. This was a very easy project but it did take a while because I was working on 9.

I really love how they turned out! They fit perfectly into our room and I love that I was able to use what I had and didn't have to buy new cases or supplies! Woo-hoo!

This bedroom is slowly coming together in a way I'm very happy with. I have a couple more projects still till it's going to be called "done". 

So have you ever turned king pillowcases into standard? Would you like to?

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Have you Read this Book?!

For those that don't know, my hubby, David wrote a Christmas book a few years ago. It's a story about believing.

We have a blog called I Believe in Christmas that talks all about Christmas. You can find chapters of the book in the archives or you can order a paper copy. And we hope to have a free audio version available soon as well!

We'd love for you to go check out the blog all season long for fun facts, stories and Christmas spirit!
Merry Christmas!

A New Headboard!

I finally got our headboard made! It only took me 2 years.... I've been itching for an upholstered headboard since we got our new bed 2 years ago. I've been pinning headboards on Pinterest for a while to get some inspiration.

After a lot of thinking about what I liked, what I was willing to build and how much it would cost. I decided on a slight curve on the top with nail head trim around the edges. I found the fabric in the remnant pile at Hancocks. It's an upholstery fabric in a dark greyish-brown.
This was my inspiration pic of what I wanted to make.

Source

I'm going to give a rough tutorial on this, or rather what I did.

Since I wanted a slight curve on the top of the headboard, I took the plywood to my dad to cut the curve for me. After cutting it down to the size we wanted (38"x76"), we found the middle and I used some freezer paper to to draw half of a curve, then flipped it over to the other half. This is so both sides are exactly the same. Then my dad cut it using his jigsaw.

I took it home and sanded all the edges down and wiped it down with a wet cloth. I brought it inside and laid it down on the floor of our bedroom to work on. I started by cutting the foam down to size. When it fit just right I used some spray adhesive on the plywood and then laid the foam on top using heavy books to keep it in contact with the adhesive.

If you do this I have some tips. 1. I wouldn't suggest doing this inside unless you can open some windows (which I did). 2. It's a spray so there will be over-spray. Use a drop cloth.

I also sprayed the top of the foam and laid down some quilters batting. This helps hide the foam seams and softens the edges. I highly recommend this step. The batting was about $5 with a coupon at Hancocks (or JoAnn's or Hobby Lobby), for a package. I have a king sized bed so using the batting for a twin sized quilt (it says on the package) was perfect.

While waiting for all the adhesive to dry, I cut my fabric to size and ironed it.

Then I flipped the headboard up so I could lay the fabric down and then flipped the board over. This was the fun part in my opinion. I like to staple!

Pic courtesy of Trey

I'm sure there are tons of ways to do this and everyone has their own way so find what works for you. For me, I like to start on one end and staple it with a few staples, then move to the next side. When I get to a side that the opposite side has been stapled (clear as mud?) I start pulling to get it good and tight.

Now, for me after I finished putting in just a few staples on all sides I flipped it up and saw a big wrinkle. So, I just stood it up and pulled staples out of the top and redid all the staples pulling it as tight as I needed.

I was intending on using nail head trim all around the edges but I ran into a few problems. First, I didn't have anywhere near enough. I'd bought 4 packages of 24. I knew I didn't have enough but that's all I could get my hands on locally. Second, I think I should have done them before stapling the whole thing, but I didn't know for sure. After talking with David about it we decided to go without. I'd looked on Amazon for nail heads and it would have cost me about $25 to get the rest of the trim and I wasn't willing to do that. We also figured that if at a later time we wanted it we could probably do it.

We decided to hang the headboard on the wall instead of hooking it to the frame. We wanted it to be very secure. My dad suggested using a 2x4 attached to the wall (in the studs) then attach another to the headboard and then sit the hb 2x4 on top of the wall 2x4 and then screw 4" screws into both boards from the top. I hope that makes sense, if not and you want to know what I mean leave a comment and I'll try to explain better.

Ok, so after all of that, we were done!!! We put the mattresses back, remade the bed (with my new $17 king size sheets from Kohl's, thank you Black Friday!) And 2 weeks ago I made some new throw pillow covers. I love the patterned ones, they add so much life to the room. I tend to lean to monochromatic in my decorating, even when I try not to! So this touch of bold pattern (it's bold for me!) is just right for this room.

I LOVE IT! It finally feels like a real bed, and not just a set of mattresses shoved against the wall! It's cushy to lean on too. The wall that our bed is on is an outside wall and we have an old house and so in the colder months that wall is cold and without a headboard you could feel the cold air seeping into the bed. Now our bed will stay cozy! And David loves it too.

Ok here's a before:

And now the after again:

SO much better!

So that was my big project finally finished! If feels so good to be done and I'm so happy with the way it turned out.

Have you ever made a headboard? Was it upholstered or something else?

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Plant Pot Cover Tutuorial

Happy Thanksgiving! This will be my last post till next week, while I spend time with the family and work on completing some projects to share next week!

A couple of weeks ago I shared about some things that I'd received from my great-aunt, one being a plant stand. Well, I just found out that it wasn't originally a plant stand. It was my great-great-grandmother's pedestal that she kept in her foyer with a basket on top to collect calling cards from her guests! I thought that was so cool!

Anyway, I had 2 plants in the living room sitting right next to each other on the little stool. But the pedestal only has room for one plant so I took the other to our bedroom and moved the stool.

I've been trying to figure out what to put on the dresser and I really like the plant there.

However.

I did not like the pot it was in, so I decided to cover it.

Several years ago, we were at a Christmas party and they were having a dirty Santa/white elephant thing going on. And one of the "gifts" was a plant cover supposedly from Pottery Barn. I snagged it because I knew I could use it. I've always liked it.

So I set out to make something similar.

Here's what you need:
concrete form
knife (not a good kitchen knife)
spray paint (optional)
painter's tape or masking tape
fabric
hot glue gun/glue
fabric glue (optional)
trimming (optional)
lavender oil

I picked up a concrete form at Lowe's for about $8, it was on the side wall in the lumber dept. It's more than you will need for this project but you never know what you could use the rest for in the future!

Then at home I checked to see if it would fit around my pot and it wouldn't. SO, I decided to change pots to a skinnier version. The new pot didn't have a water catcher thing on the bottom so I found a plastic party plate to put under it. My pot is intended for outside use not indoor plants but that's all I had on hand. The concrete form only comes in one size, so it was either come up with another option or get a new pot.

After moving the plant around, I measured how tall I wanted the cover to be. In my case I chose 9" tall. And then marked the form on one end all the way around.

Then I used some painters tape to mark a horizontal line around the form.

Now take an old knife or one you can sharpen, I have what I call a garage knife (old kitchen knife) and started cutting along the tape, using it as a guide. I also used the tape to help keep the edges a bit smoother. It probably isn't that big of a deal but if nothing else it helped give me a clear line for cutting.

After cutting it I kind of smoothed the raw edge as much as I could (it's just heavy duty cardboard). Then I took it out to the garage to paint it. Since the form is an orange color I didn't want it to show through my fabric, so I grabbed a can of grey primer and just gave it a quick coat. The lettering will still show through but I wasn't worried about that, just covering the orange.

If your fabric is dark or thick you could skip this step.

It didn't take very long to dry. I sprayed it then jumped in the shower and it was completely dry.

Now the fun part!

I got my fabric in a remnant pile for less than $1. It's a small weave, soft burlap type of fabric. I measured out it out, I wanted at least an inch of an overhang on the bottom and a couple on the top, so I cut it 12" tall. As far as how wide I didn't measure, I did a dry run with the fabric around the form and made sure I had enough to overlap.

I then ironed a "hem" of about a 1/4" on both ends. I didn't want a raw edge to show when I overlapped the ends. Then I used some fabric glue to glue the hem down. You could use hot glue if you don't have fabric glue. I used the fabric glue because I knew it would hold the fabric down flatter than the hot glue, which can leave bumps. Of course the edges would be in the back but sometimes I get picky about these things.

Then I started hot-gluing the fabric around the form. I glued the first edge, then every few inches I'd glue a little more. I wanted to make sure it didn't slide or gape. Then glue the second edge down.

Next start gluing one of the ends. I ran a very small amount of glue along the edge of the fabric. Then do the other end.

Now, you are probably wondering why I put lavender oil on the list of things you will need. When working with hot glue, you WILL burn yourself. So be prepared to treat that burn. Two days after making this I still have a blister.....

Lastly trim it out with some ribbon, twine, rope whatever you want.

Now it fits in with the room a LOT better and adds a bit of character. When this plant grows some more and fills in at the top it will look better.

I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. For less than $10, it's a great solution.

Now to figure out what else to put on the dresser! I'm on a bit of another master bedroom workover. I'm excited about the new changes and can't wait to share them when they are completed. I'm hoping to share them next week. And one of them is BIG!

Ok, so do you have ugly plant pots that need to be covered? Have you already covered any? Any master bedroom decorating plans?