Christmas Crafts and Decor

Well our first Texas Christmas has come and gone. The gifts are unwrapped, family has gone home, and the decorations are taken down scattered around the house. This post is painfully overdue, but I was busy and that's just how it's going to be.

Let's take a quick tour of all the decorations and craftiness that kept me so busy this holiday season...

We'll start outside with our Christmas lights.

This was the first year that either Jeremy or myself had ever decorated a house ourselves. Let me tell you, its a lot easier when you're little and your parents do the manual labor. That aside, it was pretty nice to be able to put the decorations up and not have it be 300 degrees below zero outside.

However, I totally could've lived without having to redo the lights twice a few times. Since someone thought my first layout looked "hokey," a quick trip to Lowe's (and a second afternoon outside) solved the problem. I'll be fair, I really did like the way our lights turned out in the end... but I'll be happier next year when I already know where everything is going to go before I start.

Anyway, lets stop at our front door on our way inside.

This is a tulle wreath that I made thanks to some inspiration I gained from Pinterest. It looks complicated, but if you can tie a knot you can make this wreath. I'm thrilled with how it turned out, and I plan on posting step-by-step instructions for the wreath I'll be making for Valentine's day. So check back for that post if you're interested in having your own tulle wreath.

Moving forward... our dining room.

We hate our chandelier. Let me just start off by making that statement. However, in terms of Christmas decor, it was great to decorate. Some icicle ornaments and ribbons perked it right up. I strung together some glass balls with fishing line to make the little grouping on the bottom.

On the table, I added a basket of the same glass balls I used on the chandelier.

On the wall, I made a simple yarn wreath and attached a pointsettia. Oh, you want directions for that? Wrap yarn around a styrofoam wreath form. Seriously, that's it. Not even kidding.

I also added some Christmas scrapbook paper and little crystal twigs to our frames. The total cost was about $3.00 and it really helped add to the holiday feel of the decor. The crystals are a little bit hard to see in the picture, but they're there.

Now if you'll follow me into our living room...

To visually "fill out" the mantle I wrapped some 1"-thick styrofoam sheets like packages and placed them behind our decorations.

The peppermint wreaths hanging in front are, you guessed it, more simple DIY. This time, instead of yarn, I wrapped the styro wreath forms in ribbon.

I should also mention that the wreaths are hanging from a curtain rod. The rod is supported by 2 stocking holders. While I didn't buy stockings this year, in the future I'll be able to hang decorations and stockings without having to buy lots of over-priced holders. Its another great idea I stole from Pinterest.

While these next pictures aren't of decor, they're still some other DIY projects that I managed to turn out before losing my mind running out of time before Christmas.

The top picture is of the Christmas cards that I made. Yes, they're a little unconventional, but so am I so they worked out well. Plus everyone seemed to like them, so who am I to argue? The bottom picture is of two very special gifts that went out to two very special ladies in FL and MA. I'll address the gifts in a separate post, since they were also DIY, but I just wanted to plant the seed into your imaginations as to what could be inside of those boxes that is epic enough to warrant its own post. Stay tuned...

So there you have it. Our Christmas, briefly summed up in photos. We were lucky enough to share the time with my parents who came down from NJ to celebrate with us... which is the real reason I was too busy to post this earlier. They thoroughly enjoyed themselves, despite the fact that they were here during the only week that we had cold/rainy weather. This of course did not stop my dad from golfing, but he did return home with a lovely cold as a reminder of his determination.

I hope y'all enjoyed your holiday season as much as we did, and welcome to 2012!