More Christmas Home Decor

The house is finally ready!  The air is getting colder!  The smell of firewood is in the air!  I even saw a few snowflakes in the sky!!  Christmas time is near!  I finally finished (at least for today) our interior and exterior home decorations.  I wanted to share a few with you. :)

This is SO easy to do.  It did take some time, but easy.  All you need are some Dollar Store ornaments, some floral wire or string or fishing line, garland and ribbon.  Just start hanging each ornament one by one in the center of your chandelier until the desired effect is complete.  I started with the lowest ornament first and just started filling in the gaps.  Smallest on bottom and largest on top.  You can do this with all the same color like I did, or with several different colors to match your decor.  I just wrapped the garland around the spokes of my chandelier and attached the ribbon to the shades with straight pins.  I tried tape first, but it didn't stick.

 

Here is is with our centerpiece.

I found this subway art on another blog and of course I can't remember which one.  I LOVE it because it really embraces the true reason of Christmas.  I also like that I placed it near our nativity scene. I find it fitting.

This snow village was a surprise find for me!  I purchased a box of outdoor garland/lights at a garage sale and when I went to unpack the box this season I found this in the bottom!!  I only spent $5 on the box of garland, so this was EXCELLENT!!

This was also a Dollar Tree decor choice!  I hung a wreath on the inside of our back door so that I could enjoy it! :)

This advent calendar is a family favorite! I found it a few years ago at Walgreen's and every year I restock the boxes with candy and activities and reuse it!  The kids LOVE this and look forward to it every morning!

This is our Family Christmas Tree.  This tree doesn't come out until after Thanksgiving when the whole family gathers round to decorate it. We put on Christmas Music and let the boys go to town.  Most of the ornaments are on the bottom 1/3 of the tree.  I love it though! 

No, that is not a fire wood holder.  It is a manger.  A good friend of ours made this for us and the boys so that we can teach our children about the meaning of Christmas.  We don't put presents under the tree until Christmas Eve when the boys go to sleep.  We really didn't want our children focusing on what they were getting as gifts the whole month.  Instead, we have this manger under the tree to represent the greatest gift we have ever received...Jesus in the form of a baby to save us from our sins.  On Christmas Day, when they wake up, baby Jesus is laying in the manger in swaddling clothes.  We then sing Happy Birthday to Jesus and open our gifts.  I cherish this tradition!

Up the stairs to the playroom/guest room. 

 This is our entry way looking from the family room.

I have also hung a wreath on almost every window in the house! 

On the windows with the Christmas tree, I hung candy canes from ribbon so that the tree lights could be seen from the street!

 

Here is our Formal Christmas Tree

Garland above the windows in the Formal Rooms

 

This is in the kitchen over our sink.

A little personal family Christmas card display from years past and present.

These are our kitchen cabinets where I am displaying all of our incoming Christmas cards from around the world! :) (We have friends in England, Estonia and Asia)

 

Here is what our outdoor Christmas lights look like!

That's the Formal Christmas Tree on the left.



Candy Corn Inspiration

Happy October!

Halloween is getting closer, so I figured it would be a good time to put up my Halloween mantle!  As I mentioned in another post, we do celebrate Halloween, but not the scary part of it.  For our family, Halloween is a fun time to dress up in fun costumes and get candy.  We participate in a soup night, all the trunk or treats that we can fit into our schedule and eat a lot of candy.  My boys love Halloween because everyone plays dress up.  Even P and I dress up! It's just fun!

So anyway, I want to be festive and decorate for the holiday, but wasn't really sure what I should do.  Along came Pinterest and craft-a-poluza again! :)  Most of these are not my original ideas.  I've just pieced a few things together that I found from other blogs!  I've posted the links to their tutorials if you want to find out how to make all these really cute things.  If you have any questions, I'd be glad to answer them.  Just leave a comment and tell me what you think!!

So here's my Halloween mantle!!

After I decided on a candy corn inspiration, I really wanted to concentrate only on the colors orange, white, yellow and black.  I changed our family pictures out for only black and white ones.  I chose decorations that only fit this theme, and bought some fun edible ones as well. :)

So let's break it down!

First, I started with some good 'ol Polyfill from the fabric store to line the mantle with to create a "smoky" or "cobweb" type look. Again, I have my candle sticks with my pumpkins.  I found these pumpkins at the Dollar Tree.  They are carveable, if I ever decided to to that with them. :)

Next, I came across this adorable subway art at eighteen25.  She has a whole year's worth of subway art downloadables!!  Usually our subway art goes on a table between our kitchen and family room, but it was too perfect not to make it to the mantle this time. :)

In the center of the mantle, I have what started this whole mantle theme...Candy corn bottles.  I saw this done on Ashbee Design, but she took the step by step instructions from The Swell Life.  It's really easy to do and a great idea to recycle all of our empty wine and iced tea bottles!  I was really excited to see we had an old Snapple bottle! I figured that I'd play up the "S" since I LOVE monograms and it is ours. :)

Moving on...I also saw these apothecary jars on Pinterest from The Autocrat.  She again, got her step by step instructions from Shanty 2 Chic. I did look at both of these blogs and decided to come up with a version of my own!

I actually used pickle jars (again something from our recycle bin), old dresser drawer knobs, and some candle sticks that I found at our local Salvation Army Thrift Store.  I painted it with some left over spray paint from my dining room chairs!  The whole project cost me only $3!!!  Well, if you count the candy corn, closer to $6. :)

Before:

After:

Super cute don't you think?! I can't wait to transform these into the different seasons too!

As I was browsing Pinterest for pictures of Halloween Mantles, I noticed that candelabras are very popular for this season, so I picked this one up at Salvation Army as well for $0.75.  The letters I got at Hobby Lobby and painted to match the theme.  They were originally going to go in the apothecary jars, but I liked them here instead. :)

Remember these branches from my fall mantle?! I told you they would be back!  Just add some candy corn and some Polyfill and voila! Season to season change.  They might be back for my Christmas mantle also. :)

And finally, I saw this cute "Got Candy?" bunting at Polka Dot Chair.  Mine of course is a little different because I didn't have any themed scrapbook paper, but I did have word art and some black cardstock!  She has a really good tutorial on her site.  Check it out. 

Add some flameless votive and tea light candles from the Dollar Tree and there you have it!  My Candy Corn inspired mantle!  Festive, yet not scary.  Fun, but not too childish.  Now I just have to keep the candy away from my mouth!!

 

I also got carried away when spray painting the bottles that I had a few left over.  Those with a couple new fall scented candles look great as a centerpiece on my table! :)

Let me know what you think! I'd love to hear your comments on my candy corn mantle!! Please leave some below. :)  Happy Halloween!!