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.

Read More

A thankful foyer

Hello all! Hope you had a great weekend! We are DONE with marching band season (so proud of them!!) and I now have my hubby back…for approximately two weeks. :)

I haven’t done anything crafty in a while and last week I was feeling my mojo creeping back…so I got busy on a quick Thanksgiving project for our foyer.

I’ve been admiring the cute “Thankful” banners I’ve seen over blogland lately, and figured it was high time I made one of my own. I picked up about $3 of paper from Hobby Lobby:

And warmed up my sah-weet Silhouette machine:

My original thought was to do some circles, then put leaves in pretty colors over those, with letters on the leaves to spell my thankful message:

But after I cut out the leaves, I realized they were going to be way too small for the letters. Plan B was to cut out additional circles a bit smaller than the original ones:

I love love LOVE that cardstock – I use it all the time. It’s got a simpler, lined side, and a side (the one I prefer) with a linen-like texture to it. And aren’t those scalloped edges too cute? (I purchased the design on the Silhouette site for a buck.)

When I was done cutting, I ended up with large and small circular cut outs, the leaves that I wanted to try to use, and the letters:

Normally I use spray adhesive for paper projects, but the glue stick was closer. :) It worked great!:

Using my hole puncher, I added two holes in each one, then strung the letters and little leaves on some twine. I absolutely LOVE how it turned out!:

Isn’t that so stinking cute?

I had the buffet in our foyer dressed for fall six weeks ago, but took it all down for the Halloween display. I just put everything back the way I had it, even though it’s only for a few days, week, couple of weeks till Christmas starts peeking out. :)

I plopped one of my (real) blue Cinderella pumpkins on some burlap:

Can you believe I’ve had that pumpkin for about eight weeks now? It’s still perfect! Crazy.

Back in August, I was strolling through Pier 1 and saw some beautiful faux leafy stuff, and it was gorgeous. I especially loved that it was really, really tall and full. I knew I’d need a few of them though, so I held off. (They weren’t really cheap.)

Imagine my glee when I saw something very similar at Hob Lob:

I think they were $3 each, half off? Wicked good. :)

When we were working on my father-in-law’s house a couple of months ago, I saw this beautiful amber glass piece and swooned:

Isn’t it gorgeous? Perfect for my fall display!

I filled it with little beady stuff, pine cones and acorns I’ve used through the years:

All together, with our new Give Thanks garland on the mirror, and it’s a lovely, warm welcome!:

You’ll notice my Cinderella pumpkin tower shrunk by one. I noticed the other day that the middle one had cracked and it was NASTY. Ew!

I can’t even believe the difference a year makes – this little bitty table just didn’t do it for that spot:

Thanks to Craigslist, I have a lovely new spot to decorate each season!:

Yippeeee! For that, I am thankful. ;)

I’ll show you a few more of my fall goodies soon, and then it’s all over folks – get ready for some magic!!!

Are you still working on fall decor? Has Christmas crept up around your house?

Thank you to my sponsor!:

Read More