Wishing you a very Merry Christmas!

I added a few touches of Christmas to my sideboard that looked like it was missing something:

vintage ornaments found at an antique store,

a silver bottle brush tree wreath,

a glittered teacup with a vintage ornament on a bed of sheet music.

Some handstamped stockings made out of a dropcloth,





and one purchased on etsy.

We went to visit Santa this past weekend.

My two youngest had to be bribed to sit by Santa and tell him what they wanted for Christmas--but absolutely, no way would they sit on his lap! It may be hard to tell from the photo, but my little sweetie is clutching onto the sleigh for dear life and leaning as far away as her little 3 year old body can manage--priceless.

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas!

See you in the New Year ...

love,

Michele

a little birdie ornament & a look at my finished tree

This is the 5th and final handmade ornament I will make this year. I have had so much fun making ornaments for my tree but I am officially done now. As you can see, my tree is pretty full now.

I found these cute chipboard birds in the dollar bins at Michaels. There were 5 in the package for $1. They had a little wing on them too, but I thought they looked funny, so I just snipped them right off. I glued on some burlap cut to size and then trimmed with silver chenille stems found at the dollar store. Then I added a pearl button for the eye and a string to hang. These are very similar to ones I had seen at a store for $6 each. I love that I was able to make my own for about .50 cents each!




Here's my tree, mostly creams and silver with a touch of red.




Check out a closer view of each of my handmade ornaments: bookpage ornament, vintage bottle brush ornament, and grain sack ornament.  

Here's the full view, nice and full. I wrapped muslin around the bottom to skirt the tree.






It feels good to be finally done with my tree, at least for this year!

My Christmas Home Tour

I'm late to the Nester's Christmas Home Tour, but better late than never, right? Here's what you can find around my home right now:vintage santa ornaments in a bed of vintage shredded music,

new Christmas pillows,
a bucket of saved christmas cards with this years family card in the front, lots and lots of mercury glass ornaments,

a peek at my finished tree with many ornaments made just this year,



lots of blue and white and silver,





counting down until the big day!
I hope you enjoyed the quick tour. I'm linking up to this fabulous party!

a little sewing & a plea for help

After seeing this picture in the December Country Living magazine I knew I wanted to create a similar design with my own twist. I took some dropcloth material I had leftover from making some curtains for my bedroom.

I love the nubby yet soft texture of this material. I used some Making Memories letter stamps from my scrapbooking stash to stamp the letters.

I stamped Peace on one side,

and joyeux noel on the other.

Then I washed in hot and dried in the dryer to allow the black paint to fade a little and give it more of that worn look.

I also made one that says Feliz Natal on one side for my hubby who lived in Brazil for a couple of years.

Help! Ever since I saw all the pictures from the Ruffles & Rust Ball a few months ago I've had this wish banner in my head, and on my mental 'to buy' list. However, I haven't been able to find it anywhere.

When I found this cute wish sign I was temporarily satisfied but if anyone knows where I can find the large one I would love to know!

Grain Sack Ornament

This little tag was inspired by an ornament I found in the clearance section of a Christmas decor store.

There was only 1 left, however, so instead of buying it I thought I would try & recreate some for myself to hang on my tree. I took some muslin and created a faux grain sack design using masking tape and red paint. I used my Making Memories "peace" stamp and added some red rope like ribbon found at the thrift store.

I ripped the edges of the fabric to give it some character and glued it to the front of a tag I had in my scrapbook stash. This was a very quick project, and helped me to add a little red to my mostly white & silver tree.

Vintage Bottle Brush Tree Ornament

I was so excited when I found these cream bottle brush trees in the clearance section of a local Christmas decor store. I got even more excited when I got up to the cash register to tell the guy there was no tag on them, and he said, "how 'bout a dollar each?" Woo hoo, I just love them.

I decided to dress them up a little bit before adding them to my tree. I made a little sack out of muslin I had in my stash by just sewing 2 sides of a wide strip of material, leaving the top unfinished.

I pulled out my letter stamps to add 'noel' to the front.

I tucked the tree inside the sack and tied with some string.

I think I'm on a roll. More handmade ornaments to come!