I spent this morning while my son was taking a nap shoveling the snow from the storm that passed through. Shoveling is one of my least favourite winter activities. Actually there isn’t anything about the snow that I do like so let’s just say I was not in the best of moods. But after making myself a nice hot cup of hot chocolate, I realized that now it actually is starting to feel like Christmas.

Last week, my husband, son and myself ventured out to the local tree from to cut down a tree for that window area of our living room. This is the first year we have gone to get a tree in the rain and mud! I wasn’t slipping on ice to find the perfect tree, nope, it was mud. Every few feet my husband would hear me scream as I tried to regain my balance. It was all worth it when we did find our perfect tree. Here is what it looks like in our living room:

I don’t know if I have mention that our house was built in 1890 so it is old and we have very high ceilings. Our goal was to find the tallest tree we could find and not have to pay a fortune. This tree, with the tree topper, sits about an inch from the ceiling. Our colour scheme for the last couple of years for our tree is red and apple green. We also have snowmen accents. Here are a few examples:

I have green, matte and glossy red balls and some sentimental ornaments in there as well. Here is another picture of our tree in our new home:

I’m joining Thrifty Decor Chick’s Christmas tree party:

My girlfriends daughter is turning 2 today and we were invited to her birthday party yesterday. So when Saturday came around and I still didn’t have a gift I decided to get my thinking cap on. My girlfriend told me she needed nothing so that didn’t give me a lot to go on. I decided to help bring out this little girls artistic side! I came up with the idea to make a chalkboard easel. I was going to make it from scratch and then I got looking in my attic and found an easel I wasn’t using anymore. I then got thinking I could reuse this easel and attach a framed chalkboard. Once I came up with the gift, I then had to go out and gather a few supplies. I went to the local thrift store and picked up a picture of a lovely framed landscape picture. It was $15 and I liked the shape and size of the frame. I then went to Walmart for some girly decals and the hardware store for some chalkboard paint. When I got home this is what I had:

(My son came along for the ride!)

The first thing I did was take the frame apart and sand the landscape picture down till it was smooth.

Once the board was smooth, I gave it a coat of chalkboard paint with a foam roller.

While the first coat of paint was drying, I took the frame outside and gave it a coat of white with spray paint. I then went inside and started working on the easel. The easel was a little bit wobbly so I tightened all the screws.

I then gave the easel a coat of paint (left over from another project.)

After 2 hours, I gave the board another coat of paint and then allowed it to dry over night. The next morning I brought the frame in and rubbed some dark brown glaze in all the little nook’s and cranny’s. To give the frame an antique finish.

When the frame was dry, I put the chalkboard back in the frame and fastened it with a couple of nails and then some liquid nail. (Actually, my husband helped me with this step!)

When the liquid nail dried, I painted the back of the frame white.

It didn’t take the paint very long to dry, which was good because I was dying to see the frame on the easel! I held the frame and my husband screwed the frame in place from the back of the easel.

The last thing I did was hot glue gunned some cute little flower decals on around the frame.

And here it is, my vision came to life!

I would say this project cost me:

easel – free

paint – free

chalkboard paint – $10 (but I have half a can left for another project!)

picture frame – $15

decal and spray paint – $5

Grand Total – $30

another artistic future blogger – priceless!!!

I have slowly been working on my living room since moving into this house in July. We painted a month ago and I have trying to put up more things on the walls. In my living room, I have a fireplace and an antique piano. I have not really started to even think what should be placed on these mantels for any other season but Christmas. When we first laid eyes on the living room my husband pointed to a corner of the room with windows and said “that is where our Christmas tree has to go!” So since July, our thoughts have been on Christmas for this room. I was saying in my previous post that I got like 5 boxes of Christmas decorations from my last visit. Well I pulled everything out of the boxes and began pulling apart the left over wreaths I hadn’t used for my Christmas tree urns and laid them along my mantels. I placed one of the wreaths in the center of the fireplace mantel and began placing pine cones and berries into the garland. I cut some branches from a shrub on the side of my house and placed it in a reddish vase on the mantel. I also picked up at a local thrift store 4 stocking holders. They were gold so I spray painted them copper and placed our initials on red paper in the frames. After adding a few more elements, here is what our fireplace mantel looks like:

And a close up:

* for those of you that noticed I only put up three little Christmas tree holders, very good:) I thought I’d better get another holder in case I can ever talk my husband into another child!

For my piano mantel, I wanted to incorporate copper and snowman elements. I laid out my garland and put two little Christmas trees on the center of the mantel. I found two cute little snowman out of my Grandma boxes and placed them on either end of the mantel. I purchased two vine balls and some copper branches and stuck them in around the garlandl. I added a few pine cones and some other rustic pieces. Here is what the piano mantel looks like:

And the close up:

Not too bad for our first year!

I went to my Grandmas last week for a visit. This usually entails eating (A LOT) and going through stuff! My grandma has a big old farmhouse full of STUFF. Lately she tells me that it is time for her to start cleaning things out or we will have to do it (which I don’t want to think about). Good news for me though is that I can usually find some great STUFF. My husband must have thought I was crazy when I packed the truck with four boxes of Christmas things and like 10 wreaths. When I got home I kept thinking about what I was going to do with all my STUFF.

The flyers for the week came in the mail (I love looking at flyers) and I came across the Canadian Tire flyer. I noticed the 3′ christmas trees were on sale for $20 each. I’ve been keeping my eye on them because I really wanted some for my earns by my front door. I really do not want to spend $40 for a pair of tiny trees. Then it came to me:) I brought home this:

*please excuse the mess, we are renovating this room

So like I was saying I brought this piece of wood home and like 10 wreaths so I decided I would make my own trees!

My first step was to take a saw and cut this piece of wood into two pieces of wood.

I will not say how long it took me to saw my way through this wood! 20 mins. at least

I decided that the trunk should be a darker shade of brown so I got out my brown acrylic paint and watered it down. I then painted the 2 trunks with my dark brown paint.

I didn’t even wait for the paint to dry before I started cutting branches from the wreaths. Using wire cutters I cut a few branches and them all by myself I changed the bit on my husbands drill:) (WHOO!!) I had a moment of girl power! I then drilled holes into the wood, starting at the top. I put glue in the holes and stuck the branches in:

I waited for the glue to dry before I worked with the shape of the branches. I continued down the truck and then on to the next tree. When I was finished I had this:

I used some left over lumber from another project and my husbands miter saw to cut them into the right size. I then screwed them into the bottom of the truck and viola! I have a stand.

I added a few pine cones, berries and vine bows off the old wreaths. I then dug out the dead plants from my urns and put my trees in. I covered the stand with dirt and placed a few left over red bulbs at the base of the trees. Here is what the trees look like with a fresh snow fall in all!

LOVELY!

And did I mention that I made these two gorgeous trees for FREE!!!!!!

Thank You Grandma:)

I am trying to finish up my mud room or at least make it look like it could be finished! When I painted this room I took of the all the switch and outlet covers. They were UGLY and cream. My husband thought this could be our scheme for our entire house and all I could do was just say NO. I then went to Home Depot and other hardware stores in search of affordable and cute covers. I have some outlets that have three switches which seamed to make it hard to find what I was looking for. I left and was disappointed and just hoped that I could find something online. Well I found some beautiful covers but they were not affordable. I then decided that I could make these covers cute myself. I went to Walmart and picked up some beautiful paper, mod podge and some spray sealer. When I got home I gathered all the items I would need for this project:

Once I had all my materials, I cut the paper to the size I needed to cover the surface of the COVER! I cut an extra inch around the cover so that I will have enough paper to fold up. I then used my glue and adhered the paper to the cover:

I then flipped the cover back over and used my exact-o-knife to cut the holes for the switches:

I then glued the tiny little flaps (this part wasn’t so much fun!!) When I had all my covers for this room finished I took them outside and sprayed them with light coats of the satin sealer. I let them dry over night and here is the finished product:

I’m pretty happy with the end result. I plan on working from room to room until all of my covers coordinate with each room.