Winter 2013 Mantle

 

Even though winter isn’t officially here yet, this Ohio weather sure seems like old man winter has arrived!

The next picture was taken during the night right outside our kitchen window…quite pretty! We had a couple excited boys since it was announced that school would be canceled for the next day..

For the mantle this year I spent nearly nothing… only a little extra time on creating a few things..

First I went out to my workshop and pinned a few boards together, making a rustic sign…. I painted “Joy to the world” onto it..

I felt very blessed to roam about my gardens snipping at the various evergreens. I had a big pile of white pine, holly and a few other greens that I don’t know the names of on our basement floor…

When hubs came home from work he thought about going rabbit hunting in our basement. ( I was not amused since I always root for the bunnies )

Here are a few of the clippings.

I dug out some green craft wire from storage…

After hanging the sign and making a natural garland complete with pinecones, I set my snow globes on the mantle. You can read about the snow globes here: http://porchswingsnhoneysuckle.blogspot.com/2013/11/christmas-project-1-snow-globes.html

I also dug out the stockings from last year that I made out of an old sweater and hung them up.

 

And here it is…

 

Very simple and best of all, thrifty!

I stuck some gifts in an old barrel…

Now, for my favorite part! I put a string of lights behind the globes and I love the look it gives in the dark!

 

 

Happy Christmas decorating, everyone!

-Mary

Christmas Project 1 – Snow Globes

 

Yep, it’s that time of year again… time to remove the fall decorations (decorations that are changing from orange & yellow to brown… and losing shape)

 

A quick gardening tip: (which you may already know) I like to store my mums indoors somewhere in a cool dry place over winter. Come spring, they will sometimes grow out and can be planted in your flower bed. They will have a better root system for the next winter, thus giving them a better chance at surviving cold Ohio winters.

Anyway, putting away fall décor means digging out the Christmas decorations. I always like to make some of my own holiday decorations. It’s thrifty and fun! Today I got the urge to create some snow globes using various sized jars I had around here…

Fake snow…

Little trees from Walmart… I think these could be made using brushes (I think I’ve seen it on Pinterest) I didn’t pay a lot for them $0.75 – $2.00…

My trusty glue gun and also the lids for the jars. I did end up painting some of the lids white…

First I glues the trees to the lids. I tried to use the larger trees for the larger jars…

After putting some “snow” in the jars, they were ready for the trees..

 

I made sure to coat the sides with snow to make it look nice and glittery..

 

Seeing these makes me want to ( as the boys would say) shrink, and walk into the jars. I can almost hear boots crunching in the snow and feel snowflakes blowing against my face.

 

I think these will be part of the mantle display this winter. Now for a nice natural, evergreen garland to go with them…a Monday project, maybe?

Check back for more Christmas crafting in the next week or so!

-Mary

DIY Chevron Lamp Shade

 

It’s been awhile since I last posted and I apologize for it. I will blame it on a few things: 1. being busy with garden parties, ( as I still call them, though they are indoors now ) 2. Another little business venture that  my mom and I started. And most of all, 3. being cameraless. Let’s just say someone picked up a good camera, case, and sd card loaded with beautiful shots of the mountains and valleys of Pennsylvania for nothing! ( I hope they also picked up a bad case of sleepless nights, fidgety feet and maybe even a nervous eye tic )

Thankfully, I have this awesome sis who said I can borrow her camera (which is identical to the one I had) anytime I want, so the other day I took a few before shots of a lamp and shade I picked up at a thrift store for a few dollars…

I had already started to spray paint it white before I remembered to take a picture. It was an ugly crème color when I bought it and I used a white satin spray paint to paint it. First I sanded it to get rid of some of the roughness of the fabric.

The lamp base looked like this..

 

After painting the shade, I cut out some zigzags of stretchy black fabric…

I used my trusty glue gun to fasten the zigzags onto the shade. I didn’t have to glue a lot since the fabric I used kind of clung to the shade.

Another method I’ve used to redo shades is with iron on fabric. A tutorial on how to do this can be found here: http://porchswingsnhoneysuckle.blogspot.com/2012/09/simple-quilt-set-tutorial.html

After some gluing and cutting more zigzags, here’s how it turned out…

 

While I was working on the lamp, I thought it might look good in our living room, but I soon saw that it wouldn’t go well with some of the tan and white stripes in there. So,for now, it resides in the studio where it goes pretty good with the white in there.

For the base, I used a paint marker to distress. This is one of my favorite methods to use and I will share a tutorial soon on an old record player cabinet that I redid using this technique.

Another little project that I did this week…

 

I’ve always wanted a chalk board wall and was never sure where to put it. Ever since I redid the kitchen here recently I have been puzzled with what to do with that wall. I bought the chalkboard paint at Walmart for a little over ten dollars a quart.

One little boy was quite impressed. Here’s the first message I found. I enjoyed the moment because it was soon replaced by a pumpkin headed man with a zombie like look in his eyes, oblivious to the fact that there was a dagger sailing through the air, aimed at his head. I said let’s keep the images cheerful so we don’t need to feel uneasy in the kitchen.

Happy Friday, everyone! Thanks for visiting!

Mary