My favorite ornament circa 1987.




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Silvery Scene!!

I just hung the NOEL sign and captured a pretty scene!


The NOEL sign was unpainted raw wood and I silver spray painted it.



I'm spraying everything silver that's not nailed down! Watch out dogs, you're next!

Hot Chocolate Bar!

At our annual holiday party I did a hot chocolate bar. I made a huge batch of hot chocolate and put it in th crock pot. Ingredients were: 20 cups of water, 21 envelopes of instant milk chocolate hot cocoa, and one pint of half and half.


Wisk briskly together!


I had small bowls with chocolate shavings, marshmallows and chocolate chunks. I also put out the whipped cream and cinnamon.


Homemade chocolate dipped spoons were on hand!


There were also adult beverage add ins like Baileys and schnapps.


So many guests at the party enjoyed mixing up their own hot chocolate concoctions!

Rosemary and Hydrangeas

My mom has huge rosemary and hydrangea bushes in her yard. The flowers are now their fall/winter red and green. I can't believe they are still blooming this late in the year!
Reddish one:




Reddish-greenish-brownish one:




I love their colors! I also love the look of rosemary sprigs in bubble vases!




But by far, my favorite is how the rosemary looks in my mercury glass vase:




It's so festive to me! It looks like little evergreen trees.. When you don't have native evergreen, rosemary is a perfect substitute. And the smell is amazing!

Fancy Frames

Every year I get together with my best friends for a holiday party and gift exchange. Well in the past there are usually different themes to the gifts. This year we are doing the home made, recycled, or green gifts. We do the whole steal the gift from someone else if you want to, it creates some fun and hilarious drama.

I home made my gift and it was super easy.
Supplies:

• Buttons, different shapes and sizes.
• Photo Frames- (mine are from Dollar Tree and held a 3x3 photo)
• Spray Paint- only if you want to change the color of your frames
• Glue- I used white craft glue.
• Ribbon for hanging- a large grosgrain ribbon and a small ribbon for the scarf.
• Scissors
• Fancy paper or fabric.
• Tiny twigs for snowman arms.

I forgot to snap a before picture of the front of the frame before I sprayed it silver, it was a washed out brown color. I got one of the back so you can see the color before. It looks good in sparkley silver. Remember! Silver spray paint is my favorite December thing!After they were spray painted silver:

I then glued some brown grosgrain ribbon on the back to make a hanger.

Then cut out some fancy paper and insert it in the frame and started messing around with my button collection.


I started arranging the buttons to make a snowman and a tree. It was so easy!! The tree had a "star" that was a small rhinestone that I found in my buttons.

 I added twig arms, from my yard, and a scarf to my snowman.

 Everything was glued down to the paper with craft glue. This project took in total about 35 minutes. (Probably less for someone else, but I had to keep getting up to yell at the dogs.) Plus they were really inexpensive! I had the majority of the supplies on hand already! Shhhhhh!! Don't tell whoever gets my gift this year!! If you are the recepient of this gift this year I paid One Million Dollars for these!

*UPDATE*- My gift got stolen and stirred up some gift exchange drama!! It was a fun night had by all!

Silver Santa

I've had this cute ceramic Santa for years and it always kinda gets lost in the background of all the Christmas deco. This year I decided to give him a shine a sprayed him silver!
Santa before: such a cute face!






Silver Santa after:






Now he stands out and makes a statement and it's so simple!! Silver spray paint is my December favorite thing!!

Mantle Times are Here!

Over the weekend I primped and picked at my fireplace mantle. I love the added glow the lights give off to the living room, it makes it feel so warm! Every year the decor gets tweaked slightly and I think I'm finally done with it for this December 2010! I did the same blueish, greenish, greyish, and silver color scheme as last year's mantle.

Here is the before every day mantle: cluttered with stuff collecting dust all year-

I first removed all the clutter and added the greenery (which had the key still tied in it from last year's Christmas-ized mantle, whoopsie!)

I then added my mercury glass tree, felt snow flakes in browns, blues, and greens. Also a key plaque that I made from an old canvas:

I added air plants this year in tall vases. They are a greenish grey color that I love! I love that I can add stuff I had laying around the house too!

Our sage green snowflake stockings were hung with care, and by care I mean cream colored ribbon.

I added cut out kraft paper initials to each stocking to represent who they belonged to. This way Santa will know which one to put coal in... Riann's.

Here is the boring before, again:

And the festive after:

In the words of Riann: "Holiday [and mantle] Times are here!!"