Wednesday, December 14, 2011

2011 Christmas home tour

I'm linking up with Nester, Michaela, Kelly, and Thrifty Decor Chick, so here's my tree + the rest of the house I haven't posted pics of yet.

And the roof.
Let's not forget the roof.

Come inside, won't you?
Grab a juice box and make yourself at home...



This is the same wreath I had on our front door last year. If you look closely, you can see the dust from having been in our storage room for the past 12 months.

See?


HellomynameisMaryKathrynandIdon'tliketodust.

Moving on.

Into the foyer-


I added an 'M' ornament from Restoration Hardware to my berry wreath.
Kinda like it.


Watch your step,
toddlers crossing...


Book page snowflakes, garland, and a Nativity in the dining room-


and those trees on the table.
Forgot about the trees.


There's also tee-niny little white ones in the cabinet/hutch thing, along with a book page ornament and more snowflakes.



My fave nativity from Damdaco.

Taking a left and crossing back through the foyer, we come to the living room/playroom/office-

start snapping pics in here and this is what happens:


Like moth to a flame I tell ya.
Moth to a flame.


They're actually playing Deck the Halls.
At least, that's what page the book is turned to...


To the right of the piano is the mantel.
Loved (and still loving) my Christmas mantel this year.



More info about what I thrifted/made/spray painted on the mantel HERE.






And to the right of the mantel,
the tree.
Our first ever real not faux tree.


Yup.
No ornaments on the bottom half.
I live with a 1 and a 2 year old.
Within 30 seconds of opening the infamous red/green Christmas tubs, two ornaments had already been dropped and broken.
Boo.
It's okay- no biggie. It just lead me to not unpack a single one of these-


No Hallmarks this year.
No.not.one.
Okay I lied-
I just looked and there's actually a few that made the cut, but they did NOT come out of that tub. Must have been stored somewhere else.


My awesomesauce '12 Days of Christmas' tree skirt and the naked bottom half of my tree.

Let's just concentrate on the top half with the ornaments, shall we?









I scored that one at the ladies ornament swap this year.
Still need to blog about that...


Watch out for toddlers again-


The star topper hasn't made it to the top yet because I couldn't reach high enough and hubs was busy keeping the kids occupied in another room so we didn't have to trash anymore ornaments.


On the other side of this room is the sofa.
It's sportin' a brandspankin' new red pom pom throw from One Kings Lane. Do any of you shop from that site? Kinda like a deal-a-day type thing, ...almost.


I left the green chevron pillows and threw on the pillow I made from a Target dishtowel.

I kinda liked it better after I threw it and the dvd box on the floor though.


A bit more simple and clean looking.
Except for the pillow and the dvd box on the floor.

Backtracking to the dining room and into the kitchen:


A Christmas message and a countdown on our chalkboard,
and a Christmas card display on our cabinets.


Nope.
Still no crown moulding.
Soon...
very soon.


And now, if you'll follow me all the way down the back hall, I'd like to show you a little something in the bedroom.

No, silly....
get yer head outta the gutter.
I'm talking about my stud on the wall.


I even decked Moe out for Christmas.
He's super pumped about it.

Back down the hall and the last door the the right,
you're in for a treat.
It's the man cave.
Keep in mind- I let the hubs decorate in here.
It's his room afterall, and he did it up real good for Christmas.
This is the ONLY room with colored lights.
It's his room, not mine.


and with the lights on, ya know...
so you can see the Dumb and Dumber poster on the mantel a little bit better.


Yes, the lights go ALL the way around the room.
Staple gun, my friends.
Good thing he's freakishly handsome or I mighta had somethin' to say about that.



And now, let's go back through the house to the front door and out into the yard so you can see our famous roof.

That's right-
it was on a blog.
A blog that's not even mine.
A friend sent me the link on facebook-
(thank you Kayla)

Here it is if you'd like to see the post yourself-
it sparked quite a debate in the comments


My hubs and his shenanigans.
And for the record, let me say that 'meh' is in no way our attitude towards Christmas. We are Christians and definitely stress the true meaning of this holiday in our home. In fact, we rarely mention Santa Claus because that's not what we want our kiddos to be focused on at Christmas time.

It's all about Jesus my friends. 

The words hubs puts on our roof are merely for fun. Pure shenanigans. And again, just in case you missed it, here's last year's roof.


Merry Christmas friends!
Hope you enjoyed the tour!

The Angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good tidings of great joy that will be for all people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord."

Luke 2:10-11

Pillows full of sentiment

Happy Wednesday everyone! I wanted to share a project I made for a friend because it was just so genius I'll probably be making my own soon. While I'd love to say this was all my idea, I cannot. Because it wasn't. My dear friend Mary asked if I could turn a couple of her shirts into pillow covers, and while I'd never done that before, I knew it could be done. Shirts are fabric too afterall...

You may be wondering what would make shirts so sentimental as to cause someone to want to keep them forever as a pillow-
well I'll tell ya-

The pink one on the left is a maternity shirt that Mary wore while pregnant with her daughter Rory, and she wore the turquoise shirt while in Ethiopia adopting her daughter Magy.
Pretty cool, huh?
I've got a couple maternity shirts I'll never wear again but would love to preserve in some way because they're special to me, ya know?

First, we picked out coordinating fabrics and then I got to cutting. I used the same technique as with THESE pillows except that I had 3 seperate pieces this time instead of 1. Same dimensions, with a piece in the front (the shirt), and two pieces that overlapped in the back to make the envelope part.



To create monograms on the front, I cut out letters with my cricut, flipped them backwards, and traced them onto the back of the fabric.

Then pinned them and stitched each to the front of the t-shirt piece. It's much easier if you're gonna add a monogram to do it before sewing the whole she-bang together.


After attaching the letters to the front, I laid the pieces of each pillow right-sides-together and stitched all 4 sides. Flip them right-side-out, grab a pillow, and there ya go.


An awesome way to hold on to a garment with special meaning without having to wear it. Maybe YOU have some special pieces that this project would be perfect for-


Before I sign off for today, I have to share two more things.

First: this pic of MM that I snapped with my phone a couple nights ago. I don't even think she understands about Santa and the chimney and whatnot, but doesn't this just seem as though she's looking for him?

Precious girly.

And 2nd:
I know there are several companies/organizations out there who are giving $ to various charities during the holidays and while we all would love to do our part, it's sometimes not realistic for us to volunteer hours of our time or give away loads of our money. There is, however, one company who is donating $1 to Toys for Tots for every viewing of this video-
so here's a way you can help and ALL you have to do is click this link.
That's it.
It's super short and just like that, you've (kind of) donated a buck to a great organization.

Happy Viewing!


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