Recycled Christmas Centerpiece

Today during our second round of Christmas shopping (whew… too many people!) I snagged a few Christmas floral picks and some candles at ACMoore for a repurposing project.

Last week, my mother gave me three broken wine glasses that she has been saving to make a Christmas candle holder.  They basically sheared off at the base of the glass.  So, I hot glued the cup portion to a glass candle plate.  Then I embellished it with silver and evergreen sprigs and blue berries.  Add a few candles, and voila—instant centerpiece!

So, now you know what to do with all those broken wine glasses!

And this one is blue and silver, so it will last way into Winter for a little sparkly and shine to banish those winter blahs.

The best part?  It only cost $6!  Oh, and, I managed to get rid of some more broken junk that is taking over my parents’ house and repurpose it into something beautiful! :)  

Christmas Stockings

So, this year, my sister requested a pair of Christmas stockings for her new fireplace mantle.  Of course, I was delighted to whip out the Christmas box (wherein all the sparkly, luscious Christmas fabrics and trims are stored). 

Here is my inspiration from Frontgate:

 

So, first things first, I chose red satin and green satin for the stockings and quilted gold for the cuff, plus a couple of coordinating trims, and a sprinkling of bells!  (Bells are always required!)

Using my trusty pattern, I cut a front and a back for each stocking.  Then in order to line up the embroidered snowflakes just right, I drew a grid on the back of each front. 

Then I spent an hour or so stitching snowflakes on the spots where the lines crossed using gold embroidery floss.

Then I added a gold bead to the center of each snowflake, gold and black braided piping, a gold cuff, a little bow and bells!  Here are the finished stockings, ready for Santa!

Happy Not-Quite Christmas Season! 

It’s Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas…

I know what you’re thinking… Christmas, really? 

Well, it’s beginning to look like Christmas in the stores!  My sister and I went out on the town today looking for early Christmas shopping deals!  We found some… and then some. :)

We were also inspired by all the scrumptious Christmas decorations.  We found a lovely hurricane glass candle holder surrounded by an evergreen and gold wreath.  Something like this:

We were smitten! ;)

Knowing we could replicate and far surpass the design they were peddling for $40, our next stop was Michael’s craft’s store for supplies.  We got three sprigs of evergreen, two brown and gold poinsettias, and one clearance fall hydrangea.  Plus, a crackled glass hurricane with gold rim, and a gold beaded candle, all on sale!  The total came to a mere $25. 

So, after deconstructing all the sprigs and retwining/hot gluing them in a circle, this is the finished product:

Ain’t it lovely? Sigh…

Who thinks this is sooo lovely you could definitely display it for Thanksgiving as well as Christmas? 

Oh I do!  Me, me!

Light fixture makeover

This week, I finally got around to fixing up the light fixtures in our den.  There are two identical wood covers, one on each side of the room.  This is what they used to look like:

So, I deconstructed them and primed and painted the wood part white.  And I sprayed the little metal caps white, too.

Here is one reconstructed on the ceiling:

While it looks much nicer with the light turned off, as soon as the light comes on behind it, the wood is in the shadow again and looks like a dull gray color.  Boo.  I’m tempted to leave the cover off completely… it was soooo bright in there without it, but I kept looking up at the bare bulbs.  It wouldn’t be too long before I burn out my retinas with that behavior. 

So… what kind of light fixtures look good on the ceiling?  And let out a lot of light?  I’m thinking some kind of serious fluorescent deal for over my work table and maybe a chandelier-esque thing for the other side of the den.  What do you think?

From Halloween to Autumn Splendor

Crisp, cool air and these golden hues of autumn greet us outside the front door. 

And this gorgeous display really gets me into the spirit of fall. 

Now, that Halloween has past, it’s time to update our decor for Autumn at the Horvath House.  First we had to take down all the Halloween and pack it away.  Whew that was a job!

Then, you rearrange what’s left to look like this:

For this look, I just removed the Halloween welcome sign, took down the graveyard and turned the Jack-o-lanterns around. :)

Beautiful fall mums snazzy up the deck.

A little fall for the kitchen table,

the living room, 

and the dining room.

The guest bath was simply updated by turning Mr. Pumpkin around and adding fall towels. :)

And the mantle got a few new accessories to complete the transformation.  Now, I can’t wait for Thanksgiving so I can get started decorating for Christmas!

Just kidding. 

Okay, you got me, I am so not kidding! :)

Happy November everyone!

Family Tree

For our first wedding anniversary I made my husband a family tree from a design I saw at Red Envelope.  That was back in May!  Now, we just finally got around to finishing all the names.  Here it is proudly displayed in our bedroom:

I picked out some textured scrapbook paper in greens and brown, then cut out a nice symmetrical tree shape with branches for each family member.  I filled in the tree trunk with little paper scraps to make it look like real tree bark and then “carved” our wedding date under a heart in the center.  Then I cut out 64 leaves-- 15 for each side of the tree plus two bigger ones for the family name at the top in each of two colors, dark and light green.  The hard part was filling in the names.  My grandfather has always been an avid genealogist, so I didn’t have to look far for my great grandparents’ names.  Michael’s parents provided most of his and the remaining few he found online with ancestry.com and from immigration records! :)  It was a very interesting process and a nice reminder of where we came from. 

I love seeing on paper a tangible representation of our family… and one day we can add our children’s names to the tree, too.  Happy First Anniversary, Michael!