Christmas Card Chandelier

Every year we get Christmas cards and I love, love, love it

Every year I consider not sending Christmas cards and then I think of all the Christmas cards that I receive and how sad I would be to not get them every year and I go ahead and send them. I love this time of year all the glitter and magic and awe. All to celebrate our Lord.

Along with getting cards every Christmas there is the need to figure out where and how to display them. I have hung ribbon on the wall and taped them to the ribbon, I have hung ribbon on the windows and done the same. last year I taped them all to the kitchen cabinets. this year I wanted to do something different. I have been loving all the hoop art the I see, my daughter has a few hanging in her room. I decided to make a hoop chandelier for our Christmas cards. I searched pinterest for something similar and found this and thiswhich i thought was really cute as well. but this would be the one that i wanted.

I found the hoop at a thrift store. I was not ever searching for it but there it was screaming for me to take it home. there were four in the pack. i had the red polka dot fabric (really the only fabric that was very Christmasy) and the fabric scissors, a hot glue gun was used as well.

I found this tutorial, by one of my favorite bloggers, Under the Sycamore, about cutting and wrapping the fabric around the hoop.

 

Supplies:

Hoop

Fabric

Hot Glue Gun (with hot glue)

scissors

bakers twine

hole punch for the cards when you get them

 

 

my cute little hoop once i was done all the wrapping and hot gluing

 

then i grabbed my green bakers twine and used it to hang the hoop up

 

we got our very first Christmas card in the mail today and I went ahead and hung up the picture on the chandelier. our elf, Alex, he was pretty excited about it too.

i just punched a hole in the corner of the card and used my red bakers twine to hang the card.

Frozen

after trying to convince my children to be the Mary  Poppins cast or Alice in Wonderland for the Incredible Halloween party that we were invited too and trying to convince my husband that the Care Bears would be comfy and fun (that wasn't happening) the kids both decided that they wanted to be the Frozen cast.

SHOCKED! you say? well believe it. along with a ton of other children, probably even families across all of the world we went as Elsa, Anna, Olaf and Kristoff.

Little Girl already had an Elsa dress and we decided to surprise Golden Boy with the Olaf Costume.

Now it was time for my costume.

I almost purchases a royal blue tulle skirt from ebay but came across this pink skirt that I was just going to give away so I went out and bought royal blue fabric dye and attempted to dye it

 

 the first dye attempt was in the sink. it didn't come out nearly as dark a I wanted it too and after speaking with a lady, who helped us tie dye a shirt for my mother in law while we were camping, I decided to try it again in a small pot on he stove. that still didn't work like I wanted. after speaking to my mother she mentioned that when ever she dyed things she would use the washing machine method. I still did not get the exact result I was looking for but by that point I was tired of buying fabric dye. luckily it wasn't all that expensive. especially when you have coupons to the craft store.

 I looked at Anna's outfit on google and remembered that I also had the green (teal) colored shirt that I could wear then I saw this pin and decided to get a black tank top to wear over the shirt. I found the black tank top at Wal-Mart for .50 cents. SCORE!

I didn't want to take the time to make the designs on the shirt and I considered making the cape but was just over it after I worked on my husbands so I grabbed a scarf that I had and used that and tied a gold ribbon that I had around wait. tied up my hair in braids and even had  little white piece that ran through one of them.

 for my husbands costume I found this wonderful tutorial.

it was for a little boys Kristoff costume but I knew that I could make it work for by husband as long as I had a black tshirt. luckily he had on in his closet and that worked. I pretty much followed her tutorial on all of the things that I bough (at hobby lobby) and he wore a long sleeve shirt under the black one that he already had in his closet and the hat that we already had as well. it was great.

we had a great time at our friend costume party.



Currently.......November Edition

Listening.............Pandora stations when I run.

Eating.................yummy warm breads

drinking..................apple cider and seasonal lattes from Starbucks

wearing....................jeans and long sleeves/sweaters with thermals under them. it is low, low temps here. this is suppose to be the south too

 feeling..................ready for thanksgiving and time with family

weather.................like I said way, way too cold. low temps, cold feet

wanting.................some warmer socks and a new pair of slippers

needing................Thursday to be here so that I can watch parenthood

thinking.................about my sweet friend who is going on a missions trip

enjoying...............making elf tutu's

 reading................. a million little ways by Emily P. Freeman  only one chapter in but loved that chapter so much I am ready for the rest of the book

World Prematurity Day

 this tiny baby boy came into our lives over two months early and rocked out world

he is our tiny warrior miracle boy

2lbs 14oz

that is my dad's wedding band on his arm. 

he over came a lot and we are so blessed that God chose to give him to us.

#WorldPrematurityDay

 one of my favorite pictures of the two of us soon after he came home from the nicu (over 50 days there)

 here we are today. he is bright and brave and living up to his name being full of adventure 

 golden boy and daddy

Thanksgiving/Christmas Sign

I pinned this tutorial a while ago and knew that I would use it someday.

I started with the Christmas side first "BELIEVE"

we had a good bit of wood left over from our porch covering that we had put on last year so I grabbed a piece.

I jumped the gun on it all though. I printed the letters in a font that I liked and cut them out and stated the process of transferring the letters to the wood, tutorial that I followed HERE

it was then that I realized that I pinned a tutorial on how to make wood look old and antique and realized that I wanted it to look like that.

see the top of the sign? i had completely finished the "BELIEVE" side and located this tutorial  that i pinned that uses steel wool and apple cider vinegar to make the wood look old.

 

after i painted the concoction on i went over the letters again with my sharpie paint pen and then started on the "THANKFUL" side. i didn't make that mistake again. i went ahead and painted the concoction on and then i transferred the letters onto the board. (i just used a regular pencil to do the transfer, i found that if i pushed hard enough on the paper then it would leave an indention in the wood and then i could trace the letters on the wood with the pencil and then trace them with the sharpie paint pen.)

here is the thankful side. once i was done with the letters i used some miniwax finishing polish so seal it. i'm not sure i would do that again. i didn't like the way the wax stuck in some of the grooves of the wood.

overall i am pretty happy with the look. i will have to post a picture of the "THANKFUL" side on the porch sometime

Old Homes

one thing that comes with owning an old home is small closets. every spring we pack up the fall/winter clothes and pull out the spring/summer clothing. same thing come fall. all our spring/summer clothing gets packed up.

this happened last night. the hubby went through his clothes and made a donation pile and we packed things up. usually I don't looks forward to this event, wishing for bigger closets to hold it all. and my initial thought when we started was that I didn't want to do this. however when we got started it wasn't so bad.

It made me realize our blessing in clothing. I reminisced about certain things that we wore, when. the blue polo that he wore when we took family photos when golden boy was one.  the pink polo he purchased to wear on the way our little girl was born. the shirt he purchased when he attended the funeral of one of our favorite professors.

so many memories held in my hands last night in clothing. pictures usually get me all sentimental. I didn't expect it to happen with a couple of shirts.

unexpected blessing. my heart is happy in the remembering.