Honey Do List

My amazingly talented husband has had a bit of a honey-do list since we moved into our house a year ago.  From a laundry chute, faux mantle and bookshelves that match to rain-gutter bookshelves in the kids' room, dog kennel, fire hydrant water-fountain and not to forget my totally awesome craft room!  He's always willing to oblige...and didn't fall short when I wanted a one of these for the front porch:

My sister-in-law gave us these 3 chairs out of her storage.  I knew immediately what I wanted done with them, but my husband went the extra mile.  One of the chairs had these cute arms so hubby decided to make sure that the bench got to use them!  He then cut off the seat of the third chair and fitted it in the middle of the other two.  Added a new board for the seat and attached all the chairs together. A coat of paint and voila.
I love it, and can't wait to spend my afternoons watching the kids play in the front while sipping lemonade...

Rudolph Party

I threw a Rudolph party for my grands. We used the Vintage Rudolph Collection party printables from TomKat Studio for our invitations.  I had several activities and dinner planned.

 Each of the kids received their own handmade apron and reindeer ears.

We made gingerbread houses, had a hot cocoa bar, played musical chairs, watched the movie which was interupted by a surprise visit from Santa!  After Santa head back to the North Pole we had dinner and then decorated cupcakes for dessert.  The kids had a ton of fun.  Everyone got a gift bag for on the way home.

Cheers

I'm working on the decor for our New Year's Eve party...here is a printable of the poster I've made for our photobooth for your pleasure, just right click and save image as:

I'll be blowing mine up at an office store and having it printed as an engineer print - 24x36 for $4! 
We have several parties coming up so look for those posts soon!

Stockings are Hung

I have our traditional Christmas stuff in our basement family room.  The kids got to decorate the tree and help me put up the decor.  Is it really sad that all the decor I've been using for the past 8 years fits on one wall shelf and tree?  Oh well the kids love having their own to do.  I wanted to share how I hung my stockings:

In years past I used my board with hooks to hang all our stockings, but this year that hook thingy is up in the kitchen with aprons on it.  I really didn't want to buy 5 stocking hangers because that can add up quick...so I bought 2, at Walmart for $5 and then I painted a $2 dowel to match and hung all the stockings that way.  I saw the idea on Pinterest here and here.  You could use a curtain rod or painted pvc pipe too...

A Very Vintage Christmas

I really wanted a vintage Christmas theme for my family room this year, and it all started with this Pin Board.

This silver beauty came from my in-laws.  It's a vintage aluminum tree!  I was so excited when they passed it on to me.  I purchased the old fashioned pastel ornaments from Walmart - its 101ornaments for $30 and shatterproof, which is a must around here.  I also bought their felt sparkly tree skirt for like $2. This set the color scheme for the rest of the decor.

After doing my Halloween haunted village I knew I had to do a Christmas one too.  I copied The 36th Avenue's village for this one too.  Here's her Christmas Village tutorial.

On the Mantle:

It was hard to get good pictures, these make it look a lot brighter than it is.  I couldn't find the right color candles for my candelabra so I painted these and added a bit of glitter on top.  I bought a fun funky silver garland from the dollar store and battery operated lights to brighten it up in the evenings.  Filled my bowl with leftover ornaments from the tree too.

And for the part I was looked the most forward to doing:

The bottle brush trees.  I purchased a package of 21 at Michael's with my coupon.  I've seen them at Walmart and Dollar Tree too.  I used canning jars and filled one half hot water and half straight bleach.  Throw in your trees and check on them in less than a minute. Hint:  If they don't bleach out in less than a minute your bleach is probably old and you'll want to try with a fresh bottle - I wouldn't know this from using a 6 year old bottle of bleach or anything.  The green trees were bleached for seconds just to lighten up the color.  I dyed the pink ones with liquid RIT in petal pink.  Just fill up a canning jar with hot water and pour in a bit of dye.  Drop in your trees and really watch them.  Some pick up the color really fast and if you want them pastel you'll want to pull them out right away.  The first picture of the village (that says Retro Christmas Village) is the most accurate for the color.

I also put up my Merry Christmas print I made:

Truly retro Christmas decor on a budget!

Merry Printable

I've been busily decorating for Christmas and thought I'd share a printable I made for my vintage decor:
 

Ghost Photography

 

Yesterday we took these fun "ghost" pictures of the kids.  I think they turned out great!

We went to visit a friend in Malad and stopped at this old school house.  It was literally two rooms!  I really wanted to steal the old doors ;)  Anyway I got the idea from Candice Stringham.