Christmas in the Harris Household!

Yay! It is time to start decorating for Christmas, it is amazing how much better this holiday is when you have kids. We decided we are definitely not setting up the Christmas palm this year since we won't be home for Christmas but I still want the house to have some holiday feel to it so I decided I would decorate the fireplace only. Of course, I wanted to make everything...so to trustee Pinterest I went to pin away ideas! Here is what I ended up going with, making and displaying! 

I definitely wanted to do something with chalk and I've had this pin for quite a while on how to make your own chalkboard so I figured this was the best excuse to go ahead and try this out! I found this wooden picture at our local flea market [forgive me, I completely forget to take a picture of it before I painted it] but the picture itself was horrible, make your eyes bleed bad! What I was really interested in was the frame, it was a nice wood frame with rich undertones and a few wood imperfections for that extra character plus and the most important quality of this picture was the fact that the back of the picture was supported by plywood instead of that cheap paper like backing that they use now in large pictures or paintings. If I had to guess this gem probably graced the walls of someone's home back in the 70's, which is exactly the type of frame I was looking for [bonus: only paid $4 for it]. In the original pin the author paints the frame, I had every intention of doing that but as I started working on it I realized I was really diggin' the wood so decided for now not to paint it [but who knows, maybe one day in our new home depending on the decor we go with I may end up painting it]. Next, was to make the actual chalkboard paint which is super easy! Here is the blog I pulled the paint recipe from, I wasn't sure it was gonna work but I had no hiccups with it! It does paint on thick but no worries, it drys smooth! 

I am so pleased with the finished product! My plan once the holidays are over is to hang this up in our kitchen for messages, notes, drawings, weekly menu, etc!

Next up is my mini Christmas trees [WARNING: this one is time CONSUMING so I recommend doing this in front of the television while watching a marathon of Friends and snacking on Sour Patch Kids...at least that's how I roll on these projects]. So first thing I did was buy two styrofoam cones from the craft store, they come in all different sizes so just whatever fits you're fancy will work. Then I picked up some mint green acrylic paint, a small sponge brush and a bag of clear glass fillers. 

Using the sponge brush I painted the cones with my mint green paint and let dry, then using super glue I applied the glass fillers. They dry pretty quick and become heavier the more glass you add which then makes them super stable to display!

You can even change up the design it you'd like, instead of covering the entire cone [or if you start to run out of glass filler, like I did and are too lazy to put a bra on and drag yourself back out to the store]!

Then it was onto my block letters! This is another idea I have seen all over the place that I have been wanting to try [leave it to the holidays to give me my excuse to try this baby out]. So....my plan was to use wooden blocks for this project BUT the craft store only have one wooden block [I needed three, guess I'm not the only craft nerd who is making these things] onto plan B, instead of using the blocks I used some square cut pieces of wood. If your like me and you scrapbook then you probably have boxes and boxes of scrapbook paper around you're house...so after spending a good half hour digging through my box of scrapbook paper I found the perfect designs to use as my background! Here is the blog that I got my original idea from, she has a great link to letters that you can print, I went with JOY! Once I had my letters printed up on my scrapbook paper then I cut to fit my wood square and using a foam brush I painted some ModPodge Matte glue to the wood and applied my letters. Once dry, I ran some chalk along the edges and then lightly sanded the excess paper off which also gave the edges a little vintage feel! 

The last thing I made was the "Happy Holidays" sign, here's what you'll need: matte frame paper [I chose a light brown matte color] baby clothes pins, twine and cream color paper to print [I use this because it is a little heavier then normal white paper]. Here is the blog I used to print out the letters! Once you have all your letters cut out then I just cut the frame paper around the letters to create a border, then using ModPodge Matte glue I applied the letters to the frame paper border, hang up your twine and then clothes pin the letters up! It was seriously one of the easiest projects I have ever done and even though my husband thinks the sign looks like one of those banners you see at a car dealership [does his opinion really even matter? I think not.] I LOVE it!

So happy with the way the fireplace turned out! Even if we don't have our tree this year at least it can still feel like Christmas around the house...debating on whether I want to make some snowflakes for the front door with my leftover frame matte paper...hmmm...maybe! Hope you like and that it gave you some cool ideas for you're home!