Holiday Cheer

Last year I had grand ideas of decorating for the holidays by cooking figgy pudding and boning ducks. This year, while still in the holiday spirit, I have been a bit more realistic, and unlike my usual procrastinating self, I've also started early. Here's a glimpse into a few of the holiday crafts I've been attempting around the house.


I made my first holiday wreath from stuff in my yard. I started with a $4 twiggy wreath from Michaels.

I cut some bay grasses from my yard that needed to be trimmed down before winter anyways.

 I added the grasses by tucking them in while going in one circular direction. A lot of the grass stuck out pretty far, but I liked it that way.

 Then, with my flashlight (it was late) and scissors in tow, I cut some sprigs off of my holly bush out front. The one downside to taking your materials from outside, and not buying them, is that you have to deal with all of the spider webs and creepy crawlies that get tangled up in your flora.

 Again, I just shoved the little holly springs into the wreath, in one main circular direction. I quickly learned that if I only decorated the "face" of the wreath, then the top, and inside would look really bare when I lifted it up, so I had to go back and do some adjusting. I also found some baby pine cones from the pine tree out front and jammed those in as well.

I wanted it to look really earthy, so I loosely stuck some grass on top of the holly.

Here are a few shots after I hung it on the front door.

 I've been "etching" to try this project since I saw this post last year. First, I printed out the words "holiday cheer" in 72 pt font, scotch taped the words to painters tape, which was on a wooden cutting board. I cut out the letters with an exacto knife. As you can see, the letters aren't perfect, but I sort of liked the imperfections.

 

 This was the scary part. The etching cream has all kinds of warnings on it. It even uses the word "fatal!" I mean, it dissolves glass, what could it do to my insides?! I was worried I would accidentally get some on my hand and then wipe my eye, and that I would get a globular shape etched into my eyeball

 

 
 I watched it from the inside to make sure it wasn't bleeding. You only need to leave it on for 60 seconds, so I was kind of anxious about making sure that I didn't over-etch.

 After washing it thoroughly and pealing off the tape, here's the result.

 Then, I cut out the word holiday and repeated the process.

 

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For this last project, I simply grabbed a square glass vase and picked pine cones from my front yard. There were lots of baby cones when I went out, and only a few that had the typical pine cone shape. They also came pre-sapped. No white spray paint needed.

I put up my tree, but one of the lights is broken, so the top of the tree isn't lit. I'm waiting until I can replace the bulb to hang the ornaments. I already broke out the Christmas music, however, and my cheese factor is getting dangerously high. You might say I'm pretty "sappy" over Christmas this year. (haha, get it?) I might have even been singing "fa la la la la to the dogs last night..."

Just throwing on some chili tonight while I grade leftover papers that I should have done over Thanksgiving. I hope you're having a great start to the Holiday season!

Blogiversary Part 2

Hello again! I thought I'd share a few household changes, if you want to see! In June I had a Kermit-inspired room that only inspired me to get a quick-onset headache.  The carpet was grody no matter how many times a week I vacuumed. The "lame jungle" theme was just not our style. We both like neutrals, and this is definitely not neutral.

I think, in the future, adding curtains, and a rug, will make the room even more inviting. But it's definitely a step in the right direction.

The candle holder was a gift to me from my Dad and Stepmom. They got it at a fair trade shop in Baltimore called 10,000 Villages. I picked up the rock in a stream on our trip to Vermont this summer. The flowerpot is good-ole Ikea. The plant is...as is expected with me...dying.

Door before

Door After

This is an old Christmas picture of the main wall in our front room. It's the only one I could find of this wall at the moment. Behind us to the left is the rest of the house. This is the first wall you see when you come into our house and it just wasn't setting a warm and serene mood when we entered. The wire that our stockings are hung on usually have postcards and pictures stuck into those little rings. It was too small and spindly and made a weak first impression.

Main entryway wall before

Here is the entryway now. The artwork is much more substantial and sets a much better mood. Plus, I'm a tree hugger at heart and I can't wait to sit in my huge chair and read a book surrounded by trees. (Out the window and on the wall).

Wall after

The next point of interest on our house tour is our guest bathroom, or in other words, the only bathroom other than the one in our bedroom, so everyone uses it. I owe this remodel to my grandmother. She came over the other day to see some of my progress. She ooed and ahhhed at every room. Then, I opened the bathroom door to show her and her face fell. She looked repulsed and she said something that sounded like eghk! Never one to mince words, she said it was horrible looking and that I had to get rid of that paint color and hideous shower curtain (which I thought was room's main redeeming quality). There's nothing like a no-nonsense grandmother to knock your head on straight! The next day, Greg came home to a surprise. I had ripped the mirror off the wall, thrown away the shower curtain and primed the whole room. This time he didn't freak out quite so much. I think he's catching on to this, "she never has a plan, so just let her figure it out as she goes" thing.

Before

Before

FYI: This transformation cost only $49. I only bought the shower curtain ($24), rug ($20) and white towel ($5). The rest was stuff that I already had, including the paint.

After

After thinking about it, this might not be the best advertisement for our bathroom. (But I do love how the bold colors break up the neutral on neutral effect).

 Lastly, here's an update to the main living room. All we did was add the chair! (It's from target...on sale with free shipping!)

Before

After

 
I'm still finalizing some finishing details like wall art, shelving, and rugs. Since we got the floors on the spur of the moment, we hadn't picked any area rugs out yet and we're still scouring overstock.com for the perfect little budget-friendly ones to grab our attention.

Again, thanks for reading my thoughts about stuff other than food, otherwise known as my ramblings.

Under Construction

We just can't continue to be friends until I tell you my little secret. Well, it's not much of a secret if you've been over to my house in the last month or so. I've taken a liking to another hobby. I told you in my first post ever that I am not much of a decorator, but I've taken on the challenge of redecorating our house, getting ready for the next phase of our lives.We're not college kids anymore, so the papasan chair, Guiness art, and stained carpet had to go.

My new obsessive compulsion hobby started on my first day of summer vacation. I had this annoying feeling that kept popping up, like a fly that's caught in the house and keeps buzzing by your ear. I was just rattling around inside the empty (except for the pups) house. Something didn't feel comfortable. The rooms didn't flow and the colors were depressingly dark. I realized that we were still living like we were in college, without much thought to the decor, just whatever fit our budget and fit in the room.  We had picked paint colors based on what we liked without much thought to what our style was. Our "front room" (it's so small it can't really be called a living room, but it's too big to be a foyer) was dark avocado green!  So without another thought, I pulled out the drop cloths and rollers from the attic, dug the primer out of a closet, and started rolling with no idea in mind of what color I wanted it to be. I just knew it had to be lighter, more airy, and fresh. Two months later, it still isn't totally finished, but it's a heck of a lot better.

So with my blogiversary fast approaching, I decided to add another component to FFT. Instead of just showing you my thoughts about food, like dessert disasters and shrimp obsessions, I'll show you all of the ways I can mess up (and hopefully put back together) this little house of ours. These "other thoughts" as I have been calling them (in my head) will probably include updates about craft projects, room renovations, or other major changes. Obviously, it takes a lot of time and money to complete a major project, so I won't be turning this into a decorating blog, but I'll show you when there is substantial progress. Meanwhile, I will still be trying new recipes and maybe even concocting a few of my own (insert prayers for Greg here) so stay tuned! 

Here's a sneak peak of a few updates that we've made since we've moved in:

 Time of Purchase

A Year Later

 It's Painful, Right?

After Some Male Bonding, a Rented Jackhammer, and a Visit from Long Fence...

 New Fence and Patio

P.S. I know I've written "woe is me" posts about not having a grill. I was not fibbing. We were holding the grill for Greg's brother who was moving when this pic was taken. See? Not a fibber.

 See the Brick Path?

 It's Now a Stone Path

Lastly, I never took a before picture of our master bathroom because I was always too embarassed. But, I found a grainy picture online that looks almost identical, blue bath-fitter and all.

Before

After

These are just a few of the changes that have been made around here in the last three years. I can't wait to show you the progress in the rest of the house, which will be coming up in the next week or so. Thanks so much for reading my other thoughts!

Leave me a comment and let me know what you think of my little scheme. It's the only way I know you're out there reading and laughing with me...!