So I know that I'll be setting up the old V-Day mantle here in about a week, but I figure its never to late to show off the winter mantle that I've had up since Christmas came down.
 




 
I did end up using some of my ornaments from Christmas but they're snowflakes, so they're completely within keeping. Oh and I did use my pearl bead garland that was around the chandelier.

Well there's the winterscapes. Hope you guys enjoyed!

Even though the weather here in NoVA is pretty nice. You don’t even need a jacket today. It has not stopped me from dreaming about cooler weather.

It doesn’t hurt that I’m also super excited for Thanksgiving to hurry up and get done, because I can’t wait to put up Christmas!

But seeing as how I still have to wait, and I get a little sad that Christmas comes down. I miss the glitter and glitz.

So I have created a pillow that will solve my dilemma. It might be a little soon to have it out, but I’m not too worried about it.

This pillow is super simple to do.
This pillow actually started out as a curtain, but I didn't need the curtain anymore so I cut it up, because it was a nice weight for  pillows. I ended up getting two 16" pillows  out of it.

I found a tree silhouette that I liked in my Photoshop shapes. I don’t know where I got it. I downloaded it a while ago. I sized this shape to fit my paper, then saved it as a jpeg.

I opened up Silhouette Studio and imported my tree jpeg and then traced it and cut it out. Now, I just cut it out on regular paper, but you could certainly use freezer paper.

After I had my stencil, I took my fabric marker (the kind that disappears after a bit) and traced inside each of my cut sections on my pillow square.

I watered down some matte Tulip fabric paint in chocolate brown.  I thinned it down so that it was a bit like ink. Might have been slightly more watery than that and then with a careful hand and a small paintbrush I filled in each of my tracings. Let the paint dry.

After the tree was dry, I pulled out the Tulip glitter bond.  I took another paintbrush and kind of dabbed/ dragged the paintbrush over the tops of some of the boughs of the tree. Then I dumped glitter all over that. I did this until I was  happy with the effect. I then put all my glitter back into its bottle, and prayed that I didn’t dump it all over myself.

Then I let the glue dry for a couple of hours.

Now I’m enjoying my oh-so-pretty pillow. I love how understated she is. I am also loving that I can leave her out through January.

What do you guys think?

So my New Year's Mantle and Tablescape has been up for a while now, and I dunno if you noticed or not but the colors I picked for them were aqua and copper. Love that combination. Really I love anything with copper. I love the bright orangey-tone to it. Orange makes me happy. H-A-PP-Y! So now we know why I have so much copper/orange in my decorating.

I used to have a winter wreath. It was from Target and it did not even last two winters before we had to trash it. Sadness. So I had a couple of old Christmas wreaths laying around that I knew I could recycle. So here's my first crafty post of 2011!

I took off all the picks and saved the ones I could. Then the wreaths took a trip to my painting plywood out in the garage and got a couple of sloppy coats of blossom white spray paint. I didn't do a terrific job because I wanted the wreaths to look frosted. After they dried, I brought them back inside and got to work on the fun part.

Michael's had all of their Christmas picks and floral on 60-75% clearance a few weeks ago, so I snatched up the glittery materials I needed. Yay for saving $$$. So I cut everything but the large copper picks apart. Then I just hot glued everything in. I am loving the finished product.
Oh you noticed that I said I had a couple of wreaths? Well the original plan was to have two wreaths on the door. One hanging from the other, the only problem with this plan was that my wreaths were too big and the 2nd wreath ended up hanging right about door knob level. So I gave the second wreath to my mom. :)

The best quote came from this project as well. We all know that glitter sheds {a lot} and as I was busily trying to clean it all up before the hubs noticed just how much {more} glitter I had added to the already glitterfied kitchen.

Well he noticed, and as he watched me repeatedly clean the island trying to rid it of all the glitter that had shed from these wreaths he said, "This room has more glitter than a strip club, you know that right?"

To which I just look at him {probably covered in head to toe in glitter} and gave him the best stink eye I could muster just grimaced at him. Then I returned to the mop, vacuum and wet cloth. I am still finding glitter in the kitchen.....a full week after I got this project done. le sigh. I will win this glitter war eventually. Hopefully. Because the hubs asked if we could have a glitter-free winter next year, and well, I just laughed at him. :) Maybe for Valentine's Day I'll go glitter free. Maybe.

I hope you guys have a terrifically glittery day today!



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Well Dana was supposed to share the wassail recipe today but something has laid her low. I hope she is feeling better before tonight's festivities. I am writing this from my android while a girlfriend is getting a manicure,  so if there are more spelling mistakes than normal thats why. :) I also apologize for the somewhat late sharing of this.

But, I am super excited to share with you guys the finished New Year's mantle and tablescape! I did not get all  of the projects done for this that I wanted to, but I'm still happy with the outcome!
The paper cone wreath can be found here!

The tablescape is similar to last year's with the exception of the birdcaages. Those are new. :)
 I tried to keep the theme simple for both areas. I went with white, blue/teal and copper for the main colors and then accented with the glass and silver. I am loving the effect. :)  The clocks are some paper mache' disks that I painted and then just drew the clock faces on with a sharpie. The adornments on the wreath are not permanent. I hot glued magnets to the back of all of them and then just slipped another magnet down inside the cones. Easy peasy!

Well I hope guys found this worth the wait. Be safe tonight, and I hope that everyone has a terrific New Year's Eve and I can't wait to start the New Year with all of you!

~Heather~

I am so honored to share this!














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