Christmas Condensed

Hellloooo Friends! I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and are looking forward to a great new year! I know I did, and I am! :)

I started out December ahead with lots of things done and lots of things planned, then life happened and I barely got everything done before Christmas!

 

The major life stuff that was going on was that my sweet Nana had another heart attack at the beginning of December and fell and cut her ear and hurt her back. Poor Nana :( We celebrated her 82nd birthday in the hospital. Because of her heart and her injuries she wasn't able to go home right away, so she has been in a Rehab Center since leaving the hospital. She is doing pretty good and hopefully we will have her back to her own home before long! It made for a tough December, for her and for us but as always she has a great attitude and our family is so blessed to still have her with us.

So to recap December...
I of course put up a tree and decorated. I also made two of these Tomato Cage Trees to decorate the outside of my house

The Christmas committee at my work had the cutest idea....the week and half before our Christmas dinner every morning there was a little treat and Christmas song lyrics on our desks. I snapped a picture of a few of them. I loved it, I couldn't wait to get to work every morning and see what the treat was! It really helped get me into the Christmas spirit.

The popcorn was "Let it Snow" (I brought some corn for popping...too cute!)

My friend and I continued our tradition of Christmas light looking while hot chocolate drinking...

A few days before Christmas we finally got our first snow!

 

My sister and her family came for Christmas and I got to spend time with my sweet, fun, beautiful nieces. Oh how I love these girls!

I also made a gift (it may or may not have been at the last minute...don't judge...we all do it right? right? ha ha!) using the same technique I used HERE & HERE,with a bit of twist. My sweet friend made me the stencil with her Silhouette. It made the process so easy! A Silhouette is so on my wish list!!

I assembled my supplies on the only place I had free (I was cooking in the kitchen, wrapping in my craft area) I set up my work area, complete with a peppermint hot chocolate. (I sure did a lot of hot chocolate drinking this year!)

And the finished product:

Which brings me to the thing I love most about Christmas, the reason for it.

Jesus

He is the true reason for the season. May His love and blessings fill your heart and your home in the coming year and always.

So that is my condensed version of December/Christmas. It was great, I hope yours was too!

Join me on Tuesday for the top posts of 2012 and a preview of some things I have planned in 2013!

Happy New Year friends, stay safe!

Tomato Cage Trees

You say tomato, I say tomhato....:)

 

Anyway you say it, tomato/tamhato cages were what I used in a project I have had planned all year....

Yes, you heard me correctly. Last year I saw some tomato cage trees somewhere on some fantastic blog (that I did not write down-boo me) I did a Pinterest search to see if I could find the source. Sheesh! Do you have any idea how many people are out there making tomato cage trees? ALOT! I had never read any of their blogs though, so I didn't get the idea from them. So thank you fantastic nameless blog that inspired me, I salute you. :)

 I saved my tomato cages from last summer and bought the "good" garland and lights at 90% off after Christmas. I would like to pretend that once I had all my supplies I whipped those suckers out. Nope. Didn't happen. I made these last week.

 

I started by flipping the cages upside down and clipping them together with a binder clip. I then tied the cage together so it would resemble a tree.

 

Evidently I felt the need to take lots of pictures of the simple steps above, and none of the next steps. I don't know about you, but once I start getting into a project I forget to keep taking pictures.

 

I wrapped the garland around the tomato cage, then wrapped a string of white lights around the cage. I added a red velvet bow to the top and then I had a cute little Christmas tree!

 

Love it!

 

Here are the finished trees outside. I really wish I had shutters, but when you rent you take what you have and just try to make it pretty!:)

 

I love Christmas!

 

Sharing this with those awesome ladies at

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Spray Paint Sunday

Helllloooo Friends!  We have been having crazy warm temps here in Missouri, is that happening where you live too?

When the weather gets cold my spray paint projects get banished to the garage (aka my future craft room-it's a work in progress.)  When the temp was in the upper 70's on Sunday (after church)  I took advantage of the warm spring December afternoon and decided to have a spray paint palooza. :)

 

I spread a big plastic tarp across my back patio, gathered my supplies and grabbed every project that I have been putting off out of the garage and got to work.

 

My projects included three shelves for my daughter's room (all snapped up at a dollar or less) a shelf for my Mom, a big awesome fancy frame that I have a project in mind for, another frame that I was going to throw away that will become a Christmas craft, and a candle holder that I love but needed updated.

 

I went through almost three cans of primer....and then I painted.  My favorite part.  I spray painted all afternoon.  It was starting to get dark when I finished.  I was tired and my finger was a little sore, but yesterday I could barely grasp anything.  I used muscles in my arm I didn't even know I had!

 

I really love how spray paint transforms things.   I also love when things turn out like I imagined in my head.  :)

 

My spray paint Sunday gave me a good start on some projects I have been meaning to do.  Have you done any fun projects lately?