Deck the Halls!

I love decorating for Christmas, and especially this year being in our new house with our new fireplace! I had to restrain myself from buying more decorations to fill up our much bigger house. Here is our mantle...

After hanging our stockings, I got out all our glass vases and played around with them. I filled some with dollar store ornaments, and others with flameless candles and spray painted kidney beans (I got that idea from my friends blog dooleynotedblog.com).

I needed some greenery but the garlands I had didn't work. I headed out to my backyard and trimmed a bunch of branches off our eucalyptus tree. I had hoped to have a mirror or a wreath on the wall behind everything, but the mirror I wanted was sold out, so I'm still looking for one that will work. And, well, the wreath was a craft project gone bad.

Our ladder shelves are finally together, so I had a lot of fun making them more Christmas-y then I usually do.

Using more glass containers I filled them with extra dollar store ornaments, pine cones, and peppermint candies. I wanted to add a little turquoise in this year to match the decor and I found those glittery styrofoam balls at Michaels.

I shared with you the JOY letters here last year. Another simple idea is displaying Christmas pictures. I actually keep the Christmas picture behind the regular picture all year long, so its easy to just swap them when the time comes.

And lastly, here is one of my craft projects this year. I needed a new card display so I headed to Pinterest for inspiration and found this easy and cute clothespin wreath.

All you need is an embroidery hoop which are about $2 and clothespins. I hot glued the pins, alternating them facing in or out. With the group of three I think they look like ornaments!