Holiday Door Valance

 I always loved those paper loop chains that kids make. They are just cute and make me think of childhood. So this year, I decided I wanted to try to adapt one of those chains to fit in with my decorations.

I opted for red and white felt for the loops. Staying with my buttons these for the year, I stitched buttons on to the red loops where the ends meet and used them to close the loop. I kept the white loops simple and just stitched them closed.

We live in a split level house, so when guests leave they will see this cute chain suspended over the door. I didn't want to just do loops, so at each end I staggered ribbon. Jingle bells and acrylic "lights" are tied to the ends of the ribbon streamers.

This is just another cute, fun decoration that can be quickly put together in an evening. I really love the childlike quality to these decorations. For me, Christmas has always been about kids and that wonderment that comes with this time of year. And my favorite decorations reflect that.

Let the Merry Begin!

Thanksgiving in my house means two things: A huge family dinner and time to decorate for Christmas. I don't take out or put up decorations until the day after Thanksgiving, that's always been our tradition. This year that has gotten tweaked a little due to a major home improvement project. As I type this, my wonderful hubby is finishing putting in the last of our beautiful new laminate wood floors. It's been a long week working on this, but the end is in sight and I'm so happy to finally have pretty new floors. My house should be all put back together and decorated by the end of the week.

One of the new decorations that will be up this year is this felt wallhanging. This is a really nice project to do with kids. While you are weaving and sewing the red and white background, let the kids decorate the tree with dimensional fabric paint, beads, sequins, buttons or whatever else you have handy.

This year I'm in love with buttons, so I stitched buttons around the border and used them as embellishments on both the tree and around the tree. The colored chain that hangs on one side added some nice texture and tied in the chain used to hang it. The chain can easily be substituted with ribbon. In total, this little project cost maybe $10 if you have to buy all the supplies, much less if you only need to get felt. It would be a nice activity for little ones, as I did with my granddaughters, sure to make memories that will be cherished every year when you take it out.

Dressing Up The Everyday

Now that you have an idea for a nice everyday pillow, I wanted to show you a way to dress it up for the holidays. Maybe you don't want to completely changed the look of your pillows. Or maybe you only want to change a few. I know it can seem like holiday overload if there is too many decorations.

For those like me that want to just accent for the holidays and not make your room look like a window display (because, I mean, really - you do have to live in that room!) I came up with the idea of having a pillow band that dresses up the pillow without taking it over.

What I love about the design: It's reversible! One band to cover two holidays which is great for saving storage space. Another cool thing about these, if you have a plain pillow that you already love, make the band in coordinating fabrics to dress it up for the holidays. (I used the Everyday Pillow from yesterday's post.) The band pictured was done for Thanksgiving/Autumn and Christmas.



The Autumn side is made of five strips of brown materials, simple light green embroidered design using a running stitch and embellished with some sparkly leaves in fall colors. The Christmas side is made from a deep, rich red cotton, with the words stenciled on and painted with metallic silver fabric paint and outlined with dimensional paint. Then I added a few buttons to fill in the empty space with a few coordinating buttons.

Again, super simple, not too expensive and these can be made as simple or elaborate as you want or as time allows. And honestly, once you get started making these types of accessories you can get addicted and fall in love with changing the look of your home whenever you want without spending a ton of money!

Personalized Space

My two little granddaughters share just about everything - toys, clothes, and room to name a few. Right now they are young enough to still be ok with that much sharing, but I'm sure it won't be long before they want their own space.

To help their shared room feel like it can be a bit more personalized and they each have some space of their own, I made them each a name banner. There is one for each girl so her name can be hung above her bed, maybe giving her a feeling of having some space of her own.

They both just got new bed linens and comforters that were black and white with bright pink flowers. My step-daughter wanted their room to be fun and colorful, so when I saw this material I was ecstatic! It fit the theme of the room perfectly and the flower buttons at each end gave them that extra little pop of color.

"Designer" Jeans

So the weather is definitely turning colder and October is bringing the autumn feeling with it. Before long there will be leaves on the ground, the garden will be emptied and canned and I will look forward to cozy fires to keep me warm.

With colder weather, comes the need to dress warmer and our little granddaughters are the first to get new fall/winter clothes to keep them warm. My oldest granddaughter is four years and built very sturdy. She isn't chunky or pudgy with baby fat. That little girl is muscle and I can see her being a great athlete someday. Right now, it means she has a hard time finding pants that fit her right. So when my hubby and I decided to spoil her with some new clothes, we were not too thrilled to see that girls were offered primarily skinny and slim fit jeans.

So to get the best fit, we had to get her little boy pants. I didn't like it because I thought it might give the little girl a complex, but using my super-crafty skills, I turned it around and made it in to a fun project. Boys jeans are very plain which means that are great for dressing up and personalizing at home.

We started with some plain black jeans, some patches, sequins, Fabri-tac and a silver glitter fabric marker. I let her decide what she wanted and where, added the glue and she pressed them down. I did all the work with fabric marker, but she told me she wanted swirlies and polka dots. So this is what we came up with:

 

She was so happy with them and everyone else has told her they are cute. I think they really fit her personality. My favorite part of this whole project, it was the first lesson she got in a simple philosophy: You don't have to spend a ton of money to have clothes that will help you stand out!