A Peacock Family Christmas: Decoration Edition II

I showed a few handmade Christmas decorations that appear around Peacock but there are many more to be seen. I've invested quite some time in creating a festive home and I think it has paid off! One of the things I thought of a while back and was so excited to do was use books as decorations. I envisioned all of my red and green bound books together to add a splash of holiday colors to a room. When I re-stacked all of my books I used to opportunity to grab all the reds and greens. I put them on one of our many space-heater turned shelves in front of a window and really like the overall appearance!

The book ends are also hand-me-downs of Nannie's that my sister, Meggie, so lovingly allowed me to have even though Nannie split them between us. I had no idea what to do with these until the books needed some ends so I tossed a few extra ornaments in them and voila! 

I obviously couldn't leave my children's books on the cluttered shelf unseen so they too moved to a space heater turned shelf! 

I also discovered (drumroll, please. . . ) Chalkboard Paint! And let me tell you, it was a life-changing discovery. I have begun painting all sorts of things with it including a few ornaments. 

I also painted a few picture frames as gifts and wrote on them then tied a piece of chalk in the ribbon. I thought it was clever or at least creative! I'll share the other results of chalkboard paint later.

xoK

A Peacock Family Christmas: Decoration Edition

I had a much needed craft afternoon recently. And not as in, oh I need to make a gift for this person or finish that project. It was simply a day where I said, "self- what do you feel like making today? (although, whatever you start you absolutely MUST finish so don't say a quilt.)" The answer? Christmas decorations, of course! So after lunch with some sweet friends I head to the best place ever, the craft store. A hour and $50 later I am headed home to make a few things and finish a few others. (As a disclaimer for my sister who will eventually be reading this: I am still poor but part of this $50 was your children's Christmas present!) 

Here are a few results of the day:

The wreath was super easy to make. I just bought a styrofoam wreath at the craft store and some yarn. I hot glued the beginning of the yarn to the inside of the wreath then wrapped the yarn around the wreath. After the entire wreath was covered I hot glued the end of the yarn to the inside of the wreath again. 

I used some lace ribbon I had to make a bow and used extra yarn to make a wreath hanger. I especially like that I didn't use any red because that wreath could just be a permanent fixture to my door. I think it's super cute! 

I also bought some styrofoam cones to make little Christmas trees. I just used hot glue to wrap fabric around the foam then decorated the fabric trees. The one of the left is a mixture of ribbons, yarn, and lace. The middle one is lace fringe that sorta bubbles out. And the one on the right is covered in white lace then has yarn over it. The craft store also had those candles on sale of $.69! They are super great and smell good too! I dressed them up a little with ribbon and yarn. The lace fringe was my favorite so there are three of those around the house! 

Have you made anything crafty lately?

xoK

A Peacock Family Christmas: Garland Edition

D.I.Y. Dot Garland

I'm not sure where I originally saw this idea because apparently it's everywhere. Nonetheless, I jumped on the bandwagon of the ever adorable dot garland. Here is the basic idea. . .

The dots can be the same size in various colors with space between them. . .

or with lots of pretty colors and closer together. . .

or just alternate colors overlapping each other. . .

or multicolored but stitched from the top rather than the middle. . .

or in all sizes and colors but all in line! 

 one. two. three. four. five. 

There is obviously 100 ways to ice a cake ("skin a cat" just sounds so terrible. . .) So I decided to stick with the basics for my first go 'round. 

I bought pre-cut 8.5 x 11 sheets of stiff felt in the basic Christmas colors. Sadly, I didn't take nearly enough pictures along the way but all I did was trace the lid of a mason jar to create same size circles.

I quickly realized this left me with random extra felt so I traced a candle to make mini-circles. This took me quite some time so I put on a movie while I cut. The cutting was the only time consuming part. 

This is where I stopped taking pictures and just focused on cutting. But once all the circles were cut I had a decision to make! Do I do garlands with mixed sizes or same size only? Do I leave space between the dots or put them right beside each other? Do I let the dots overlap? Do I put the small dots on top of the big dots? Ahhh! I eventually decided on same size dots with no space between the dots but not overlapping. From there, the process was quick and easy! All I did was begin with one dot and start sewing down the center so I was left with a circle with a line straight across. Then I would put a different color dot right next to it and keep on going. I didn't worry too much about keeping the stitch centered on the dots because you can't really notice in the end. 

I really liked the finished product! I ended up with two "big dot garlands" and one "mini-dot garland" although I am not using the mini-dot garland as garland any longer. It's already been repurposed in a way I will share with you later. =) 

xoK

"Wanna see the lights in my bed?"

Yes, this is the awkward phrase I uttered to my friend, Matt, as soon as he walked in the door. Forget the traditional, "hello!" or "welcome to peacock" or "hey, how are ya?" No, I go straight for the kill and invite the poor guy into my bed. I quickly followed up with "room" but not before he could look at me like I was crazy and all of my friends could laugh hysterically at my awkwardness. What was Matt's response? "Does that usually work for you? If so, I should start using that as a pick-up line." 

Allow me to explain-I had been inspired by photographs such as these. . .

It actually was not all of these pictures that led me to put lights in my room. From where did my inspiration come? Cleaning. Yes, cleaning. Well, organizing to be more exact. I had one extra box of Christmas lights that had to be used. Couldn't I just save them for next year, you might ask? Absolutely not, that is entirely too logical. Every single light bulb must be put to use! The result? A truly magical bed that I'm not sure how I ever survived in prior to this moment. 

I like it better than all of the others combined. It's the most magical bedroom in the whole wide world. 

xoK

A Peacock Family Christmas: Tree Edition

For me, searching for the perfect Christmas tree is about as great as the tree itself. I think I would visit a Christmas tree farm even if I wasn't actually buying a tree. I simply enjoy seeing the trees- the way they are all lined up, the different shapes and sizes, the pretty lights hung above the trees, all of it!  I like Christmas trees so much that when I was living at home I spent my own money to buy a 2nd Christmas tree just for my bedroom. And I don't mean a mini-tree, I bought a full sized Christmas tree. My friends helped me pick it out, carry it up stairs to my room, and decorate. It's also important to mention that my mom had a full-sized, beautifully decorated tree in the main part of our home that I saw anytime I was home and not in my room. All of that to say, I'm a pretty big fan of Christmas trees. 

This is one of the few pictures I can find that has my bedroom tree in it but you get the idea.

So imagine my excitement when I had an excuse to buy my very own Christmas tree last year! I had recently moved out of my mom's house and no longer had to put a tree in my bedroom. This is last year's Christmas tree with my sweet roommate. 

That was so fun. Going to find a Christmas tree this year was even more fun because I have two additional roommates! One of them was busy studying (can you guess who?!) so it was 3/4 of Peacock on the prowl for the tree. Let the hunt begin. . .

However, we quickly encountered a few problems: our price limit seems a bit too low, Jeni likes fat trees, Aubrey likes cheap trees, and I like big trees. . .like this one.

Since Jeni is a little bit not as tall as Aubrey and me, she doesn't even realize when a tree is a little bit not as tall as Aubrey and me. It was actually really humorous because she would find a tree she thought was great because it was big and fat then I would walk up and I would be the same height as the tree. Really, the tree was just fat but they all seemed a nice height to her! We eventually found the perfect tree!

Sort of. . .as long as you're looking at its good side. =) 

I also thought their "office" was adorable and worthy of about ten photographs. The sweet striped awning just felt like home! 

I'll save photographs of the decorated tree for another edition of A Peacock Family Christmas. =)

xoK