Barnwood Home Sweet Home and a little Christmas Decor

 Every once in a while I have the urge to be really creative at oh 8:00 pm.  An idea pops into my head and it must be done today.  Well this is where this little beauty came from.  I broke out my biscut joiner, glue, air nailer and paint and went to town making this little Barnwood Home Sweet Home sign. 

I also figured since Christmas is just around the corner I would share with you some of our Christmas decorating. 

 My husband makes fun of me when it comes to decorating my tree, I like it a particular way and I enjoy doing it when the kids are in bed.  Which is why they each get their own tree to decorate however they want. 

This is one of my son's little trees that they can decorate with as many or as little decorations as they want. 

The Christmas village is also one of the boys favorite things to set up.  I give them the boxes and they go to town and set it up. 

I would show you my outside decorations but there is so much snow you can hardly see them.

I think I am officially all ready for the holidays to be here, how about you?

Favorite Christmas Mantels

OH CHRISTMAS MANTEL HOW I WOULD LOVE ONE

Every year I watch as all of these fabulous mantels are decorated in these fabulous themes and colors and I am so jealous that I don't have one to decorate. I have even asked my husband if we could get an electric fireplace, not for the heat but for the ability to decorate it for the seasons.   So I have put together some of my favorite holiday mantels

 The First on is from Creative Carmella What I love about this mantel is the traditional feel but with a few vintage pieces and check out her Joy Banner, isn't it cute.  

 This one is from Organized Clutter there is so much I like about this one.  I love the use of the coca cola crate to display ornaments and pine cones.  They painted the bike rim red for a place to put photos and don't you just love the little skis

This one from Comfy Home has a simple and natural feel to it and the Sign really finishes it off well 

How could you not love this one from Four Generations One Roof, The Joy sign using the colorful wreath is fantastic 

What a fantastic mantel is this from The Yellow Cap Cod, how cute are those polka dot and striped stockings with a little bit of leopard print on the top.  My absolutely favorite part though is the reindeer antlers they fit perfectly on the mantel.

While we can't all have a fantastic mantel to hang our stockings on you can do like they did at The DIY Showoff and create a faux mantel. 

I hope you enjoyed my favorite Christmas Mantels.  If you don't have a Fireplace mantel what do you do with your stockings?

Gingerbread House Tradition

1. This past weekend we did our annual Gingerbread decorating.  This is something I have done with my kids since they could eat the icing, and also something they look forward to every year. 

 I baked and assembled the housed the night before, because really what fun is there in wathcing the icing dry.

Concentrating so hard on their decorating skills. 

We finished up with a cup of hot chocolate.

My boys are having a really hard time with not eating them all. 

We put our tree up a few weeks ago, I just love how it just lights everything up and makes it feel so good to just sit and look at it. 

We have had so much snow in the past month that I am really not sure where we will put anymore, and as I am typing this the sky is filled with more falling snow. 

Can you see the light post in front of my house, that is right it is almost covered. Whom ever keeps wishing for a white Christmas you can stop we have all we can handle. 

What are some of your Christmas Family Traditions?

Sign Sign Everywhere

Oh How I love this time of year, it is the one time of year that more is better when it comes to decorating.  I love it and have to add something new to my Christmas collection each year.  

This week we had a huge snowfall that left most people stuck at home or trying to get out and getting stuck.  So this was a perfect week to finish up some Christmas signs I had been working on. 

Signs have always been one of my favorite things to do and to give as gifts.  I am thinking some of these are going to be a great gift for all our hard working teachers.  

What is that special Christmas Craft you have been working on.

Livingroom update with Curtains

Well about a year ago we starting to update our house. We added new flooring, painted the house, changed the countertop and got new furniture. We have actually lived in this house for about 8 year which consisted of little boys running around and destroying things.  We didn't really have a pretty adult space but instead a boy infested, lego stepping and baby spit up kind of a space.  

 I did at one point have curtains up but after about a week my lovely children had pulled them down. 

With the boys getting old enough to trust (or at least I hope) it was finally time to add some curtains.  It really changes the feel of the house.  I found this fantastic fabric on Etsy and while I am not a professional sewer I found the curtains fairly easy to make.  I am hoping soon I can show you some of my other projects in this makeover but we might have to wait until after Christmas to do it. 

From Past To Present Coffee Table Transformation

I love this table because it is such a unique piece with fantastic features.  It just isn't something that they make anymore.  So when my mother in-law found me this table I was so excited.  Although the original color just wasn't that attractive. 

What I like about this piece is that it has the folding sides so you can extend it for more space. 

 I decided to do the two tones to give it a little more character and then gave it a little shabby chic look.  

I don't know about the rest of you but I have been itching to decorate for Christmas but have a rule that it shouldn't be done until the first of December.  How early do you decorate?

Simple Barnwood Towel Hooks

After looking at the same picture and towel hook for the past 8 years I thought it was time to change it up.  I added a fresh coat of paint, found this new artwork but just couldn't find a towel hook that would go well in here. 

I was at a little antique store and found these fabulous hooks and I figured these would look fantastic and work great in the bathroom. I also have a little stash of barnwood so I simply screwed these into the wall and barnwood.   This bathroom is mainly used by the kiddies and the main problem with the old towel hook was that they were not tall enough to put the towel back on it and they were always pulling the towel down which ended up pulling the screws out. This makes it easier to put the towel back on and because I screwed the hooks right into the wall it adds more strength.  

This weekend we finished up my sons football season, he went out with a bang and got his first touchdown.  

Thank goodness we are done as that afternoon it started snowing and it hasn't stopped.  While the kids thought this was the best thing ever I was not looking forward to all the shoveling of snow that had to happen. 

Hope you all had a great weekend.