A Peek Into My Holiday Home

I love to tour blogland during the holidays and view all the gorgeous homes. Since I missed the deadline for most of the home tour parties, I thought I'd share quick glimpse inside our home anyways.

My favorite part of our upstairs decor this year... no more ICKY carpet!

Oh, but I do love my collection of vintage tree toppers along the mantel too...

Gift Ideas

Looking for last minute gift ideas?
Have you checked out Pinterest? It's full of inspiration! I spotted these, and knew they would make perfect teacher gifts.
The girls went through my stash of vintage jewelry odds and ends and picked out what they wanted for their teachers bookmark.
Next, they chose some ribbon, I added clamps to each end and attached a few glass beads and the vintage jewelry pieces.
We love how they turned out!

I also whipped up a couple key rings too.
For each, I used two pieces of felted wool, a vintage rhinestone button, and attached the clip with matching ribbon leftover from the book marks.

Such simple ideas, that can be personalized for anyone.

DIY Felt Wreath Ornament

I needed a craft idea for 9 Girl Scouts who were coming over for a Christmas tea party on Monday afternoon...
...and I didn't have time to shop for supplies.

Thanks to Pinterest, I found this idea at 1:45am Monday morning.
The best part, I had all the supplies on hand - yay!
So, by 2am I was busily cutting lots and lots of 1" squares of felted wool!

The girls and I had fun making ours, so I thought I'd show you how we made 'em.
To begin, I cut a 9" piece of craft wire. Sorry, but I'm not sure what gauge of wire I used. It was firm, but easily bendable too - if that helps.
Make a "U" shape on one end of the wire - this is to prevent the squares from sliding off.

Now, from your stash of 1" squares

begin threading pieces of wool onto your wire.
Since the wire was somewhat firm, it poked through the felt easy enough.

I used approximately 32-35 squares of felt.
When you have the desired amount of felt on the wire, twist the ends together a few times.
Trim the excess ends with wire cutters, and bend the twisted part down flat.

For the loop, I ran a 9" piece of ribbon around the wire and tied the two ends into a knot.
Next, I slid the knot (so it wouldn't show) back towards the wire, and tied another knot close to the wool. If your wreath gets a little wonky, just bend it around to form a nice circle.

I made a bow and attached it with tacky glue to finish.

Cute, huh?

I used scraps from felted wool sweaters for ours, but craft felt might work too.

DIY Vintage Style Reflectors For Your Christmas Tree

Something I've wanted for my Christmas tree, but never seem to find or win on eBay are vintage reflectors.
Have you ever watched an auction for them?
Wow! It's crazy how expensive they can get!

I spied a bag of sandbakkel tins in my junk drawer the other day that I picked up while thrifting who knows when... and I had an "ah-ha" moment.
Forget sandbakkels, I'm gonna make reflectors!

All I had to do to make them work, was to drill a hole in the bottom of the tin for the light to fit through. I used a 5/16 drill bit which made a perfect sized hole. Easy peasy.

For $1.99, I ended up with 25 reflector replicas. At approximately .08 cents each, I'd say that was pretty reasonable!
The added sparkle? Priceless!