Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Holiday Cheer

Christmas lights

Our tree finally made it in the house this afternoon and took its place in the family room filling the air with the smell of fresh pine :)

Stringing Popcorn

With a bowl of freshly popped popcorn the kids and I got busy stringing long strands of popcorn together for garland...

Chocolate decorations

to be hung along with pretty chocolate balls and candy canes.

Angel

It was so pretty this evening as we all sat in the dark with only the glow of the tree to light the room as we celebrated winter solstice and the return of longer days.

Rudolph

I've been promising to share photos of our decorations above our fireplace and the sun came out today and I thought if I don't get some good pictures now we may not get any light again for a while *grin* so here they are :)

I had mentioned a couple of weeks ago that my son was working on making a cardboard 3D silhouette of Rudolph to hang above the fireplace and it turned out fantastic!! I found it originally on pinterest but the link only gave plans for a very small one that you could print on your printer so he drew a larger one freehand and it must be about two and a half feet high filling in the mantle space right to the ceiling.

Fabric Finnish Stars

Another special ornament I made this year was all due to my lovely blog friend Amy who shared about the Finnish Stars she had made out of fabric and I was completely smitten with hers and had to make some of my own. Oh my word do I just love how these turn out and there are quite a few people on my Christmas list getting these this year *grin*.

Heat n bond Glue

I used heat 'n bond between my layers of cotton and linen, I'm not sure if she glued hers together this way, but I found that I could stick quite a few portions of each star together with little squares of the heat 'n bond in one swoop of my iron and the glue layers stiffened it up quite nicely :) They are a bit tedious to make like she had mentioned but after the first couple it seemed to move a long a little quicker but now that I've made eight of them I'm glad to be finished LOL.

Mini Gingerbread houses

Beneath the candy canes and finnish stars, rudolph we placed some of our mini gingerbread houses that we made last year and a few decorative trees and called it complete.

I wanted to keep everything really simple this year so the decorations are really minimal, not to many lights or knic knacs and most of what we used we baked, sewed or made from paper aside from a few sugary items. As I strive to personally keep my focus on the calm joy of the season and on family and faith I find it helps to keep all the surrounding noise of excess items to a minimum so I don't get distracted. So far so good *grin*.

Hugs,
Rosina

6 comments:

Amy Friend said...

I love your stars too! I didn't use heat and bond between the layers, I used glue there. I think you were smart to use it for that step too. It would speed things up as long as it holds as well. Great idea! If I make more, I will try it that way. Merry Christmas my friend!

charlotte said...

yes the star ios lovely. I agree on the less is more, as it gives me time to sit and enjoy what we ahve done instead of rushing to the next thing. Merry Christmas to you and your family.

Mal said...

Love your decorations!

Nothing beats the smell of a Christmas tree!

http://chicgeekery.blogspot.com/

house full of jays said...

I love your beautiful decorations! And those stars are so lovely!
Wishing you a wonderful Christmas shared with loved ones! Much love, Rachel

Anonymous said...

That reindeer "mount" just slays me! Awesome! Merry Christmas to you & yours!!!

Anonymous said...

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