Who Doesn't Like The Christmas Lights?

This is my least favorite job when decorating for the holidays, the lights.  It's the worst, no matter how careful you are wrapping them up when putting them away, you always have a tangled mess when you need to put them back out.  OR, you check them, get them all up and then they don't work.  This happened to me yesterday when decorating the outside of the house.  I got the garland hung around the door, plugged the lights in, strung them around the garland, I get down from the ladder and the lights go out! What evil lurks around the putting up of the lights?!  I left them there and strung a new set of lights, my nerves couldn't take it anymore.

These lights were for inside.  Nasty little buggers, a tangled mess.

 Got them up and they do look pretty.  The garland and ribbon have a music note pattern on them and the garland spells out Merry Christmas in silver glitter.  On top of the china cabinet, vintage Santa was my mother's and paper mache reindeer I have had for a very long time.

 Flocked wreath I bought, I just added the red flannel bow and the sign. Dollar Tree store gold and ivory charger, ivory bottle brush trees with gold stars I had, and gold glittered reindeer were $1.00 each at the Christmas Tree Shop.

 Flocked scrub pine and pine cone candle rings I got at King's.  Vintage silver tray and sugar cube bowl, I just added a little glittered tree, some Shiny Bright glass balls and candy canes to the tray.

 Lantern centerpiece I made with things I already had.  Wood and metal tray from Home Goods, wreath, pine cones, red clustered berrys, glittered balls, snowflakes and a burlap bow.  Snow couple candle holder I have had since the early 90's and the peppermint candy candle ring is new from AC Moore.

Easy on the Pocket Home Decor

I painted our master bedroom back in October.  The color on the wall is called Pure Earth by Behr at Home Depot.  When I started to think about decorating the walls I didn't want to spent a lot of money, the room is very large 28 x 13 I think, with alot of wall space.  I went to my local thrift store (my lucky day) and found three of these solid wood shelves, with the hardware for hanging, from Pottery Barn for $1.00 each.  Yes that's right, $3.00 for 3 shelves that still had the orignal tag on them and were $39.00 each! So I painted them with one of those little jars of paint I spoke about in an earlier blog. The color was called cream in my coffee.

I repurposed these wood lamps that I got a while ago from Lowe's for $19.99 each.  The burlap shades were $9.99 each.  Lowe's has great stuff in their clearance section, always look. I went to Michael's and found these fabric flowers in the scrapbooking section and hot glued them on to the shades.  It gives them a fancier look than a just a plain shade.

My little coffee bar.  I had an old french buffet that was painted black so I reused it in the kitchen to set up a coffee bar. I wanted to get the big Keurig (I love the Keurig) off the counter and free up some space.  It really does need a place of its own.  I store my coffee pods, sugar, sweeteners and tea in Longaberger baskets. I have a "sick" collection of those baskets so I may as well use them. 

This metal rooster is my kitchen table centerpiece, it's about 2 feet long.  I bought it at  Gabriel Brothers for $9.99.  I decorate it for all seasons changing what I put inside.  For summer I have lemons and limes that I got at Ross for $4.99.   The plant was $5.99 and galvanized bucket was $5.00 and both came from Ikea.  There are also battery operated bead lights from the Christmas Tree Shop on the plant, they were $3.99.  Reindeer moss on the bottom is from Dollar Tree, you guessed it $1.00!  The 72" twine/rope mat was $7.99 at Marshalls.