Coconut Flakes, Turkey Feathers and Pink Window Panes

I had so much fun decking my Christmas mantle this year. It was fun to play around with different things I had around the house to make it all come together.

I'm sure you can deduce that coconut flakes mentioned in the title is what I used for the fake snow sprinkles. The letter N came from my picture gallery in the master bedroom and the other "letters" I just gathered from around my house.

Here is my pink window pane. Which started out as white. Then I painted red. Then I painted gold. Then I distressed it. Pink is what became of it.

I was trying to make it like this from PB...
You can't see them in the pictures, but their are strings of twine in between each pane that I nailed in to clip card on. These are just some of my favorite vintage-y ones I've received or collected over the years.

Stockings hung by the chimney with care. The garland came from the cypress trees in my backyard. I made some for the windows too in the living room. They were a cinch to make, but a week later they are crumbling under the slightest touch!

Some bottles I recently numbered from 1-6 with glass paint. The 2 and the 5 were perfect to use as we prepare for the 25th of December. Can you spot my turkey feather in the vase? The other day I looked out my back window to find 5 or 6 wild turkeys in my backyard! I was so excited to find proof of their visit!

Those giant stars are gigantic versions of what my Aunt Ramona taught me how to make while she visited a few weeks ago. I have 7 dangling above my head as I type away in the living room right now. I thought I was making snowflakes, but everyone that sees them talks about how they love my stars. So stars they are.

Maybe one day we'll have our fireplace wired up for gas logs (the chimney is capped off so it can't be wood burning) but in the mean time we can simulate a roasting hot fire with a bunch of tapered candles.

Merry Christmas! I'll be linking up to The Lettered Cottage "Merry Mantle Party" today so if you need any ideas, these girls are the ones to check out!

Wow. That was rude.

Man. I am so sorry about that. So, apparently when you don't have the internet for 2 weeks you aren't able to use the internet to tell people you don't have the internet. Well, at least you get things done around the house when you don't have a blog to keep up with. Here's a pictoral update of what we've been up to.

I'm also not to proud to post my "not so pretty" areas. There's a garage sale pile in the corner of the sitting room, the hallway in all it's glory and let's not even mention the dresser in the bedroom. Yes, I've heard of photoshop, but this is real life people! :)

In answering a few questions of some commenters:

1. Our living room color is Croissant by Sherwin Williams. Love it and we get a lot of compliments on it.

2. Lady in Arkansas renovating a house- we did in fact go over some existing flooring with the concrete, but we pulled up some vinyl parquet tiles before that and laid down some plywood and some metal screen before the concrete was poured. I'll be in touch. :)

Sampler Platter

You asked for it...you got it. This is just a taste of how the house is shaping up. I don't want you to see all the house just yet but here's how a few of the rooms are turning out.



For starters, we ended up buying this Price Pfister Arlington faucet from Lowe's for a little over $200.00. We needed a faucet with one hole so unfortunately I have no use for the soap pump. I hate to see things go wasted so if anyone has an idea of what to do with it or even if you need it, let me know! And yes, it has the faucet has a built-in sprayer which was a must for me.


Lowe's should pay me for showcasing their stuff. Yes, this wallpaper backsplash is from you guessed it. Back when Adam and I were childless and fancy free we spent our Saturday mornings going to Lowe's sidewalk sales and picking up all of their clearance marked items that they had sitting out in front of the store. Not every Lowe's does this we've found so we'd make a ritual of going to Great Harvest Bread for breakfast, hit up our sidewalk sale with some garage sales along the way. Good days.

Anywho, guess how much I paid for this? Well, I don't remember to a T, but I do remember it being somwhere in the range of $1.00-$3.00 for an entire roll. Even better, I walked away with about 5 or 6 rolls of beadboard wallpaper for $1.00 each.

You like my green dishes too? So do I. I bought them last summer from a guy off of Craigslist. He said his wife wanted a change from these jade colored Pottery Barn beauties and I got a set of 20 of EVERYTHING for 40 bucks!

And here's the living room...

Still looking for a lampshade for that log lamp on the right side of the picture. I bought a set of 4 log lamps at a garage sale for $25.00 and they all came with gigantic lampshades that looked like they belonged around a dogs neck after it'd been neutered.

And here's the gal's side of her bedroom. She'll be sleeping in this bed TONIGHT! We're moving in!