Stop staring and start sewing!

Before the decorations come down

I had so much fun decorating this year.  My fresh, new paint color and flooring just made it feel like a brand new house.  The red curtains were perfect for Christmas but I plan on replacing them with something lighter after the new year.  But it'll be fun to have a set of Christmas curtains all ready for next year.  We brought the yellow shelves down from Peety's room (traded for a bookshelf) and our dumpster dive folding doors were a great place for our stockings.

 

My little white tree was sparkely and winter wonderlandish.  I kept adding flowers and shiny ornaments as the days went on.  Next year it will be loaded.  It really needs a tree skirt but every time I felt like making one I decided to sit and drink coffee and hang out with the kids (it's been too long and it was the better choice).

 

I'm starting to put my plates back up in new places.  I think they look sweet against my new paint.  I'm going to take a crazy leap and do slip covers for the couches too.  It's a love/hate project that I do for myself but would never do for another person.  Not even my mom.

 

I couldn't pass up this two tiered shelf for my new dining room and I'll have a lot of fun switching out the decorations through the year.  I really wanted to build one for myself but when I saw this one I figured it was the better (more instantly gratifying) choice for right now.

The boys helped out too when I wasn't looking.

Baby Scary Lego Jesus didn't look to comfortable here.  I'm picturing Joseph and Mary having one of those "We just walked in and see Rosemary's Baby here instead...what do we do??" moments.  He's since moved on.

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas with your family.  Ours was definitely more peaceful than in the past (I don't think I yelled once when getting the house ready for guests and that's progress).  One of these years I just want to up and leave town (something crazy like Disneyland).  On to the next holiday!

The lights.

We had a lot of fun decorating the outside of the house this year.  Pinterest really helped.

We spent less than 3.50 for 5 yardsticks at the hardware store and 2.99 for a short length of white lights for our star (inspiration here).  Joey wired the ends together and spray painted it.  Easy peasy.

 

My favorites are our little Christmas trees though (inspiration here).  We bought a tomato cage and string of colored lights for each of them (3.99 for the cage and 2.99 for the lights).  Joey bent the tops a little and just used rubber bands to pull the top into a point.  We had some of the big lights already so Joey wrapped those around and really made it look a little more funky.

 

Here is our star hung between the palm trees out front.  I really want a manger scene under it but that may have to be next years project since we're running out of time here.

So this is our night look.  We really love it and nobody in the neighborhood has these kinds of decorations so that makes us happy.

Now that I've wrapped up sewing all my orders (120 macbook cases in 3 days and yes I'm crazy) I can start having more fun making paper snowflakes, cookies, and other goodies with the kids.  The fun can begin....sigh.

Only 20 shopping days lef....oh whatever

We are done with the floor and the painting (minus a few little touch up spots)!!  Everything is so fresh and bright looking and we've been pulling out Christmas decorations and re-arranging furniture (so it's utter chaos still).  I'm keeping the red curtains for Christmas but I have some cute plans for brighter curtains after the new year.  We are having Christmas dinner here so I can't wait to go crazy decorating my new dining room (pics to come).

I found a cute place to hang our stockings (my stocking is 47 years old and has singes at the bottom from our childhood fireplace so I'm keeping it forever).  I found those folding doors in a dumpster and it was a happy day.  Everything looks so much better on my new paint (Sea Salt by Sherwin Williams).

 

But my favorite new piece for my home is this reproduction of a painting by my dear friend Paula Prass.  I've been wanting it from the moment she first shared it on her blog and, lucky for me, she now has the reproductions available at Green Box Art.  I love it more each time I walk pass it.  Dreamy!  Now I need her Bell Jar paintings!

 

I've been crazy busy sewing for holiday shoppers at my little Hipster Haberdasher store so there's not nearly enough time for fun sewing.  But I did get to get away up to Bari's beautiful new home and spend some fun time sewing with our other fabricky friends Melanie and Cristy.  Bonding over fabric and lunch is the BEST. I can't wait to do it again.

I hope you're having a great week!  Keep on sewing!