First off, I spiffied up my (VERY) sad wreath that I used last year. I saw packs of ornaments in the dollar section of Target in some bright, not-so-traditional holiday colors and I was sold!
So, off came the sad bows, the goofy snowman hanging in the middle and all the greenery. They were glitter tipped baby pine cones on the greenery, so I popped those off to reuse. I loosely tied some purple ribbon around the wreath and then started hot gluing the ornaments and pine comes on. I also found a glittery star ornament at Hobby Lobby that I thought would look pretty in the center.
I knew it needed a little something extra, so I whipped up one of my Margaux flowers and attached that too. I'm not sure I'm completely done with it yet, it feels a bit naked.
Next, I was commissioned by one of the Mom's in M's Scout troop to create her a Christmas mini top hat that she could wear to work. I had so much fun making these at Halloween, I was only too happy to do it. You can check out my tutorial here.
She requested poinsettias, and I took it a little step further when I dug these tarnished jingle bells out of a button jar. I just snipped the very center stamen of the flower out and hot glued the bells in!
I decided a red bow on the back would be a nice way to "wrap" it up (get it... wrap... like a present???).
My last craft occurred to me while wandering the dollar store. I found these styrofoam cones and instantly thought Christmas tree. Apparently, I wasn't the only one cause pretty much as soon as I got home with it I saw more than a few blog posts about them! Hey, great minds think alike! I wanted to have a little mini forest of 3 different trees. 2 of them have bases to give some height difference.
I'm really going for non-traditional colors in decorating this year. It's fun being different! I didn't go foe complete 360 degree perfection on these. I plan on displaying them on the mantle, so I wasn't too concerned about what the backs looked like.
I had a TON of different green ribbon laying around, so I cut 2in strips of 6 different ribbon (widths and texture), made them into loops and attached them with straight pins (a BUNCH of straight pins). I didn't have equal amounts of all the ribbon, so I divided the 6 ribbons up into pairs of three and attached each pair in 2 alternating layers. I really like the button ornaments on the first tree, so I went back to the button stash for this one too. I must admit, I don't love my star topper. I was itching to glitter something so I cut a star out of card stock, sprayed it with adhesive spray and sprinkled on the glitter. I may end up taking it off and doing something else. I hot glued one of those round rubber protector thingys that you put underneath a table leg to protect the floor (???) to the bottom of this one.
This is probably my favorite. I love to candy colors! It's simply strips of ribbon cut long enough to wrap around the cone and straight pinned on the back. I alternated a green stripe, plain green, brown and a multi-color stripe. The topper is a pink glass ornament that I simply stuck right into the top of the foam. I hot glued on a little pink heart button and attached it to a wooden spool that I painted brown.
There you have it! The beginnings of my Christmas crafts!
