I will start with the Christmas tree bucket makeover, but for more details on that one, you can read my previous post.
Do you cover the base of your tree? What is your way of covering it?
I have really enjoyed painting simple canvases for fun these days. We needed something to go above our mantle. We don't have anything up there normally, and that bugged me even more at Christmas. When you walk in our house, you see this once you are walking out of the foyer, so a plain wall and mantle was not going to cut it this year. We needed something big, yet simple… and gold! So I thought I would try painting a large canvas. Now to what it would say. I didn't want something like Jingle Bells or Here Comes Santa. I wanted something that held the real meaning of this season, without being too religious sounding. Don't take that the wrong way. I just wanted something simple. I thought Silent Night, O Holy Night would be just the right words to be painted on my fresh canvas. So I went to the art store, along with my coupon and purchased a 30"x40" canvas, painted a thin layer of metallic gold paint (leaving some brush strokes to keep it a little rough looking) and then went on to paint the wording. I tried to write on the canvas with pencil first, but I couldn't erase well and messed up so I just did it with the paint and hoped for the best. To add to the fun of making this, I had two little helpers so I have a few mess ups, but all in all, I'm happy with it!
Here's what I was working with. I was hoping my vision would turn out at least half as nice as I hoped.
Thin layer of gold.
White lettering.
I went back and forth if I wanted the letters all in the same font or not. Without telling the Hubs which I was leaning towards, I asked his creative advice and he said to go with the two fonts… the same as what I was hoping he'd say! Do you like the added decoration in our fireplace. I thought the fence would be a nice touch. ha. And no, it is not to keep Santa out. Our little elves like to play in the fireplace so we needed a way to keep them out.
Here is a shot without the fence.
And here is my painting. I'm happy to have the simple white and gold look above our mantle this year!
My next project is an Advent Calendar/Christmas countdown. I used Christmas tree and mitten cut outs, gold paper that I cut into squares, some ribbon and mini clothes pins. I made 1/2" slits into the trees and mittens and put the clothes pin through it and then clipped the gold paper onto it. And then I just taped the ribbon to the back of the cut outs. I would have rather hot glued, but this works just as good and it was quicker.
Now, while I still haven't written the numbers on the front, the back has room for a bible verse (just the location so we have to make the time to look it up and read it out of the Bible) and some of the days have something fun written on it, like pictures with Santa, bake cookies, go for a drive to see Christmas lights, etc. If you are interested in something even easier, and a whole lot prettier (I was trying to go for a fun and kid friendly look for the boys, even though I was loving the look of the gold and black ones), check these out over at Oh My Deer Handmades.
While we are on Advent, I like to change up our Advent wreath a bit each year. My original intention was to get big pillar candles in purple and pink, but I couldn't find them, but still wanted a heavy look so I thought I would get white candles in varying sizes to put around the thin pink and purple candles. I needed something to put it on so I went in the basement, found a piece of scrap wood, some stain and made a base for the candles. And, as soon as it stops raining, I am going to pick some greenery off my tree branches from the extras off the bottom of our Christmas tree. It has been rainy here for days and I am waiting for those little guys to dry off. I should go outside now and bring them in the garage so there is a little hope for drying out. You won't see the final picture until that happens, but here you can get the idea of what it looks like.
Lighting the candles of our Advent wreath was always my favorite little job growing up! I love having lots of candles to light at dinner each night now!
Does your family have an Advent wreath? Is it the traditional kind in a ring with greenery or do you do something different? I'd love to hear your ideas!
And my fifth DIY for you might be my favorite because it is for my boys! I wanted something to hang on their bedroom door. I just took a canvas I had laying around, you can do this any size you want and then I drew the Drummer Boy in the place I wanted and painted around him with red. You can find Little Drummer Boy silhouettes online and then print one out, color the back with pencil and then place it on your canvas, trace around the picture and the lead will transfer onto your canvas for you. I am going back and forth with painting lyrics (in white) or not. I like it plain, yet I think it needs some lyrics. At first I was going to paint the whole song across the red, but I think that is too much, so right now I am leaning towards just painting a verse and some pa rum pum pums. I'll be sure to post a picture in another post how it came out!
I actually have one other small project I am working on. It's a garland/bunting for our foyer mirror, but that isn't together yet, so maybe that can go up on the blog tomorrow! I have so many DIYs I want to do at Christmas, but it is always hard with traveling which limits my time even more than normal. Next year I should start a lot earlier so I can enjoy more projects!
Feel free to share some of your Christmas DIYs! I would love to hear! And please feel free to use any of these ideas!
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