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HOLIDAY CANDLE DISPLAY

Christmas Candle Collage

Last month I did a post about the Fall candle display I created for my kitchen’s center island.  This past week I spent the evening changing it up to reflect the holidays which are now in full swing.

With a few simple changes and a glue gun at my disposal, this project quickly came together.  I picked-up some candles at IKEA,  a 40 pound bag of salt (intended for a water softener) at Home Depot, and 2 containers of cinnamon sticks from Costco (I already had the ribbon in my gift-wrapping stash).

I also filled 4 mason jars with salt, glued a halo of ribbon around each jar, and topped each with a red tea lights before placing them on my windowsill.

I am having so much fun decorating and getting into the holiday spirit.

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TREE OF GRATITUDE

My family will be spending Thanksgiving at home this year and I want it to be very special.  It is important for all of us to remember what this day is truly about (not the food…though it is always amazing), and with a little help from Pinterest, we are on our way.

The blog Bargain Bound inspired our family’s Tree of Gratitude this year.  Admittedly I am clearly not a professional tree-maker (the leaves will cover the evidence of that up more and more each day), but with the help of my local scrap booking store,  I did NOT have to become an expert at cutting out leaves.  Within 30 minutes I had over 120 perfect leaves thanks to their collection of maple leaf die cuts.  Somehow I had never ventured into the store before and I know I will be spending a lot of time there now for future holiday projects, etc.  Talk about a MAJOR time saver!

The kids and I have been filling-out one leaf per day and it is heart-warming to see how they are getting more and more into the exercise each day.

I can’t wait to watch the tree’s branches become full of my family’s gratitude.

Do you have any special Thanksgiving traditions?

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FALL CANDLE DISPLAY

Pinterest continues to inspire me to be more creative around the house.  I decided to update the large candle display on my kitchen island for Fall and wanted something that would work for both Halloween and Thanksgiving (BEFORE is the picture on the left, AFTER is to the right).

Originally I was going to use candy corn (better to decorate with than to EAT), but ultimately decided that corn would be the better and more natural choice.

I am happy with my inexpensive display and appreciate that fact that once Christmas rolls around, I can remove the corn, pop it, and make popcorn garland for the tree.

Since taking the picture above I put some Fall fabric under the pumpkins and it looks great.  I am considering adding some of the gorgeous leaves from outside as well.

 

What have you done to decorate for Fall?

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Hall Closet Redo / New Mud Room Area

Sometimes we end-up being grateful for the “uh-ohs” that occur in life.

A few months ago I came home to a garage floor COVERED in water (always an uh-oh).  After turning off the water to the house (Yep, I am self-sufficient like that), I determined that it was leaking from the wall leading to the house.  I called the hubster and we called our insurance company.

Long story short, we had a slab leak and we couldn’t have been more lucky that it was contained to such a small area of the house.  While we did have to give-up using the downstairs toilet throughout most of the construction (a pain when you little one still needs YOU to walk all the way upstairs and “wipe” them), the end results were worth it.

I had been dreaming for a while about making a mud-room in that area of the house anyway and after learning that it would be thousands just to find out if we could relocate the toilet in order to make said mud-room, I went to work re-working my dream.

BEFORE & AFTER

What resulted was the conversion of our downstairs coat closet into a mud-area of sorts; drawers for shoes (a huge deal for me considering it used to look like a shoe store at the bottom of our stairs), hooks for jackets, a fun reading nook / seat for putting on your shoes, baskets for Jiu Jitsu uniforms, hats, umbrellas, etc.

WAY more useful than a closet that used to just collect junk and a few jackets.

My silver lining…

I have to apologize for the awful pictures.  That hallway is a little tight, so it was hard to get the right angle…you get the jest. 

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