Craft: Christmas Pom Pom Wreath

I saw this cute idea on another blog and had to make it!

Supplies: 5 skeins of yarn (I think the stiffer the yarn the puffier the pom poms, so cheaper might be better

Cost: $3 for the wreath, between $2-$4 each for yarn, probably more than I would have liked to pay but the color selection wasn't that great, $3 for the vintage Santa.

Time: Several hours to make and tie all those pom poms!

Difficulty: Easy

Casualties: Yarn fuzz all over my couch, loss of circulation in my fingers.

First I made several pom poms by wrapping yarn around my fingers, tying the blob together and snipping the ends. I ended up using about 50.

Then I tied them around my wreath. The wreath I bought had a plastic wrapping around it so I just left that on. Later I trimmed the hanging strings on the back.

I admit I probably could have used more pom poms on the sides. If you stand to the side of the wreath you can still see the straw wreath base but you can't tell from the front. I got lazy and tired of making pom poms.

I added this cute little Santa that I bought from a local vintage store and now it's hanging over my door for Christmas time! I'm thinking of making more pom poms to go on gifts or maybe even ornaments.

Oh, Christmas Tree!

Since my living room walls are 50's turquoise blue I decided the traditional Christmas look wouldn't mesh well with this apartment. Instead, in the spirit of the 50s, I'm going for a Vintage Christmas vibe, so I bought a white tree.

I seriously considered getting an aluminum tree and a color wheel but I'm trying to save money and this white tree was 35 bucks. Yay for big discounts at Hobby Lobby for ornaments.

I'm not finished yet. I still have a few more details to take care of. I'm going to have to take more pictures, maybe during the day time so you can see all the extra shiny bits and pieces.

Belated Halloween

(I hope you like my new festive layout. I'm trying to practice my web design skillz.)



Yes, I know it is late. Perhaps it was all the stress I put into carving my pumpkin but I neglected to post some photos.

I had some friends over a few days before Halloween to carve pumpkins and eat yummy treats. (Megan you missed out. I know you read this!) I didn't even bother to take a good picture of my costume.

I was a Greek Goddess or something like that. I made a sheath dress out of layers of linen. Trimmed it in gold ribbon and tied it with a gold rope. Then I took the left over leaves from the flower bunches I had used to make this Halloween wreath. I wrapped the leaves up with some jewelry wire (which was a little too thin, so get thick wire if you ever want to make it) and spray painted it gold.

I tried to be ambitious with my pumpkin carving. I hadn't put too much thought into my design but I knew I wanted some sort of scene with a spooky tree and a moon and maybe a ghost or something. I was trying to do that half carving trick where you mostly just shave off the outer layer so the light glows through but not as much as if it was a full hole. Yeah, didn't work. And I got frustrated and gave up after about three hours of man handling that pumpkin.

Justin's pumpkin was more successful. His pumpkin even made it on punknews.org.

I read this cool idea for "bleeding candles." You melt a red candle over a white one so it looks like blood. Turns out they sell these for real but it's just a red candle wrapped in white so when it melts the red inside "bleeds." Oh well. Adriane game me this cute idea to put the candles in apples because I never found candle holders I liked.

I even made these little treat bags. I bought party treat bags, filled them with some of my favorite candies and stapled holiday paper over the top and added a little trick or treat stamp.

As for real Halloween I didn't have any plans so Adriane stopped by to hang out. Then Cristy called and we ended up going bowling that night instead!

We only had one trick or treat-er on Halloween. A little girl with her dad who waited down stairs. We didn't expect anyone to come by and all the candy we had left was a half eaten box of Sprees so we gave her that. Poor girl. I don't know what was worse, getting second hand candy or having to carry around all your candy in a Victoria's Secret shopping bag. No lie.

Here comes the bride

My old high school friend is getting married is two weeks so I wrapped their gift and added a fancy tag.

I can't believe I'm at that age where so many of my friends are getting married.

Candles

I think I'm going to stop selling my candles. I'm just not putting the work into advertising that they deserve. So, if you want one you'd better go buy one now. But that makes me wonder - what am I going to do with all the rest of this wax and fragrance? Christmas presents anyone? Maybe I'll just have to make more candles until I run out of supplies, then I'll stop.