White Christmas

Even though we live in the heart of the Midwest, there is no guarantee of a white Christmas. Forecasters had predicted rain this morning, with a few flurries mixed in.

Rain turned to light, fluffy snow earlier than expected and left us with a soft blanket of 8+ inches. Lovely way to start the holiday. Our yard is a winter wonderland and Barney is the self-appointed Snow King.

Happy holidays, everyone!

Create Photo Art the Easy Way

You don't have to be a graphic artist or even a great photographer to create unique photo art with some of the online digital tools available today.

Admittedly, I'm an amateur who likes playing with crafty-looking add-ons and altering basic photographs to change the style. I like to layer backgrounds and add overlays. I'm particularly fond of making my photographs look like ephemera.

Last week, I took this photograph out the window of my ninth-floor office during a light snow. It's not a high-quality photo, as the light was poor and I was using my iPhone 5. But, I liked the photo and posted it on Facebook. Then I decided to play around with it.

While there are many free digital photo-editing tools online, I generally use PicMonkey. It's easy and it feeds my need for cheesy, crafting-looking creations. There is a free version that offers many nice editing tools and a premium version that has many additional options. I pay for the premium version. It's worth the cost for me because I use it a lot.

The first image above could be featured in a small frame as a holiday accent or used as the front of a handmade holiday card.

Other styles of the same image open up many possibilities for the use of just this one photograph.

As you can see, photo editing allows you to make something interesting from a mediocre quality photo. The combinations of backgrounds, overlays, text fonts, frames and cutouts make the possibilities endless.

Explore some of these highly rated photo editing programs to find one that suits your needs best.

Make it a great day!

Linking to:

Inspiration Spotlight

Wait! Don't Trash That!

As you go about your holiday merry-making, you're bound to generate what many would consider plain, ol' trash. A case in point: this cute, cute almond snowman cookie box.  It's just a heavy stock paper box with the name of the cookies around the band and the typical nutrition information on the bottom. But the design is fun and festive.

Don't toss it. Upcycling a nice box is about a 10-minute project, depending on how elaborate you get with your remake. Because I planned to use my box for a gift that would then be stuffed into a packing box and shipped to Texas, I made my makeover very simple. No point in adding embellishments that would get crushed in shipping.

I decided to add red grosgrain ribbon around the box top using double-sided tape. How easy is that? And, the ribbon was exactly the same size as the lip on the box. Whoa, baby! Simple.

For the bottom, I added scrapbook paper I had on hand that coordinated fairly well with the striping on the box. For a perfect fit, just trace around the box and cut slightly inside the tracing lines. Attaching the bottom paper was easy. You guessed it: double-sided tape.

A good salvaged box, a few fixin's from the craft room, 10 minutes and you've got a professional looking, but nearly cost-free, package.

This holiday season, be sure to keep your eyes peeled for little gems masquerading as trash.

Make it a great day!

Linking to:

Sunday Show-Off
Frugal Crafty Home Blog Hop

Winter Under Glass

A light, fluffy snow fell gently all day. No winter wind here. No ice under. Just the sweetest, softest snow we've had in ages.

The late Thanksgiving threw me off my game this year and my holiday decorating is about a week behind my normal schedule. I put most of it up last weekend, hubby decorated the tree and I am now putting on the finishing touches.

One of the items I brought back from Arizona when we started cleaning out our parents' house was a beautiful folk art Santa by Pam Schifferl. I have a couple of her ornaments that I simply adore!

I planned to put the Santa under a cloche I had, but it wasn't tall enough. So, I headed to my neighborhood Home Goods store, which has an extensive offering of clear glass vases, hurricanes, apothecary jars and cloches. Eureka! They had one that was tall enough.

But, alas, I got it home and, not taking into account that it wasn't straight-sided, but rather bell shaped, the curvy section wouldn't fit over the width of the figurine. After an exhaustive and futile search for the right-sized cloche, I gave up and decided to make my own from a large egg-shaped vase.

The cute glittered bird substitutes for the cloche knob. He's surrounded by an ice wreath I already had among my holiday trimmings.

My mom's woodland Santa clearly is from the same clan as my ornaments.

Woodland Santa perches on a vintage milk glass cake stand atop a vintage bevelled mirror and is surrounded by vintage family mercury glass ornaments.

Welcome, Woodland Santa.

Make it a great day!

Linking to:

Nifty Thrifty Sunday

Motivate Me Monday
Nifty Thrifty Tuesday
You're Gonna Love It Tuesday

Best of the Season to All

I will honor Christmas in my heart, 

and try to keep it all the year. 

-- Charles Dickens

A Simple Splash of Red

When I visit the wonderful blogs on my reading list, I find the all-shades-of-white, light-neutral and shabby chic vignettes and decor are what most often catch my eye and draw me in first. They're so luscious,  soft and romantic.

Funny that the soft whites impact me that way because I love color. Our home, while dressed in knotty pine throughout, bears color on all the (non-knotty-pined) walls and the original vintage tile floor on the lower level.  Some of that color is big and bold. Additionally, most of our accents and decor are colorful, and I don't mean colorful as in a single color family. I guess it's my passion for all things vintage that heavily influences a color palette with a wide variety of hues. 

This Christmas season, for the first time ever, I "neutralized" much of the holiday decor in the living room. Not quite able to let go of all color, I added small splashes of red amongst the winter whites, silver, gold and mercury glass. Like my great-grandmother's tiny antique bottle brush Santa.

And an antique German liquor bottle in the shape of a Santa.

A couple of well-placed pretty red items alongside the feather trees adds interest. In my humble opinion.

And, the tall, ceramic pencil Santa my mother hand-painted for me adds subdued, but stately, color against a collection of vintage mirrors.

A simple vintage ornament with a red band creates some pop next to the large mercury glass bowl on the Stickley postal table.

Relax! It's not a bonfire in my living room. But, I wanted to share a night shot of the mercury glass bowl on the postal table. I filled it with twinkle lights and this is what it looks like with the lights on. Sort of. You'll just have to take my word for it that it's softer light than that in person.

For a final splash of red, I included this stunning male cardinal I photographed this morning in the cedar tree along the ravine at the back of our yard. This was our first significant snow of the season. Fitting as a prelude to winter, don't you think?

Although I used a long lens to capture him, this brilliant guy was quite a distance away. So, I hope you'll pardon the photo quality.

I'm dedicating this post to my mother, who was born in December and passed in December six years ago. She was an avid, amateur birdwatcher, who counted the cardinal among her favorites.

Make it a great day!

Linking to:
Rednesday
Time Travel Thursday
Primp Your Stuff
Nifty Thrifty Sunday

What Is It About Vintage-Style Bottle Brush Trees?

What is it that's so appealing about bottle brush trees? 

Maybe it's that they take many of us back to our childhood when our mothers decorated with small bottle brush trees, often handed down from their mothers.

Maybe it's that they're easy to work with. Because the more contemporary versions come in so many colors and sizes (from large to teeny tiny), they can make a nice addition to almost any holiday vignette.

Maybe it's that they're simplistic. Nothing fancy, even when embellished with fake snow, glitter or a few vintage glass balls.

Whatever the reason, I've grown to love this versatile addition to my holiday decor and thought I'd share some of my bottle brush trees with you.

On the buffet, accompanied by vintage glass ornaments and tree toppers . . .

A nice grouping of three creates a simple, peaceful scene sprouting from among vintage silver ornaments in a large blue Mason jar . . .

This one was among a shoebox full of trees I picked up at an estate sale. It started out a hideous blue-green color. I doused it in Clorox before giving it and some of its cohorts a home on the family room mantel alongside my eclectic group of snowmen . . .

Some of my trees are tucked inside drawers around the house  . . .

Some are planted in vintage aluminum molds on the basement hearth and in a vintage wooden cheese box on the Hoosier cabinet  . . .

And some are nestled in glassware . . . 

If you're looking for something simple to tie things together in your holiday decor, try using a few vintage-style bottle brush trees. You can find them at any craft store. And, if you prefer to decorate in shades of white, go ahead and buy the green craft store trees. Drop them in a bucket of bleach until the color is gone, rinse, let them dry and you're set to go.

Make it a great day!

Linking to:
Saturday Nite Special

Nifty Thrifty Sunday
Cowgirl Up!
Nifty Thrifty Tuesday

Knick of Time Tuesday