Shiny Brite Christmas

My Mom has a few vintage ornaments that my sisters and I love, come to find out so do a lot of other people.
Shiny Brites!

My sister has been collecting them and last year she hit the jackpot at a second hand store.
I cannot wait to hit the thrift stores and start a collection of my own!

Since I'm doing nothing interesting these days here are a few more images from my sister's holiday home

In the new year I will be a better blogger. promise.

Joy to the World

I shared some images from my sister's house about a month ago and I am increasingly more and more impressed with her style and creativity.
She has outdone herself for Christmas this year.  My favorite decorations include her globes.  I have a weak spot for globes and the way she incorporated them into her Christmas decor is so great!!

Joy to the world

Peace on Earth

The box used to be my mom's jewelry box and the pine cones inside are from our parent's home in Ohio!  I love all the little sentimental keys around her house.

Love you sister & can't wait to spend New Years together!!

Our 1st Christmas

As Lee and I are approaching our 3rd Christmas together as a married couple {7th otherwise!}
I thought it would be fun to take a look back at our first Christmas together.
We were living in my sister's basement apartment because we were about to move to Grenada!
I was thrilled to decorate for our 1st Christmas.... all our decorations came from the Dollar Tree or were handmade!
{I'm so glad I took all these pictures even though I didn't blog then, whew}

Mom loaned us the tree :)

ignore the rustic fishing lodge boarder, this room was formerly my brother-in-law's man cave before Lee and I took it over for 4 months :)

my Willow Tree Nativity set my mom got me for Christmas that year!
& you can sort of see my awesome vintage mirror I got for $5 behind it! Can't wait to have house where I can use it someday.

Our ornament we bought on our honeymoon in Mexico.

I worked at Pier 1 Imports this Christmas and when it was slow I would select ornaments I liked, like the elf boot and the birds, and trace them on scrap paper!
Once I got home I'd re-trace them on cardboard and cover with scrapbook paper!
haha! sneaky!

I was also inspired by a wreath I saw at Pier 1 and decided to make my own!
The silver ornaments are all from the Dollar Tree and I hot glued them to a metal wreath form and stuck tinsel in to fill any gaps and covered up all my glue marks!
This may be one of my favorite things I've ever made.

Oh and the outside looked like this....

should I mention that my husband is 6'5? 

I'll share some of our "Christmas in the Caribbean" pictures soon! :)

New Years Eve Vow Renewal Centerpieces

I've mentioned my sister's upcoming vow renewal ceremony this New Years a couple times before - most importantly - what am I going to wear?! haha. just kidding Sister.  And also the save the dates that I made using Picnik.

Now onto the decorations! yay!
For the centerpieces I have a few different ideas, most of which haven't really been run by the sister yet, but all she said was that she wanted it to be pretty! Check!

Source: cleverlyinspired.blogspot.com via Kelsey on Pinterest

Bottles rolled in Epsom salts to look like snow!  I love these!  So easy, cheap, and beautiful!  Does anyone at home drink wine??  I'll be accepting bottle donations!

Source: theinspiredroom.net via Kelsey on Pinterest

Keeping with the Epsom salt theme... in jars or vases it looks like snow!  I'd like to combine this idea with these hurricane vases -

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I also think that Christmas ornaments make great table decorations and can be bought by the dozen at the Dollar Tree!

Source: realisticwedding.wordpress.com via Kelsey on Pinterest

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One the things I made for my wedding was tissue paper flowers and I think that white and silver tissue paper flowers will be so pretty with a winter theme.

Source: marthastewartweddings.com via Kelsey on Pinterest

And one final cheapo decorating idea is to gather a bunch of branches and spray paint them silver.  I think these could be beautiful on the stage during the ceremony if done in large bundles as well as dispersed through the dining room!

Source: Uploaded by user via Kelsey on Pinterest

I am so excited to get home and dive into making decorations for my sister's big celebration!! I will have 1 week to make all the decorations! haha! easy right?  Thankfully I have all the vases left from my wedding to use and finding Epsom salts, branches, and silver and blue Christmas ornaments will be an easy task... I hope.

Stay tuned for many, many more ideas!  Next I'll be sharing my idea for a huge lit up ball to drop at midnight!  Have you ever had a New Years Eve party?? Any great ideas to share?

Twig Stars

I saw this image on pinterest the other day and knew they'd be super easy to make.

Source: farm6.static.flickr.com via Kelsey on Pinterest

I didn't have much going on yesterday evening so I went for a walk down my street looking for sticks to make stars out of.  a normal thing to do right??

You need 5 sticks of the same length per star.
I laid them out and decided which order I liked them in best, then hot glued them in place with just a dab of glue on the ends.
I wrapped twine around the ends of some of them, but a couple of the stars I liked the way they looked just as they were.  I think the inspiration image might have had too much string and twine for my tastes.

These will be great Christmas or patriotic holiday decorations and were practically free to make and only took about 5 minutes!!

AND on my walk I discovered this old sign!  It had more words but I just broke off the Grenada portion.
I don't know what to do with it yet, but I love it!