Holiday Decorating

In addition to cleaning and organizing, I've done a bit of holiday decorating recently.  It was time to swap out the fall centerpiece - which was a store-bought wreath of twigs and berries that I placed around a candle - and after a bit of rummaging around to see what I had available to use, this is what I came up with...

I kept the pillar candle and the faceted candle holder form the fall arrangement and surrounded it with a bunch of pinecones.  The ones I used came from Walmart and were cinnamon scented.  Some of the bigger ones have glitter and the little ones are all painted gold.  Then, because I thought it needed a little something extra, I added a pair of crystal candle holders - ours are Mikasa - and pretty silvery tapers.  And that's it!  It  only took a few minutes and I didn't spend a dime (unless you count the pinecones, but I already had them on hand).  So if you don't have a lot of spare cash to spend on decorations, take a look at what you already have and try to think outside the box.

You never know - an act of penniless desperation might just become a holiday tradition.  The first Christmas we spent together was wonderful, but there was one thing missing - a tree.  We just didn't have the extra money to go and buy one.  But I was determined that we would have something to put our gifts under.  So I picked up the prettiest stick I could find in our yard, brought it in, and positioned it in a basket of pinecones.  We still have that stick, and every year, we put it up as faithfully as anyone else puts up any other tree.  

This year, I decided to put it in the sunny windowsill upstairs in what is soon to be my craft room.  I stuck a bit of Sculpy on the end to help hold it in place and put it in a small glass candleholder.  Then I added a bunch of faux pearls in shades of white, cream, and gold.  I arranged my little "tree" with some pretty white and gold candles atop some pretty, wintery fabric that I draped over the windowsill.  Today, I was gifted with my very own Charlie Brown Christmas tree, which I happily added to my little windowsill arrangement.  I think the whole thing looks quite festive.

Our holiday decor is far from tradition, but it certainly suits us.  What about you?  What sort of outside-of-the-box decorating have you done this year?

Humpday Home Decor: Decoupaged Bookcases [WIP]

If you follow us on Twitter or Facebook, you may have heard that we've been working on decorating bookcases.  We spent the better part of a day painting and decoupaging, and they already look pretty great.  They just need a few finishing touches (and to be moved to their permanent homes where I can get some good pictures of them that do not feature stacks of boxes in the background).  So they're still a work-in-progress.  But here's a preview!

Bookcase #1 got a light coat of matte brown spray paint.  We didn't worry too much about coverage, so the wood grain shows through a bit in places, as you can see here.  Also, we didn't sand or prime this one at all - just painted.  And aside from some funky texture on the edges - which was probably caused by the furniture polish we used to clean it before hand - it worked out just fine.  And we thought the texture was pretty cool.  If you're making a major color change, though, or you just want to make damn sure things turn out right, sanding and priming certainly never hurts.

The medallions here are cut from sheets of scrapbook paper.  If you're going to be cutting out little detailed things like this, do yourself a favor and get a pair of nice, small, pointy-ended scissors.  They are a life-saver!  Or at least, a hand-saver.

And of course, we used Mod Podge to decoupage the cut-outs onto the top and sides.  If you have never worked with Mod Podge, you are missing out.  Go get some now.  Get the big bottle.  Trust me, you'll want it.  This was Anna's first decoupaging venture, and now she wants to cover everything with paper.  I expect to wake up one morning and find her decoupaging the toaster.

But I digress.  Bookcase #2 received a similar treatment. This time we did sand and prime it, and I do think the primer made the painting easier.  Since the sides were black, I imagine it would have taken more coats to cover without the primer.

We decided to go with a steampunk theme for this one, as it's going in my soon-to-be-steampunk'd craft room.  So we painted it with that awesome hammered metal stuff that Rustoleum makes, in copper, of course.  Then we decoupaged it with cutouts of clock faces and gauges.

Yesterday I painted all of the front edges a nice antique gold, just for a little extra contrast.  Now I'm trying to decide what I want to paint on the sides to fill in those extra spaces.  I'm debating between random numbers - in keeping with the clock/gauge theme - and stenciling some fancy little swirly things.

I'm also experimenting with an edging for the cutouts that will hopefully make them look more "welded metal" than "glued paper."  And finally, once I pick up the necessary materials, I'll be making a stencil to add text to the top.  I was going to freehand it, but I'm too chicken.

So.  You'll be seeing these babies again once they're all finished.  And they are not the last of their kind.  We intend to do this with all of our bookcases.  So we should be experts by the time we're done.

In the meantime, we'd love to hear from you.  Have you tried anything like this before?  Revamped some boring old furniture?  Decoupaged anything interesting?  Leave us a comment!