HARMONizing

DIY Hall Tree from Old Door

2014-01-26T21:54:00.000-06:00

We don't really have an entry way to our house, and it's kinda annoying. Everyday when I leave for work, I have my fancy Coach purse, my lunch box, and a tote back with my gym clothes. That's a lot for one person, not to mention a mom. Add to that a diaper bag, a nap mat, milk, diapers, wipes. Sheesh. That's a lot of stuff. When we come home every day, my purse goes on one of our extra dining room chairs (I have a strict rule that Coach NEVER goes on the floor-I work hard to spoil myself!) and the rest gets thrown on the floor. It makes the room looked so cluttered and I never really know where anything is. So I talked Justin into making me a hall tree.

We repurposed a closet door that I bought from Restore for $10. I have seen these pop up all over Pinterest and I fell in love with the idea.

We bought MDF board (because it was cheap. Normally we would have used a better wood) and cut it to create a box that would be attached to the door.

I didn't want my bags falling onto the floor, so we bought wood shelf brackets and attached them to each side. We wanted the hall tree to have a simple look and feel to it, so we added trim to the front and sides of the MDF box to give it a nice touch.

We used Valspar Signature paint in creme fraiche in a satin finish. This is the perfect white. Not too bright, but no hint of yellow. The satin finish is sleek. Just glossy enough to wipe normal wear and tear marks off, but not enough where it has a glean to it.

You can see the trim detail here after it was painted and it gives it just the right look to keep in with my rustic décor.

The legs we repurposed from Justin's old night stands. We have converted the night stands to another project (that I haven't had a chance to write about) and we had 4 left. I think lifting the hall tree up off the floor makes it look so classy.

I found the coat hooks and the door knob from Hobby Lobby. We had already been using the key holder and decided to keep it. It was just screwed into the wall, so I think it will like it's new home.

The door knob is not actually a real knob, more like a décor piece that we placed to look like an old knob. It had a wall hanger on the back but we were able to use screws on each side to hold the knob in place.

I really love how it turned out. It was such a simple project and we were able to finish it up in just 2 afternoons (even with a 1 year old running around!) They only thing I would have changed was maybe to add some kind of ring or something on the side to store umbrellas. But that would be easy to add in later. I might also add a shelf to the top, but I think it looks great without it.

Total Price for the Project: $42

Door: $10 from Restore

MDF Board: $8

Wooden Brackets: $6

Trim: $3

Legs: Repurposed from nightstands

Paint: Left over from another project

Coat Hooks: $9

Key Holder: What we were currently using

Door Knob: $6

Now we have a place to put all of our things. It's been so nice to have everything together in one place to grab to head out the door or to empty our arms when we get home.

Finally Finished This Chair

2013-08-14T10:17:00.000-05:00

Remember this chair that I found at a garage sale 2 YEARS AGO? Remember how I was going to recover it in that yellow fabric, and stain the wood a dark walnut color? I got started on it and it never got finished. I recovered the cushions (and learned a lot from doing it for the first time) and tried to stain the wood, but it turned out looking awful. It ended up being thrown into the garage and the cushions on the floor of the guest bedroom. Until last week...

When I finished that baby! I had some white paint left over from another project and decided that white would look so much better against the yellow and really make it pop.

We bought white blinds while I was on maternatiy leave and I swiched our green curtains out with light blue ones just after we bought our new brown couch to try to brighten up the room a bit. I think the white, yellow and blue look really pretty together and really bring in some pops of color.

I really like how this area of the living room is looking so I'm hoping to paint some of our dumpster dive/garage sale furniture that I've brought into the house over the past year and really tie the room together. With Lillie getting bigger and happy hanging out with her toys in her play pen, I'm hoping to getting back to more of these projects!

Farmhouse Table Reveal

2012-12-25T00:41:00.001-06:00

Did you forget that Justin built me a dining room table last year for Christmas?

I never shared a sneak peek of the table, but I did show you these awesome cane back chairs I found on Craigs List.

A lot of our home projects came to a halt when I got pregnant. I just didn't have the motivation or energy to do much of anything. But as soon as we got Lillie home, I've been back to my old self, hard at work on our home projects when I have a little spare time.

I busted my butt on this, but I finally got our dining room table and chairs finished! Since both sides of our family are coming to our house this year to make it easier for us, I wanted it to be finished and looking nice for Christmas.

I LOVE the way it turned out!

Doesn't our dining room and formal living look so elegant? It looks like a real grown up house! Ha.

Those chairs were a beating to paint. I didn't know it when I bought them, but painting cane is HARD. But it was worth it. Just look at those beauties. I covered the green seats with burlap and really love how it looks against the Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Old White.

Earlier tonight, we had our first of our family Christmases and it was so nice to be able to sit around the table together. The table is roomy enough for everyone to have room to eat, but still have all the food in the middle of the table.

Don't you think Justin did a fantastic job?! It is so beautiful and I love it so much! It will be a family gathering place for years to come and we just might fill up all those chairs with little ones before we know it! Ok, ok, maybe not all of them, but hopefully half ;)

From all of us here at the Harmon House-Justin, Jordan, Lillie, Molly and Dexter-we wish y'all a Merry Christmas! We hope tomorrow is filled with lots of love, happiness, friends and family!

Linking up:

Special Gift from Mama

2012-12-21T12:53:00.001-06:00

I don't have much time for myself these days, but I have managed to do a few Christmas projects since Lillie has come home. It feels nice to craft again. When I was pregnant, I was too tired or had too much going on. This past year has been super, super busy for us!

These aren't the best ornaments, but I threw this together for the dogs this year. We found house chipboard at Hobby Lobby. The house had a chimney, but Justin cut it off turning it into a perfect shape for a dog house!

For Lillie, I made this bird security blanket. While I was still pregnant, I looked for months in stores and online to buy one for her. When I couldn't find one, I decided to make one. Little did I know that I would be able to give my girl this special gift for her first Christmas!

The bird toy was a stroller toy that had rings and other doo dads hanging from it's wings. I just cut them off, cut a slit in the middle of the blanket, sewed the bird in and added the ribbon. I love the way it turned out and I hope she loves it too!

Nursery Update-Crib Bedding!

2012-10-12T16:00:00.000-05:00

I'm so excited to share with you the bedding for Baby Girl's room! I love it so much that sometimes I sit in that room and pretend that it's mine ;) Ha ha.

The bedding line is Lullaby Breeze by Jill McDonald.

I don't think I've told any of you, but my mama bought the crib and my mother-in-law bought the bedding. I think that it's so cool that Baby Girl's grandmothers will have a part in putting her to sleep every night :-)

I was lucky in finding the bedding. It was my favorite from the beginning but I had about 2 other sets that I really liked too. By the time I made my mind up, Babies R Us and a lot of other stores were discontinuing the line. Thank goodness for Amazon!

Don't you just love the colors? The blues, pinks, and greens blend so well together. It's dainty, sweet, and pretty. Perfect for a baby girl. And it's not so babyish that she won't grow out of the it so quickly.

I'll keep you updated as we get the room finished out. We are working on refinishing the dresser that was mine when I was a baby to put in her room and then we can start working on all the detail work, like wall hangings and decor pieces.

Baby Girl will be here in no time now!

Our New Coffee Table

2012-09-30T20:07:00.001-05:00

I've been wanting a new coffee table since we moved into our house, but it was one of those very low priorities on our list. What we had wasn't bad, I just wanted something that was a little more our style.

I knew I wanted more of a farm house style look and I instantly fell in love with this table from Shanty 2 Chic.

Isn't it gorgeous! It makes my heart swoon. I showed it to Justin and he said it would be no problem to make our own version of it.

He drew up his own plans...can you believe that he came up with this? It's so beautiful!

He used a dark walnut stain on the top and Annie Sloan's Chalk Paint on the legs in
antique white.

He also made the top slightly different by framing the entire table on top instead of only the sides.

I love it! And it really pulls everthing thing in the livingroom together.

The Nursery-Work in Progress

2012-09-19T22:19:00.001-05:00

We still have a long way to go to get Baby Girl's room ready for her, but I thought I'd share the first stages.

I wanted a bed for this room for an easy place to crash during all those sleepless nights. It'll also come in handy for an extra place to sleep when my family comes to visit!

Remember that bunting? It's from our wedding. I took out the cream and brown colors and replaced them with aqua blue to better match the room. I think I'll put 3 larger frames across the top of it and put some of her baby pictures in them when we get them made.

We bought the bed used from one of Justin's co-workers. It started out as a captains bed, but Justin was able to build a back for it to turn it into a daybed. I've got fabric to make pillow shams and throw pillows that will go along the back to make it a little prettier. I'll be sure to update when I get them made!

The nursery colors are going to be shades of pink, aqua blue, and green with a bird theme. I found this wall decal from Modernwalls on Etsy and fell in love! They were so easy to work with and even downside the decal to fit our space, and even charged me less too!

Here's what it looks like with the crib in front. Love, love, love. We just got the bedding in, so I'll be updating with pictures soon when we get it all washed up and put on the bed.

More updates to come as we get the room finished out!

Texas Rangers Faux TOMS

2012-07-17T10:38:00.001-05:00

Over the last few months, I've been too busy or exhausted to craft, create, paint, bake or even really cook for that matter. But I did find some time to make my mama a gift she would love for Mother's Day.

I used freezer paper as a stencil so that I could get that Rangers' "T" just right. Have you ever used freezer paper before? It's super easy. You just cut out your stencil and iron it on to your fabric causing the plastic side to stick allowing you to paint without worrying about your stencil moving. When the paint is dry, the freezer paper peels right off. Here's a tutorial from Make Myself at Home that was really handy.

I free handed the baseball, so it's not as perfect as I wanted it to be, but it think it turned out alright for my first shot!

Mama wore these to the Rangers game that we went to as a big ole family and she loved them! She said that they were really comfortable too! I was thinking of making a Mean Green pair for myself just in time for football season!

Wire Basket Love

2012-02-06T15:29:00.000-06:00

Don't you love wire baskets?

I do!

I've got several around the house. One of them came from my daddy's shop and I'll probably blog about that one some day, but for now, here's a pretty wire basket I found at Walmart for just $5!

Does that table top look familiar? It should. It's the red buffet I revealed last week.

Yeah, that's right. There is a Kinky Friedman book in my wire basket. It's sitting right on top of my book of daily prayers. Should that tell me something? Ha.

I filled this basket up with things that I had around the house, keeping with the rustic theme of the room.

I added a little mason jar, the unity candles from our wedding, and an old youth hymnal that my mama gave me a while back.

Did I ever tell you the theme of our dining room/formal living room area? Well, if not, I'm doing a family heirloom theme. I'm using decorations given to us or made by our families or that have some kind of family meaning behind them. This hymnal is very important. It takes me back to one of those silly sister moments when we went through this hymnal just a few years ago and sang all the songs we knew. And that's right, baby...this hymnal is now turned to "Victory in Jesus" my all time fave. Em will be so proud.

You can see the rest of the dining room when we do the big reveal of our table (if I can ever get those dang chairs painted!). Ooh, I can't wait to show y'all! We moved the table into the house this past weekend and it looks amazing!!

Valentine Wreath

2012-02-02T08:49:00.002-06:00

I made this easy Valentine Day heart wreath for our front door and boy, do I love it!

I kept the colors pretty neutral so I can use it year round if I want.

I was inspired by this version I saw on Pinterest.

via

My heart shape isn't as pretty and perfect as my inspiration, but the flawed shape makes it look a tad bit more rustic.

This was a super easy project!

I cut a big heart shape out of the foam board I had left over from my scrapbook paper heart wreath.

I wrapped the heart with jute using a tiny drop of hot glue to secure the ends.

I made different sized fabric rosettes out of some left over material that I had.

And I used some pearl bouquet sprays to add a little touch of detail. Those pearls make it look so soft and dainty.

I used hot glue to glue the rosettes and the pearl spray onto the jute.

I used a brown organza wire ribbon to string through the curve of the wreath, tied the ends together and hung it up.

So now when you come visit, LOVE will greet you at the front door!

Linking up to:

Photo-A-Day Challenge

2012-01-31T15:47:00.000-06:00

One of the blogs I follow, The House of Smith’s, is doing a photo-a-day challenge this month and I thought it would be fun to participate! You take a picture a day based on this list below:

The House of Smith's

Every day from February 1^st to February 29^th, I’ll take a picture from the list. Every week, I’ll upload my pics to share with everyone (or, you can follow me on Instagram!) I thought it would be cool to show y’all what goes on the mundane everyday for a change. I’m always blogging about cool things we do, big announcements or projects we are working on.

Does anyone what to join in on the fun? If so, let me know so I can check out your pictures too! To get the full scoop on the Photo-a-Day Challenge, check out The House of Smith's post. She's already written out all the details, so I don't have to :-)

Dresser Turned Buffet Reveal

2012-01-29T12:46:00.005-06:00

Remember the free dresser that I found almost a year ago?

The one that I was going to convert into a buffet for our dining room?

Well, I finally finished it! Read on for the full reveal!

I used Annie Sloan's Chalk Paint in Emperor's Silk for this project. Don't confuse this with chalkboard paint. That's something completely different. I have been reading about this for a long time now and wanted to try it out. This paint is perfect for furniture painting. There is no prep work when you use this paint- no priming or sanding. That's what makes is unique. It also covers really well and usually you only need one coat. The can looks small, because it is. But this stuff goes a long way. I only used about 1/4 of the can on this entire project. It seems pricey at $42 a can but, when you add in the price so stripper, primer, sand paper, and paint, it evens out. I buy mine at the Smitten Flea in McKinney, but you can also have it shipped to you.

If you want to learn more about this paint or see some tutorials, visit my two favorite blogs Perfectly Imperfect (she's got a great breakdown of the prices) and Miss Mustard Seed.

This paint goes on thick, but it spreads pretty easily.

I did end up having to put on 2 coats because one coat didn't cover it as much as I wanted. But even with 2 coats, I still only used 1/4 of the can! Pretty crazy, right?

I loved the bright red color, but it wasn't the right shade for our dining room. To darken it, I rubbed stain on the paint and the wiped it off. I did 2 coats of this as well.

It was kind of scary at first...see the difference in the drawers that have stain and the top of the dresser? But when the stain was wiped off, it left a perfect dark tint to the red.

Here's the difference. The top drawer is only painted and the bottom drawer has been darkened.

This dresser wasn't in the best shape (hey, it was free) but I wanted to make it work for us. The top had some water damage coming through so I had to get creative in how to cover this up. Y'all know I love burlap, right? I decided to make a sort of permanent table runner and glue burlap to the top of the dresser to cover up all those rough water spots.

I taped off the areas that would border the runner and then used spray adhesive to glue the burlap down.

After gluing the burlap, it needed something else. It looked sort of naked. So my genius husband mentioned adding a ribbon to border it.

I used hemming tape to adhere the ribbon to the edge of the burlap. Now it looks like a runner!

Looks good, huh? Justin thought I was crazy when I first told him about my idea, but we both really like how it looks.

The stain left some areas darker that others. You can see it in this picture. But I wanted this piece to look old, and worn...kinda dirty so adding the stain helped give that effect.

I ran into the problem of the paint not sticking to the edges of the drawers. It was so weird. The paint covered so well every where else. But it was an easy fix. I just lightly distressed all the edges to match the drawers. I replaced the hardware to match the brown runner ribbon. I like the clean lines of this hardware. The original was kind of bulky and overpowered the dresser.

Total cost for this project was about $35.

I used about $12 worth of Annie Sloan's Chalk Paint.

The hardware was $23.

I had the burlap and ribbon left over from our wedding.

What do y'all think?

I think it turned out alright for my first painting job.

We are working on finishing up the table and painting the chairs. So look for that reveal coming soon!

Linking Up:

Valentine's Day Shelf Decor

2012-01-24T09:02:00.001-06:00

I finally finished up our Valentine's Day shelf!

I went for more of a red and white color scheme so pink wouldn't take over the house.

You should check out the dollar spot in Target, pronto. They have 8 and 12 sheet packs of valentine themed scrapbook paper for $1! And there are some super cute designs. They also have awesome packs of stickers for $1. I bought 2 packs because you can never have too many stickers!

I found this little bird at Michael's. With my 40% coupon it was only about $2.50. I think she's found a permanent home up here on this shelf. The mason jar was inspired by this.

I stuffed the heart tinsel into the lantern to give it some color and upcycled an old tin plate by Mod Podging some scrapbook paper onto the center.

The vases came together as a set-$2.50 at the dollar spot in Target. They say "live" "laugh" "love" and will stay on the as regular decor, but I took advantage of the blank back side to place my stickers for a fun valentine theme!

I found the free printable at The Creative Girl. Valentines Day is a Hallmark, commercial holiday, BUT we are commanded to LOVE . And this printable keeps REAL love into perspective (1 Corinthians 13:4-8). So when we walk through the front door and we look up at the pretty decorations that make us me crave chocolate and want pretty flowers, I hope it reminds us of how we are supposed to really love one another.

Fab Find: Dining Room Chairs

2012-01-18T07:48:00.003-06:00

Justin has been hard at work building me a farmhouse style dining room table. It was my Christmas present this year. He's almost finished up and we'll share pictures as soon as it's ready, we promise! But until then, drool over these cane back chairs that I found on Craigs List.

Look at that cane. Isn't it gorgeous! These are going to be our chairs for our table. I can't wait to show you what I have in store for these babies! They are going to look absolutely fabulous when I'm done with them.

I almost feel like we ripped the guy off this deal was soooo good. We gave $150 for the 6 chairs and a 76" table with a leaf. That's $25 a chair! Do you know how expensive chairs are? Cute ones at Walmart-Better Homes and Gardens Brand-are $40 a piece. So what we paid for the entire dining set is still a HUGE savings! I love a good find!

I'll keep you posted on how these beauties are going to be transformed to work with our table.

By the way, we have the table for sale if you are in the market for one. It's in good shape and really pretty. Send me a message if you are interested!

A Love Inspired Mantel

2012-01-17T09:09:00.003-06:00

Valentine's Day is just around the corner and this year, I've decided to do a little decorating to celebrate! I'm not going all out like I do for Christmas, but I thought having a Valentine's Day themed mantel would be nice and I'm going to decorate our dining room shelf too (pics of that to come when I'm finished.)

I love the soft, romantic colors. I would leave this up year round if it matched the rest of our living room! The hydrangeas and garland were decor I saved from our wedding. And since our colors were pink and brown, I used some of our wedding pictures as part of the decor. So now it has a personal, meaningful touch to it.

I usually have these plain cream candles on some pillar holders down on the hearth. I wrapped the candles with jute and a pink ribbon I saved from one of our wedding showers. Normally, you would want to glue the jute and ribbon onto the candle, but I knew that this wasn't going to be permanent, so I used tape and made sure that side faced the back. Only you will know I took a poor man's approach to decorating ;)

I made this wreath from foam board and scrapbook paper.

Justin helped me cut out the heart shapes from foam board and I Mod Podged the paper on top. Then I hot glued the foam board together in a circle to create the wreath. You can see my inspiration from Pinterest here and here.

The only supplies I needed for this was the foam board. I found it at Dollar Tree. Total price for this project would be less than 3 dollars if you included the scrapbook paper and ribbon. Regular Elmer's glue would probably work just as well as the Mod Podge for this project.

I incorporated my Willow Tree figurines into the design. The colors were perfect and all of them signify love.

Oooh, it's going to be hard to take this down!

Are you decoratig this year for Valentine's Day?

Photo Ribbon

2012-01-11T08:00:00.001-06:00

I've been making these photo ribbons as gifts and everyone has been loving them so I thought I'd share them with you today.

via pinterest

I found the idea on Pinterest but made it a little easier on myself by using coasters as the photo tiles rather than canvas. 

The first one that I made was in black in white and I love it. But the colored photo tiles look really great too!

With each new one I make, I think of something more or different to add to it to make each ribbon unique.

I can't wait to make my own!

Revamped Stool: A Special Gift

2012-01-09T13:11:00.003-06:00

I found this stool in my parent's shop when we were going through all their old junk one day. It was my Pa Pa's and it had been sitting out there for years just getting dirty and falling apart. I asked my Mama if I could have it and she told me no. Then I asked her if I could take it and refinish it for her. After thinking on it for a while, she reluctantly gave it to me. I know she didn't want to give it away. I could feel it. She made up some lame excuse of how she didn't have room for it in her house even if I brought it back to life so I should just keep it. After I brought it home with me, I started scheming. What if I refinished it such a way that if I gave it back to her, she wouldn't want to part with it again?

After lots of brainstorming, the idea hit me when I was looking at woven stool seats. What if I brought the memory of my Pa Pa into the stool?

My Pa Pa worked for Mobil for years. The Flying Red Horse (we NEVER call it Pegasus) has been kinda like a family trade mark for us. Whenever we see it, we shout out every time "Look! There's the Flying Red Horse!" and then we stare in awe, while paying our own kind of homage to it. Remember our staycation in Dallas over the summer? We all had to have our picture taken with it.

I did some digging on ebay and found some really cool patches. I chose my favorite one, bought some canvas belts and got to work.

I really love the way it turned out. I thought about painting the wood red, but decided against it. My parents both value antique wood in its natural state so I thought my mom would rather me keep the wood its original color. I did recondition it though. The wood had really dried out over the years.

I wrapped this baby up and crossed my fingers that she wasn't going to kill me* for taking the original seat off!

*and I'm crossing my fingers now that she's not going to kill me for putting these Christmas morning pictures up on the blog! But the story just isn't the same without them. So, if you don't hear from me in a few days, send a search party out for me ;)

As soon as she opened it, the tears started rolling. From both of us. And I'm not a crier. As soon as my grandma figured out what it was, she started crying too.

I think we know from that smile that she loved it. Even my Daddy said I did a good job on it. And that means a lot, because it's hard to impress that guy. And you know what's funny? She said that she would've liked the wood painted!

Linking up to:

Christmas Dogs!

2011-12-24T08:00:00.002-06:00

Dexter and Molly wish you a Merry Christmas!

I Dedicate this House to the Harmon Family Christmas

2011-12-23T09:00:00.000-06:00

Justin channeled his inner Clark Griswold and got the Christmas lights on the house a couple of weekends ago.

We made our own candy cane lane by lining the sidewalk with candy canes and draping lights through them.

Did any of you put lights on your house this year?

We haven't had a chance to go look at Christmas lights, but hopefully we will find some time to squeeze it in!

DIY Ornaments

2011-12-23T07:00:00.020-06:00

I have been making homemade gifts like crazy! And it has been so much fun! I believe that it's better to give than receive. So that's why I decided to give myself this ornament ;-) In the middle of making gifts for others, I made a little time for myself and made an ornament of my own.

I don't have a tutorial for you today, but you can check out this tutorial when I mod podge a picture frame and follow the same principle. I just mod podged left over wrapping paper to an "H" chipboard, painted the sides and the back, and distressed the edges. Then I wrapped twine around the top so that it could hang from the tree. Isn't it lovely?!

I also made something special for someone else.

If your name is GRACE HARMON then stop reading now or your will ruin your Christmas.

If you read any further it'll be like sneaking into the living room when you were a kid and cutting the tape on the presents under the tree, carefully unwrapping the paper, and taking a peek into the boxes to see what awaits inside. I did that one year and Christmas morning stunk for me. There was no eager anticipation to see what I got, because I already knew.

So you gone now, Gracie?

I hope so 'cause here we go....

Grace is my sister-in-law and just married into the family in October. I made her this sheet music ornament for one of her Christmas gifts. Decor made with sheet music is super popular right now.

At first sight, it doesn't seem all that special.

But it's the lyrics on the sheet music that really make it unique.

"Wondering where would I be without you in my life"

"But you brighten up for me all of my days"

Can anyone guess the song?

"How sweet it is to be loved by you"

And it was Grace and Jason's first dance song at their wedding.

I love this so much it makes my heart hurt.

I'll be making one for Justin and I to hang on our family tree.

I cannot wait to give this to Grace! I hope she loves it as much as I do!

If you'd like to see my inspiration for this ornament, check out my Pinterest pins here, here and here.

Gifts to our Angel

2011-12-21T08:34:00.000-06:00

This year, we adopted an angel through our church, The Village, that benefited a student through Communities in Schools. This is the organization that I mentor with, so providing gifts to one of these students was extra special for me this year. We chose a 9 year little boy and were able to buy him a hoodie and matching pants, a mario shirt and beanie, tennis shoes, gloves, a nerf gun, and 4 hand held video games. It's hard for me not to go overboard, but I stuck to our budget and was still able to get him a lot. Merry Christmas Communities in Schools Angel! We hope that you have a wonderful one!

Christmas Mantel and Shelf

2011-12-20T15:19:00.000-06:00

Here's the last of the home decorations!

Our mantel is kinda a work in progress. I made it look the best I could with the decorations that we already had. I can't say that I hate it, but I don't love it either. Hopefully next year I'll have more time and a little more money to make this look really good!

I could never find a stocking that I liked for Dexter, so I decided to make one for him. I saw this stocking on etsy and made my own dumbed down version. I found the stocking at Dollar General for a buck and used felt and no sew iron on transfer for the doggie and bone. I think it turned out really cute! And It only cost me $1.50!

My mama made me that cute little frame that you see on the wall.

Everyone asks if I made the snowflake wreath. I wish I could say yes, but I found it at the dollar spot at Target.

Since it was so hot here over the summer, most of my candles melted in the attic. But these weren't damaged so bad. I made sure to cover up all the ugly spots with the poinsettias.

So, there ya go. The Harmon family Christmas mantel. Needs some work, but looks good for this year!

Here's the dining room shelf that went from fall to Christmas!

I switched out the framed pumpkin for a handmade snowflake.

The ornaments were originally in a clear cylinder vase, but the shelf fell off the wall somehow and broke it. So I opted for the mason jar in its place. I think that I like it better than my initial idea! It ties in together with the "snow filled' mason jars on the dining room table.

The free printable is from eighteen25.

I found a plain wooden 8x10 picture frame at Dollar Tree and painted it red specially for this printable.

How have you decorated your home this Christmas? I'd love to see! Leave me a comment with your blog address, facebook page, etc if you'd like to show of your home decorations!

O Christmas Tree.... O Christmas Trees!

2011-12-16T08:00:00.003-06:00

Remember our tree from last year?

I love this tree! It's so beautiful. We have it up again, but this year, I decorated the mirror banister with lights, ribbon that matches the tree, and poinsettias. And we hung a wreath (given to us my Justin's super nice boss) at the top.

It's gorgeous!

AND, I was lucky enough to find a FREE tree on freecycle this summer. So we have 2 trees this year. The fancy tree in the formal living room/office area and a family tree in the living room!

The family tree has miscellaneous ornaments on it like ones from our childhood, ones given to us as gifts, milestone ornaments like our first Christmas together, our first Christmas in our new home, etc. I'm going to carry on the traditions of both of our mothers and buy/make ornaments for us and our kids every year. But since we don't have kids yet, I bought Dexter and Molly ornaments instead!

What? These doggies love Christmas as much as we do! And I needed an excuse to buy more ornaments to help fill up the family tree (got them at Dollar General for a buck a piece!). Who wants to look at a sparsely decorated tree?! Ok, ok, I admit it. I'm kinda a crazy dog lady...both doggies have a present and something to go in their stocking. But they can't be left out of Christmas! =)

More posts to come-mantel and Christmas shelf decorations, an awesome, sentimental diy gift and lots more!

Our New Nativity Scene

2011-12-15T08:00:00.003-06:00

My first nativity scene was given to me by my grandma. You can see it here. I still have it and put it out on the coffee table again this year. I also have a small nativity scene from Kirklands. It's been really handy the last few years. It looks a lot like my mama's, only on a tinier scale. That's why I bought it. The one my mama has was her grandma's so when I look at mine, it reminds me of Christmases back home. It's perfect for a small apartment, but being in the house this year has really made me want a bigger nativity scene. I wanted something special, like my mama's. I remember her getting it out every year and putting it on the back of the piano. It just didn't really feel like Christmas until she got it down from the closet. I was sort of feeling the same way this year. I love the Willow Tree figurines and knew they made one so I thought I'd check it out.

Ok, so I know the tree doesn't go with the nativity scene, but I needed something to go in that corner and it's cute! It goes with the burlap nicely.

"We three kings of orient are..."

Love that song.

One thing that this set has that Willow Tree does not are these inscriptions on all the dark parts of each figurine. Can you tell what it is?

That's right...it's the lyrics to "Silent Night."

Get the free printable here

And that makes me love it just that much more!

Christmas Table Centerpiece

2011-12-14T14:12:00.000-06:00

Since my dining room table is so small (it's a 4 seater) I don't have much room for an extravegant centerpiece. I have to go small and simple. I saw this idea on pinterest and thought it would be perfect for our table.

It's supposed to look like the candles are laying in snow. The jars are partially filled with epsom salt.

Instead of using a third mason jar, I decided to use a salsa bottle to mix it up a bit and give it a little more character.

To add a bit more detail, I topped each jar off with a rafia bow and wound this wire edge ribbon in and aroudn teh jars. I think it turned out really pretty and goes really well with the rest of the decor in the room.