christmas at our house

Interestingly enough we never actually spend Christmas at our own house!  We're always rotating between my parent's winter wonderland up north and my always welcoming in-laws place.  This year we'll be up north with our boys, my parents and my brother (since we only see him at Christmas, YAY!). 
Even though we don't actually spend Christmas here and we likely won't have any company over the holidays (so sad! LOL) I still decorate (of course) and enjoy my time spent crafting new Christmasy goodies for the house. 
Here are a few highlights of some of the Noel nifties around our house this year :). 

Here's the wreath on our front door.  I bought it at Home Sense four years ago and it's still going strong!  I glued on the mini ornaments (from the dollar store) and I added the bow (the ribbon is from Michael's this year.  $16.99 for the roll but I had a 60% off coupon!):

 

Here's our garland, also faux and used every year!  Real greenery is pretty but so much work!  The garland is from Michael's and the stars are from Canadian Tire from a few years ago:

 

And here it is at night.  It's hard to tell but there's a flood light pointed up at the front door...a very unimpressive photo!  Much prettier in person :):



 

And the inside decor...I made this wreath earlier this year and it was so hard to wait until Christmas to put it up!  The plain grapevine wreath was $4.99 at Michael's.  I added the felt (from Fabricland) rosettes (trace and cut out a felt circle about the size of a CD then cut the circle into a spiral and roll the fabric into a rosette and stick a straight pin through the centre and hot glue into place):

 

I made these festive baubles from styrofoam balls of varying sizes and wrapped and hot glued strips of fabric and burlap around them:

 

This cute garland was made by my crafty Mom last year of little trinkets from around the house (some of which she randomly had around for years, I'm sure, including one of my Girl Guide badges...cute!):

 

This is the garland on our tree!  I made it last year from an old book and simply scotch-taped strips of paper into a pretty paper chain:

 

This lovely snow globe was a gift from our good friend Grace a few years back and has become a staple in our home at Christmas:

 

These are doily snowflakes that I made this year!  I got the inspiration from www.marthastewart.com ...although I didn't use her stiffening method.  I got the doilies second hand at Talize for .99 cents each and I stiffened them using one part white glue and one part water.  Just dip them in the paste and let them dry flat on wax paper for 24 hours and voila!:

 

This is a wrought iron snowflake candle holder and it's from the One of a Kind Show about 5 years ago.  I have three of them and they are randomly place throughout the house this year:

 

We have three of these hanging about the place this year.  I picked these up at Bouclair last year!  I have since realized that they would be very simple to make, but alas, I don't have all day to be crafting!:

 

So there you have it!  That's the general feel of the decor around our house at Christmas time.  A lot of home made, re purposed and reused (year after year) decorations that we love! 

If anyone wants more in depth instructions on how to make any of the items then e mail me at twillandtwine@gmail.com and I'd be happy to fill you in on the details! 

Merry Christmas to all!