South Dakota Morning
I see amazing sunrises and sunsets, so I grabbed my camera so you can see what I get to wake up to every morning. Snowbirds, you can have your Arizona. How can anyone say that South Dakota isn’t beautiful!?
In the Bleak Midwinter
In the bleak midwinter, frost wind made moan, earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone; snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow, in the bleak midwinter, long ago.
Now I went out and bought a whole bunch of ornaments for the Christmas tree at work, but ours at home is totally different. Our Christmas tree has a wide array of ornaments with very few matching because this randomness has been collected for over 15 years!
Many were given to the family by my grandmother and some were bought along the way but for us, ornaments have more meaning than just “ornament of 2008, 2009, 2010, etc”.
Some of the more unique ornaments on our tree are the hand-crocheted snowflakes that my grandmother made and starched. Each is a different pattern and I have about 16 of them. They are just lovely and delicate!
There are also these little porcelain bells that have been hand painted and detailed that I got from my maid of honor for my wedding (ahem years ago).
Either way, I’ve always liked the collage feeling of our tree because it’s personal. Some ornaments were bought, gifted or made. Some are wood, glass, plastic or crochet. But put them all together and it seems like they just are meant to be.
Handmade snowflakes
Spray paint isn't for the faint of heart!
Call me a cheater, but I’m loving spray paint right now. And I’m finding that my spray paint addiction has got to stop before I do some major damage! I’ve realized that it’s hard for me to get rid of stuff so I’m trying to find new ways to recycle things and my “easy goto” is running to the hardware store for PAINT! For instance, I had these black boring candle holders stuck in the closet holding… no candles. So pick up a can of crazy bright turquoise spray paint and boom! RUBBER DUCKIE HOLDERS! I know you think it’s silly but my daughter loves them.
Leftover pinecones from Thanksgiving!
Now nothing compares to a real tree for christmas, the scent of pine in your home is refreshing and nostalgic. But not everyone can have a real tree. Especially places of business (dropping needles, watering, fire hazard, etc).
Now I’m all for the holiday season, so I recently surprised the ladies at work by decorating an artificial christmas tree in their waiting room. It was an old tree that I had in storage for a couple of years and it was in need of some major TLC. I bought new decorations, sparkles, lights, everything I could think of to give it new life in it’s new home. And that also includes the scent! (Now I don’t mean hanging pine tree air fresheners from hooks, keep those in the car) A quick trick I learned was to hide a few cinnamon scented pinecones in the branches and your artificial tree will smell like the attic no longer! Three or four will do depending on how scented you want it, you don’t want it to get overwhelming!
Sneak a few scented pinecones into your "fake" christmas tree!
Cinnamon scented pinecones can be found at just about any craft store or big chain store, but you can also make your own. Collect some pinecones. (If you are like me you can just pick them up off the ground in front of your house!) Bake them on a tinfoiled pan at 200 degrees to harden the sap, let them cool and put in a ziplock bag with cinnamon oil and sticks. A week or so later you can take them out and glitter spray them or keep them natural.
Recycled T-shirt Scarf
I don’t know about you, but I have a TON of t-shirts. Shirts that are shrunk, pilled, paint splattered, not even worthy of being donated that just take up space. And if I don’t get rid of them soon, my closet bar is going to break. So I started searching for a way to recycle them without resorting to the dreaded “t-shirt quilt”. Luckily, I found this little gem on Kevin and Amanda’s site and had to try it!
For the non-knitters out there, this one is for you! It’s ridiculously easy, just scissors, about 3 or 4 old t-shirts and alot of tying. For some reason I had an abundance of pink shirts so I started with those as my practice run. About an hour or so later I was done! Overall I think this scarf turned out super cute!
Super easy! Make your own!
If you want to learn how to make this scarf, head over to Kevin & Amanda’s! She has a great step by step photo tutorial. You’ll be shredding those old shirts in no time!
