Christmas Home Tour

Today I welcome you in for a little Christmas home tour of sorts.  I had a lot of fun this year doing some different handmade projects, keeping it simple and keeping the focus on Jesus.  

The first few photos are from our kitchen, some of my favorite things are my nativity sets I have gotten from the different countries we have visited.  I have also gone crazy with chalkboards and they are everywhere.  But I love that I can customize them for the season.

I made several of these little fabric and ornament garlands to use around the house and help to tie everything together.

Our living room is up next.  We love having a real tree, every year they are a little different and we think this tree might be our favorite.  This year I found some antique bead strands at the Nashville flea market (wow, that place is awesome) and also added some burlap ribbon, its just really soft and pretty.

These rustic wooden stars are one of my most favorite diy Christmas projects I have made.

Thanks for stopping by today and taking a little Christmas tour!

Linking  Up Here

#idhtbptbbchristmas with The Nester

DIY Citrus Ornaments

Each year Silas and I have made a little handmade ornament or decoration together for Christmas.  We have done salt dough ornaments, cinnamon ornaments, paper garlands last year and this year we tried our hand in dried citrus ornaments.  Silas had a blast helping with these and this is a super simple craft to do together with your kids!

This was such a fun craft that Justin joined in on the festivities and I kicked back and snapped some photos, listened to a little christmas music and drank some coffee with a little lot of peppermint mocha creamer (I'm pretty sure I'm now addicted to that stuff).

We started by slicing our oranges (and some limes) for our ornaments.  Silas was in charge of arranging them on our baking sheets.  I didn't use any sort of paper baking liner - we just put them straight on the pans.

Next, Silas added some cloves to some of our ornaments for a little festive touch and for an awesome Christmasy aroma.

It really is best to try and make your slices all about the same width...some of ours were a little off but it worked out fine.  

After the citrus slices were all ready we baked them on the lowest setting in our oven for about an hour, then flipped them over and baked them another hour.  You may need to bake them shorter or longer depending on your oven temp and slice width.

After they were all dried out Silas used some modge-podge and painted one side let them dry and painted the other.  This helped to seal them and make them a little more durable.

After they are dry you have some great dried citrus slices for all sorts of decorating.  We used our as ornaments on our tree.  They are so pretty with the lights shining through.

You could find all sorts of ways to use dried fruit for decorating, they would be pretty in a simple jar gathered together or strung together for a little garland.  I love the added touch of homemade to a home at Christmas!

You can also check out my diy chalkboard ornaments and yarn wrapped ornaments for more ideas!

Easy DIY Ornament Garland

I love making little handmade decorations for Christmas.  These little ornament garlands are super simple and probably could be made with items you already own.  So many sweet little possibilities. 

This year I decided to not go with the traditional red and green, I was just feeling something different.   Most of the colors I used this year were ones that I already use in our house anyway so everything felt like it belonged.  I already had some little christmas ornaments I wanted to use for this and I ended up picking up a few more at Target (you are welcome Mike) for just a few several bucks - nothing fancy.

In addition to little ornaments I also used some scrap fabric and twine - that's it! For the fabric (like usual) I used anything like old tablecloths, kitchen towels, leftover fabric, t-shirts...whatever I have.

Start with measuring your twine and make a knot at the point where you want your garland to start.  Next, I added an ornament and then tied little pieces of fabric in simple knots along the twine and repeated that process until I liked it.

You could also do a longer strip of fabric and tie it differently, just go with it.

I love the finished garland, so pretty and sweet.

I made several different ones to use for decorating all over the house.  They don't take long - I finished one in under 30 minutes so its not very time consuming.

I made these stars last year, they were super simple! Here is the link to make your own diy rustic stars!  And yesterday, I shared about our non-traditional advent candles and our simple chalkboard advent calendar.

That's it for today, hope you are enjoying decorating for Christmas!

Ideas for Observing Advent

We've been out of town and other things happening so I'm a little behind on my christmas blog posts, but better late than never.  Today I wanted to share how we are observing Advent in our home this year.  Each year since we have had Silas I have tried to come up with a way to teach him about Christmas and make our home more about the Joy of Christ than anything else (even though I still enjoy all sorts of fun parts of the season).  We've done calendars in years past which have been great and this year we decided to add in doing advent candles as well.  Its just a way for us to sit down as a family, remember the meaning of the coming of Christ, talk about what it means for us together and set time apart to focus on God.  

So, this is really a non-traditional way of doing advent candles.   I just used things I already had - I didn't really have the exact colors and its also not in a wreath form but it still works.  I don't know if its so much about making sure colors and shapes are right as its more about setting aside time in your hearts and having time to worship together.  

I put together 4 of these candles just using jars, a little faux snow, candles and an ornament.  I also have a larger candle set aside for the Christ candle that we will light on Christmas Eve.  

This year I just really wanted to not get too caught up in the meaningless things that this season can bring.  I had so much fun decorating our house (I'll share more this week)  but I chose to only use the things that had meaning and that we enjoyed.  I didn't put things out just because I have them (we have way too many christmas boxes in the attic).  Our tree only has ornaments on it that has a memory, Silas decorated with all of his homemade treasures and we had fun - (not stress) doing it.  Things just seem simplified but still really festive and meaningful and we are loving it.  

In addition to the candles I also utilized our newly painted chalkboard door to make a calendar to help us countdown.  This year we chose 25 names of God to represent each day until Christmas.  I love this so much.  Its such a great reminder and has been a constant place of encouragement.

Below I listed the names in case it was hard to read off of the photo so if you wanted to do something similar you could!

I hope that your season of advent is full of joy and purpose as we remember the awesome promise that God made through his Son.   ~God and sinner reconciled~