Decking the Halls -Week 3

Only two more weeks until Christmas!! I hope you have all been checking off your Elf lists: making snow angles for two hours, going ice skating, eating a whole roll of toll house cookie dough as fast as you can and then snuggling.  Haven’t quite hit everything on the list?  Don’t worry – there’s still time!

It hasn’t been an easy month – everyone knows how busy December can get. On top of the holiday functions  we have been busy checking off the sick list here: pneumonia…check, stomach flu….check, croup…check.  We threw in a broken down car and water heater for good measure too!   But you know what,  these trials are small and in the scheme of things pass fairly quickly.  They may be a bit of a bummer but my holiday spirit is still alive and well and when I look around I’m still feeling blessed beyond measure. We’ve had fun kids Christmas programs to attend, we’ve made gingerbread houses and frosted cookies and I think we’ve made a pretty good dent in the holiday movie classics list.  Simple and good things that help keep your spirits high.

So without further ado this week on decking the halls its all about stocking hangers and signs.

I’ll start with the stocking hangers.  After I had my third baby and thought our family was complete I found a set of three that spelled out JOY.  It was after the holidays and they were on clearance and worked perfectly.   Then came our bonus baby blessing.  Since I couldn’t find an exclamation point hanger to put on the end 😉 I  just picked up an inexpensive snowman hanger to use.  It worked but I wanted a set that was  matching.  Stocking hangers aren’t  cheap though and it seemed kind of frivolous  to spend extra money on a new set just because they didn’t match (see broken down car comment above :)) so I knew I had to get creative.   I took a 1×4 remnant and I had, stained it and cut it down into eight  3 1/2 inch squares.  After that I attached two together like this with kreg screws.

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Next I used hook screws we also had and spray painted them black to hold my stockings

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I wanted to add a snowflake element to them.  I thought I was either going to paint them on or maybe even do a wood burning design.  However I was in Shopko one evening and came upon these cute snowflake oranments that were on sale for a $1 each.

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I decided to save myself some time and buy them. I simply hot glue gunned them on to my holders and there were done.  I had 4 matching stocking holders for $4.  They are rustic looking and my not be for everyone but for my farmhouse Christmas they are perfect.

img_0223img_0557Next up is signs. You guys I was not going to make any new signs this year. I promise I wasn’t.  I didn’t think I had the time but then inspiration starting hitting and I couldn’t resist making 1… or 4 new signs 🙂

First up is my Christmas truck sign.  I am such a sucker for an old truck with a Christmas tree in the back. When my husband and I started dating he had a cute little old truck and I loved it. And then one day he up and sold it without telling me.  We were dating still and he was so excited to show me his new surprise of a new (well new to him) car.   Like I said he was so excited that at the time I didn’t have the heart to tell him I was bummed he had made the switch.  As the years have gone by though I have confessed.  He argued “but Heather it didn’t have 4×4 or air conditioning – it was a crappy little pickup.”  But I loved that crappy little pickup.  Oh one day I will have an old crappy (and by crappy I really mean completely restored bright red vintage) pickup  – a girl can dream right?

But until that day I made a sign to look at. I simply drew out my design on a piece of paper and then put that paper on my board I had painted it white.  I put a piece of carbon paper ( such a neat new tool I have discovered) under my drawing and then traced it.  The carbon paper marks your board for you.  It works wonders.  You can practice your drawing or take a printable and trace it on without having to worrying about making mistakes on your prepped board.

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I used the same carbon paper technique when my cousin sent me this adorable piece of inspiration.  Look at this cute sign by Wooden That Be Somethin

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I decided to make one and put my own little spin on it -a  pretty rustic design  again and maybe not for everyone. I simple wrote it out on a piece of paper so I could practice and erase if I needed too and then I copied it on with the carbon paper.  Next I used a black paint Sharpie to go over my carbon markings.

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Then because I wanted to fill the space on that wall,  I made one more sign  by copying a free printable I had found on Pinterest

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My last sign was completely done on a whim one day when I was trying to avoid laundry. Honestly I don’t know what compelled me to do it other than I wanted to add a little holiday cheer to my kitchen counters and I was thinking about how my husband likes deer.

So I found a deer silhouette online and I used it to cut out a deer head from some black and red plaid fabric.

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Next I cut some burlap off of a burlap table runner that I wasn’t using (why did I ever think a runner was a good idea with kids and milk spills) and I basted the deer head onto the burlap. After that I used to mod podge and put it all over the deer head so it would kind of harden and not fray. Here is what it looks like before the mod podge dries clear.

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Finally I wrapped the burlap around a piece of old barn wood I had.   If I had to do it all over again I would have used the mod podge on the fabric before I basted it because I did loose a small chunk of antler as I was pushing the needle through due to fraying fabric.  But overall I’m quite in love with the piece.  Its something I came up with completely on my own so I’m proud of that.

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So there you have it!  Stocking hangers and signs done!  I’ll be back next week with one final post of decking the halls.  Until then I think I will go try and check a few more items off the Christmas list.  Maybe that one about eating the cookie dough as fast as I can.  Yeah, that sounds good.

LOL (lots of love)

Heather

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