country christmas mantle

Welcome Christmas.

We are gearing up for a magical year here in the Meeker house. Our children are all believers. Their Christmas spirit is contagious.

Every year I design a new theme for our mantle. This year I was inspired by country life. I love old barns and natural fibers. I'm also loving all the mounted animal heads as long as they are fake. I find real animal heads to be disturbing. Taxidermy. Not for me.

Anyway, Ben humored me and constructed my pint sized barn door. I painted it with our initials.  I found the stag head at Target along with the small snowflake votives.  The mercury glass jugs are from World Market.  The larger porcelain votives are from Crate and Barrel.  The garland was made by ripping natural linen into strips.

You can't see it too well in the photo but there is a pair of antique ice tongs propped against the door that I found in an antique store.  I can't remember where I got the large bells.

Because the mantle isn't overtly Christmas, I think if I take away the bells I can leave it up through January.

Hopefully I will have time to share more of our Christmas this year! Remember that I can be found on Instagram almost everyday.

peace on earth

The children that live with me seem to like to fight. A lot.

The babies are the main culprits.  There is screaming and hitting and pulling hair and yes, unfortunately, even biting.  The problem seems to be that they are both of the age where they believe they own the world and everything in it. And nobody is allowed to touch or look at anything they own. Or look directly at them while they are carrying one of their possessions.

It's really quite exhausting.

Now the boy, he's a teaser. A heckler. An instigator.  He knows allll the right buttons to push when it comes to the babies.

Like I said before, there's a lot of screaming.

So out of pure desperation, I have declared this Christmas to be the year of "Peace on Earth". (Read Peace in the Meeker House.) I'm also for world peace and all, but it's baby steps people. Baby steps.

So far it's not working.

They have fought over ornaments. They have fought over who gets to open the advent calendar.  They fought over Christmas music lyrics. They even fought over the baby Jesus in our navitity. Baby Jesus!

Oy.

Here's the DIY details on the mantle:

The trees are just foam cones covered with felt. I don't use cheap felt. Ever. It's just not worth it. Find good felt if you can!

I used a Sizzix machine to cut the circles of felt for the garland. I ran them through my sewing machine to join them together.

The peace dove felt cut outs and jingle bell wreaths are from Target $1 Spot. I made bows out of felt to top the wreaths.

The letters are from Paper Source. They are paper mache that I painted silver and then used pattern craft paper to embellish.

The wreath is made from two pool noodles. I used one noodle to create a circle. I duck taped the ends together. Then I used the other noodle to make the inside lines of the peace sign.  Again I used duck tape to secure the pieces to the outside circle.

I spray painted the noodle peace sign silver.

From Target $1 Spot, I bought tubes of small plastic Christmas bulbs.  My wreath took about 450 bulbs. I cut the top hanger part off the bulbs and hot glued them to the noodle wreath. I wasn't able to get all my bulbs in silver so I had to then spray paint all the bulbs silver. I highly recommend Valspar paint. It covers really well with very little paint. I glittered some of the bulbs for dimension.

I cut up a strand of tinsel and filled in the small gaps between the bulbs.

The end result is one super sparkly peace wreath.

The mercury glass pieces are all part of my collection. I found the vintage strands of beads on Ebay. I got the blue trees at Home Goods this year. I was so excited to find them.

So there you have it.

Even if it does nothing for the children, it inspires me to try to be the peace maker instead of screaming at them for screaming at each other.

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Okay! The winner of the Mindy Gledhill "Winter Moon" album is Katie Johnson who told me about the She and Him Album, that my husband also recommended, that I love love love.

Katie send me your address!

ye ol' mantle

click photo to see full size

Well I'm off the couch.  I even did a little laundry and attempted to pick up the house.  I finished decorating the mantle and that made me feel very accomplished.  After that I was exhausted so I sat back down and drank a soda and ate a chocolate.

But I'm up! I'm fighting! I will conquer this holiday season!

My theme for the mantle this year was vintage ice skating.  I actually ordered some old ice skates from a seller on Ebay but he lost them, so he couldn't send them.  Weirdo.

Anywho, I also bought some old photos on Ebay for this project.  I can't tell you how I wish these were actually my relatives but I am not heir to any great ice skating pictures of my ancestors.  So they are strangers, but I love them all the same.

I took my favorite photo and photocopied it really large to make my focal piece.  Then I glittered it all up, because, please, glitter makes everything just a little more festive.

The other photos I used to make a simple bunting.  I was tempted to get fancy with it, but I already have some much going on that I decided to keep it simple.

Aren't the photos the most charming thing you've ever seen? I mean look at that baby learning to skate. I die.

It was simply a Christmas miracle that I found this old school banner that says "Merry Christmas" in twenty different languages.  It's handmade and exactly the length of my dining room table.

Obviously it was put in my path for a reason. I mean, I can barely ever find runners long enough for my table. And then this little gem comes along.

It's really starting to come together around here.  Now to the shopping and the baking and the cards and the parties and...

You get the idea.

and then christmas decided to come out in full force

Christmas is officially in full swing. I know this because when I was drinking my apple cider this morning I noticed that my amaryllis has started to bloom.

That, and Sugar Daddy was singing carols. Sugar Daddy has had a long time repugnance to Christmas music too early in the season.

I decided to make all new decorations for the house this year. I really wanted a fun childish theme.

A few weeks ago, we inherited a bear cookie jar that was given to Ben's dad when he was born. It is almost seventy years old and absolutely charming. It was my inspiration.

I call it "The Sweetest Christmas Extravaganza".

I'm making silk flower brooches to tie on the packages instead of bows.

Last Monday it was raining like mad. The sky was so dark and the fire place was so cozy, I decided not to send the boy to school. Instead we read Christmas stories, cuddled up on the couch. Thom and Natalie assembled the gingerbread house. It rained all day.

I think it will become a tradition. One day every December, the kids will get to stay home and we will craft and bake and read and cuddle and make memories.

christmas first

Thom spent the better part of the weekend telling everyone that he couldn't wait until "Christmas first".


What he means is he can't wait for the first day of December, which can be translated to, the first day of advent, wherein he gets to open a little door and see what little wonder awaits him.


I've been gathering up all the little wonders for the last month or so. I think we will kick the season off with a Matchbox car or maybe some chocolate gold coins.


I'm pretty excited myself. Having little kids makes Christmas magic.


I decided to go all out with the decorations this year. I'm doing it up Pam Campbell style with all the glitter and ribbon I can get my hands on.


My favorite project so far is my paper amaryllis wreath. It makes me happy every time I walk past it.


It's big and colorful and oh so very festive.


The tree is up, the mantle is decked out (pics to follow), the Christmas sheets are on the bed.


I'm ready.



Bring on Christmas first.