I’ve mentioned before that I love changing out decorations for holidays.  Well when we moved into the house a year ago (can’t believe it has been a year) I was thinking about what to do on the mantle for January and decided that I wanted to have something different for each month of the year.  I didn’t get a very good start and didn’t really get anything specific up for January or February (I was still trying to get everything unpacked and organized), but I started in March.  I had some things for the month’s with the bigger holidays, but not much for every other month.  I ended up getting 7 out of 12 (but let’s be honest March was not up to standard…I also don’t love the current set up for November) and many of my completed 53 projects in 2014 were Holiday and home décor.

So this year I really wanted to get every month. I already have a pretty good start, so hopefully it will be manageable.  I noticed last year that what I did have before for our apartment didn’t go far in the new house, which is partially why I only got 7.  I found that I have this problem.  I see something in the store and like it except for maybe it isn’t the color I want, or it’s a good idea but cheap materials, or I want it a little bit bigger, or smaller, or I wish it didn’t have that one thing on it, or…  So I think, “I can make that” and then it will be exactly how I want it.  Which I usually can do.  But that takes time.  And let’s not even get into all of the good ideas found on Pinterest.  And for some reason Vu thinks that he likes it when I make dinner, clean the house and do laundry.  And here we are at 7 for 12.  On to 2015.  The main goal is the mantle and something on the dining room table, with anything extra I can get around to on the coffee and end tables, cabinets on either side of the mantle and the piano. We will see how it goes.  I have many plans in place.  (But not for June.  I am currently stumped for June…the only thoughts I have so far are green and yellow…we shall see.)

So after the busy-ness of Christmas died down (and I got my energy back after having the flu/pneumonia, which I didn’t give to any of our house guests we had the whole time I was sick thank you very much), I started to think about January.  I was discussing it with my sister Rachel, and decided I wanted to do a Winter theme.  I already had some items from a blue and silver mantle I made a few years ago, and I think blue and silver are nice winter colors so I decided to start with that and then just add in some snowflakes to make it more “winter”.

I had some pine cones I didn’t end up using for Christmas, so I spray painted them mostly white.  I took a walk along the path through the greenbelt down the street from our house and picked up some branches off of the ground and also spray painted them white.  They even had some cute tiny pine cones hanging off their branches.  Then I made some beaded snowflake ornaments (thanks Pinterest) to hang from the branches.

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I LOVE Holidays! I LOVE decorating!  I LOVE making things out of wood!  And I LOVE changing things up!  So ever since I saw this tutorial a couple of years ago, I have wanted to make one.  I finally had the time (and my own saw) to make it.  I followed the tutorial but with a few changes.

Instead of using one large piece of bead board, I found bead board slats and cut them to the length I wanted and then glued them together.  I did not do this as perfectly as I would have liked and now that I have done it once, I could do it much better a second time around.  But lets be honest.  I never get around to a second time, I always move on to the next project.   So it is good enough.

I also couldn’t find any roof flashings, which is what the tutorial uses for the metal magnetic part.  I don’t even know what they are.  And neither did the lovely people that work at Home Depot.  Every Home Depot employee I asked stared back at me blank faced. So instead I wandered around the store with a magnet looking for flat pieces of square metal.  I found one that was 12″ square, but I have no idea what it is actually for.  It was in the back of the store around the metal plate things that go over your heating vents.  Whatever those are called.  Anyway, I liked the nice even edges and I know from experience that cutting metal with perfectly nice straight edges is impossible, so I decided to keep it that size.  Which meant I decided to make bigger, more elaborate holiday pieces.  To cover more area.  No teeny tiny decoration on a huge piece of metal for me please.  Which means that I turned a 2 day project into a 2 week project.  Yay!  As Vu would attest, this is pretty much how every project of mine goes.  Why would I want to make things simple or easy?  Come on.  But I love the process and the result, so it works for me.  Even if Vu says we will never pay someone how much it would cost me (in time spent) to make it.  Which is also why Vu’s dream of retiring early to run my craft business will never come to fruition.

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