Santa Art / Prints on the Cheap!

When Christmas comes around, that framed beach wedding photo just doesn't look right beside the lighted ceramic Christmas tree. Slightly, out of season. So for the holidays, I have framed some of those old school Coca-Cola Santa prints for art. 

 

I love the vintage ones. I snagged these prints in an antique shop in Savannah for $3 a pop!! Whoot, whoot! The frames were about $5 a piece and the background is just scrapbook paper! So for less than $25, I have some great Christmas art!

One Super Simple Christmas Decoration......

For years, I tried my best to decorate my house extravagantly for Christmas.....it took forever and there ended up being way too much crap in my house during the holidays. A couple of years ago, I figured out this simple little trick....

Fill vases you already have with ornaments....Simple, stylish, and cheap. As most of you know, I pick up most of my ball ornaments at Goodwill. The little spriggy things are also a Goodwill find. These little vases are actually my husband's favorite decoration of the season......Happy Christmas Decorating!

$6 Ornament Tree

I made this super cute ornament tree all for under $6!!

The key to making one of these cheap is Goodwill. Everything on the tree, with the exception of the cone keeping everything together was purchased at Goodwill!!! During the holidays, most Goodwills in my area have bags of vintage and newer ornaments for $1-$2 a piece!! Score!

I started with a cone from Hobby Lobby that was $3. I took off the hooks from each ornament and stuck the ornament into the cone halfway, then gave it a healthy dose of hot glue and pushed it in the rest of the way. You do have to be careful not to push too hard if you are using breakable ornaments, I did destroy a few. Once more, a reason to buy them at Goodwill. Be sure to start with your largest ornaments on the bottom.

As you work your way up the cone, use smaller ornaments. This is what I had after I put all my ornaments on. 

As you can tell, I didn't have any really small ornaments for the top. So, I improvised and wrapped tinsel around that section and throughout the tree, so that no ugly styrofoam green would show through.

I topped it off with a cute little vintage elf! I just love Christmas crafts!!

I'm a toolbox kinda girl!

How do you organize your craft supplies? For Christmas last year, I asked my husband for a toolbox. A good sized one that was durable. So, he got me this. 

I heart it. Why? Because it holds all this.....

And this...

 

Whenever I'm ready to do a craft or project, I just grab this and its all there. So until my craft room is complete....I'm a toolbox kinda girl!

Vintage Christmas Art on the Cheap!

As I think, I have mentioned before, I love vintage Santas and basically all vintage Christmas decor. I picked up a box of old Christmas cards at Goodwill the other day, which had a cute little Santa on the front of one of the cards. I decided to do a little decoupaging with him and a canvas.

I had some canvas boards from Valentine projects that I used. These are really cheap, like $3 for a four pack, I think. I also pulled out my Mod Podge, silver acrylic paint, an old paint brush and silver glitter puff paint.

I started by painting two coats of the silver on the canvas. 

 

After that, I put Mod Podge over the whole canvas and then applied Santa. I tilted him sideways for a bit more whimsy. After I stuck him on there, I put another coat of Mod Podge on. It looked like this. 

I let the Mod Podge set and dry, then pulled out the glitter puff paint. I only wanted to outline Santa. I didn't want him to look too 1990sish with all the glitter. 

I let the glitter dry, then added one small strand of tinsel to the back top two corners of the canvas to created a hanger.

Voila! I love having it as a door knob hanger!

Super Easy Tinsel Wreath

If you want to make a cute and super easy wreath, tinsel is the way to go. I was recently inspired by one of my friends, Ashley, after she made her tinsel wreath. 

She purchased a wreath at the Goodwill and re-worked it to make this beautiful showpiece. 

Luckily, Goodwill is overflowing with wreaths and tinsel at the moment. All I had to do was make a trip to my local goodwill to find a very ugly, but still useful wreath and A LOT of tinsel. 

 

I know, its so circa 1990. But it was $1. All I had to do was pull the rags out of the wreath. Some were held in with pins, others just shoved in there. 

 

I was a little worried at first that some of the straw might poke through. Luckily, I was wrong.

 

Enter lots and lots and lots of tinsel. Ashley had already warned me it would take more than I thought it would. She was right. All I did was hot glue one edge of tinsel 

to the wreath and start wrapping it around. After I made it around the whole wreath, I filled in some not-so-fluffy spots with more tinsel, just hot-gluing it on. 

So, I'm going to admit that I have this thing for vintage Santas. I love the small ones with the velvet suits and round bellies. I have a few of these lying around that I have picked up at thrift stores, so I put one in the center of the wreath. I just dug out a little hole in the straw and hot glued that bad boy in.

I love the contrast of the red Santa suit against the silver tinsel. I may add some ornaments or some red ribbon to hang it with, but I really love it just like this. Yay for Christmas!!!

Use What You Got...Part 1

The one most important lesson I have learned in all of my decorating experiences is Use What You Got. If you don't, you're going to wind up paying out the wazoo for furniture, accessories, etc. When I first got into interior design and decorating, I wanted to go out and buy all new furniture, because none of mine worked with what I wanted my home to look like. Then, I saw the price tags. Enter Plan B. Hello, paint. But, I had a really hard time transforming some of my furniture. See, I was one of those people that just didn't want to mess with the pieces of furniture that were my grandparents or came from special people in my family. I thought I would be committing some terrible sin against them. The other problem was that I couldn't let any of the furniture be thrown away or donated because I was soooo attached to it. The result was a house jammed full of furniture that I loved because of whose it was and the memories attached with it, but I didn't like the color, design or style. Finally, I came to realize that I had to make the furniture mine too, the memories would still be there, but it had to look like me and my home. The grandparents would understand. Unfortunately, I was an idiot and didn't take before photos of the pieces. Anyways.....

Dining Room Table

 

This was my great aunt's dining room table. It all used to be stained a light wood color, circa 1960ish. I left it stained for quite a while, but when it came to the new house, I finally decided it needed a change. It got a coat of creamy white to the table and black to the chairs. I also re-upholstered the seats in canvas. I love it.

China Cabinet turned Liquor Cabinet

I must admit, the idea of turning this old china cabinet into a liquor cabinet was completley my husband's idea. The first time he saw it, he stood in awe in front of it, staring at it for five minutes and finally spoke two words: liquor cabinet. He definitely had vision, because, back then it was white with two other shelves behind the glass and held figurines. It was my great grandparent's china cabinet, and I'm sure my great grandmother, Eva, shudders when she thinks of it as a liquor cabinet, but my grandpa, Hey Bud (I know, a weird name for a grandparent), is laughing his ass off.

Buffet turned T.V. stand

This buffet went with the dining room table and chairs I just showed you. It was the same stain color, the knobs used to be brass. It was also my great aunt's. I have a lot of her things, evidently, we are very similar, both rebels. I just spray painted the knobs black and the buffet got a coat of french country blue. It has become one of my most favorite pieces. I still use the drawers and cabinets as storage for my serving pieces.

More to come......What do you have that you can transform?!

DIY Bathroom Renovation

As most of you know, my husband and I moved into a new home (a cash guzzling lovely foreclosure) this past June. Everything in the house needed some serious upgrades. It was stuck in 1970. However, everything, pretty much anyway, was in working order, including my bathroom. So, the bathroom sat untouched for a while, while dust progress was being created elsewhere..

 

You saw right, that was a bowl in the sink. There were plumbing issues in the kitchen. Definitely an experience. As you can tell, the bathroom was plain, very plain. I did really like the solid cast iron tub though. It would be nice if it were free standing, but it worked and is in great condition, so I couldn't let myself rip it out. 

About a month into the renovation, I got to start on my very own, husband-doesn't-set-foot-in-it bathroom. As you will see, the result of the bathroom consists of my tastes, there isn't a speck of him there. The vanity and mirror were ripped out and then the tile was hammered out. There was about 2 lovely, dusty inches of concrete underneath that tile. Joy.

 

The hubby did an amazing job on the tile. Of course, I was instrumental in handing him the pieces and supervising. Marble is such a classic stone, I had to have it for my bathroom. Since it is a smaller bathroom, the cost wasn't outrageous. Yay!

The tile that surrounded my bathtub was horrendous. Like I say.....I'll paint anything. 

 

 

I painted my bathroom tile. I used Rust-Oleum's tub and tile paint.

 

 

After, the first coat, there were still some beige specks coming through, so after another coat and incredibly toxic fumes, the result was....

Yay!!! White tile! It's not my pick, which would have been subway, but its white like subway tile! I'll take it!

The vanity in my bathroom is my most favorite thing in there....I think, it was a mere $125.

The open storage was supposed to be drawers, but those were missing, so towel storage, it is!

Grunt Labor built some shelving above the toilet for extra storage.