Merry Christmas and a happy New Year to all of you! I hope wherever you are you are contented and cozy as we begin to plow our way through the winter months.
The Christmas holidays are over and you're ready to take down the crumbling Christmas tree, throw out your last cookies, and not hear or sing another Christmas carol for the rest of the year. Interested in sprucing up the house? Let's see what we can do!
Find
Greenery doesn't have to be just for Christmas, sprays and sprigs of cedar in your home can make a beautiful and long-lasting bright spot. While it also eventually dries out, it doesn't shed the same way pine or spruce will. Try putting it in a less high-traffic area, like up on a shelf or mantle, or you can wire it together and tack it up around archways and above doors.
I had never thought to use cedar indoors until we went out for supper to my brother and sister-in-law's a few weeks ago and I noticed she had it all over the house, wired together and tied with velvet ribbons. It was gorgeous. She said it had been up for several months and while it had lost some of its colour, it retained its shape and look very well.
Make
A live green wreath is a beautiful decoration for your front door, as well as being inexpensive and easy to make.
Gather evergreen branches and hot glue them all around a grapevine wreath form. While you can buy these for a reasonable price, you might want to try your hand at making one as well. Add bits of tree bark, moss, bells, or acorns to your wreath for a mixed-media look, or leave it plain. Hang a wreath hook over the door and tie your masterpiece up with a red, green, silver, white, ice blue, or gold velvet ribbon.
You can always use fake pine boughs if you want a more permanent wreath but watch out if you find yourself tempted to brighten it up with fake berries. Natural evergreen boughs will stay beautiful as long as the weather remains cold, the beautiful display of red berries you find in the floral section of your craft store will not. Many is the wreath my mother has made with different types of these colour pops and many are the times they cracked, split, or had the colour of the paint flake off or run when they got cold and wet.
While they are beautiful they are much better for indoor use, away from moisture and extreme temperatures. Instead, try weaving a colourful ribbon through the boughs or scout out old sumac cones, Canadian holly, or highbush cranberries. The cranberries only do well below freezing so your best bet for your door would probably be the holly or sumac. However, highbush cranberry would be great stuffed into a planter or pots of greenery by the door where they would not get bumped or moved around so much and retain their shape and loveliness much more readily.
Buy
January is absolutely the best time to stock up on Christmas décor and Christmassy craft materials. I was recently in a craft store down in the USA and all their Christmas items were 90% off. The most expensive item I bought ended up being five dollars.
And not only is the Christmas stuff majorly discounted; but there are a lot of other very good sales as well. January and February are the worst months of the year for stores. After the Christmas rush falls off, no one is shopping because everyone spent too much over the holidays! So pop into your favourite places to shop and check the sale section for useful materials for future projects and décor ideas. Now is the best time.
Winter Journal: My Personal Décor For This Winter
I like to include the price of everything in each photo. From now on, I will only include the prices of the items I have purchased in the last twelve months, items I picked up specifically for the projects pictured, or the items I have had for a long time but have not yet mentioned the price of in previous posts. I will place a * next to the items I have had for over a year. Here's hoping you find much inspiration!
This is the winter forest scene I decided to create on top of my bookshelf. My mom said she was probably the only crazy lady who would have a forest on top of her bookshelf but after I made this one I remembered her snowy forest and had to laugh. Like mother like daughter? The *mountains and *glass trees came from Hobby Lobby while the little *fiber trees were in a little bag of trees at the second-hand store. The *fairy lights were a gift. Approximate cost: $67.00
This is a photo from my entranceway. Originally I had two maple syrup buckets full of birch trees standing in this corner but it had been like that for almost six years so I was ready for a change.
The *stool and tray both come from Gary's grandpa who spends much time in his wood shop making beautiful things. The base of the tray was made from recycled wood (actually an old piece of siding from a school) and was a light beige colour, so I painted it black to give it a little more of a dramatic flare and to compliment the dark wood. The *lamp was also a gift. The *bottle is a recycled bottle that once held kombucha, while the *blue fluffy grass was bought at a great flower shop called Kyoto Fleurs in the Plateau area of Montreal. You can see the huge and beautiful selection of dried flowers and grasses in the photos! The more *poofy grass comes from the opposite side of our riverbank and I believe it is Chinese silver grass. I'm sure you can't guess where the mushroom art came from. All this time I've been threatening to keep one of my pieces of art and finally, I have... maybe. Approximate cost: $6.00
The little *pompom and tassel garland was handmade and came from a shop in Sherbrooke while the geometric gold and glass plant holders are from the dollar store. The bottle is recycled and once held kombucha. The dried *pompom flowers come from Kyoto while the twine was just lying around the house. The scissors come from Bloomers, the shop where one of my sister-in-laws works (this would be in the USA). I had seen a very sweet scissors and twine stand made out of wire and wood not long ago, and when I found these copper scissors I envisioned making one for myself. I found a sturdy stick in the house (I think Gary may have had a use for it long ago, so don't tell him I used it) and wrapped it up in copper wire to give it a shiny coppery glow to match my scissors. Then I took black wire (I'd had all this wire in my craft supplies for years) and wired the stick to the bottle. I made one side a little longer than the other so that the spool of twine wouldn't be all squished on one side. On a whim, I poked the flowers into the top of the bottle and overall was quite pleased with the results. Approximate cost: $35.00
You might recognize this setup from my fall style book. This is the same dresser, lights, and window frame pictured with the white pumpkins and rich raspberry velvet. I encourage you to go back and take a peek at that same picture just to compare and see how different you can make your décor look with a lot of the same items and just a few tweaks. The *lights come from the dollar store as does the *frosty pine branch which turned out to be really good quality by the way, the *basket is actually pottery, made by an amazing potter named Donna Dirks who lives in Mississippi. The candles come from my absolute favourite store in the USA (yes mother-in-law, I can hear you laughing. I drag her there every time we go visit) called World Market, I'd say they are kind of like a slightly elevated Home Sense. And the keys come from this gargantuan antique mall I've visited a time or two. Approximate cost: $50.00
Pictured here is an absolutely fabulous shelf Gary made me. There is a compartment at the bottom and two little shelves on top full of spice jars that are cut out of this photo, but anyway, it's a really beautiful shelf. Here is an example of using the everyday to make something lovely. We can't drink our tap water, so we keep it in that huge drink dispenser that you see on the left. I have slowly been getting rid of dishes in my cupboards and replacing them with pottery ( no I'm not one of those magazine celebs that shows you pictures of their home and buys whatever they want whenever they want. My accumulation of pottery has been an ongoing project for about seven years now, which means using dishes I didn't like until I could afford something I loved). The brown bottles you see are tinctures (a tincture is when you take a mushroom or plant and soak it in water to get the medicinal properties out of it. Some of these are not water soluble so they have to be done in something like vodka. Tinctures are taken in very tiny doses, something like 0.50mls or maybe 5 - 8 drops from a medicine dropper), they are in these beautiful brown bottles to keep out the light so I just took label stickers and made fancy old apothecary-looking labels for them, then put them on display. Lots of these items are things I use all the time and by displaying them they double as something useful, and as décor. The wood for the shelf was a gift of old barn boards from some dear friends of ours, and the *drink dispenser was a gift.
The *bottles were something Gary purchased for necessary projects, the *silver dish and the pottery butter dish were gifts, while the frosted *cupcake stand/candle holder I bought years ago. All the pretty, sparkly rocks were things I bought myself.
All the pottery pieces were gifts as well as the metal steak turner which is made from an old railroad tie. The spoons were a purchase of my own
The *pourer was a gift from a tiny pottery shop in Alaska, the spoon and platter were also gifts. The *cake stand was a purchase of my own as well as the rainbow glass mugs. All the pottery in these pictures except for the butter dish, pourer, plate, and spoon are made by Donna. The spoon and butter dish are made by the same person. Approximate cost:$216.00
The *bottle was a gift as was the small easel. The *pine branch was from the dollar store as were the *books while the two little *winter paintings are prints, from an artist who does the sweetest work, as you can see:) Approximate cost: $12.00
I was very happy with the way this project turned out! So this is my shower curtain. For a long time I had a gorgeous red one hanging up (it was actually a tablecloth), but after having it up for several years, well, you know how it is, you need a change. Change is good for the brain, and the morale. I had this nice piece of *blue shimmery fabric from one of my sisters that she'd gotten rid of and I knew it had potential and that someday, I'd use it for something. It dawned on me the other day when I decided I needed a new shower curtain, that this was what this fabric had been waiting for. After having recently found out how to make tassels from a cotton string that looked store-bought, I came up with this project. Within two hours I had a whole new look for my bathroom.
Now, could we please take a minute to admire how great these tassels are? I'm just kidding, I want you to look at those little black rings with the clips on the ends. You need these. I have no idea where they come from or where to get them but someday, when I have my own house, I will have some in every bathroom.
As you can see, the plastic rings are holding up the plastic shower curtain and could hold up a classic outer curtain with holes along the top as well. But these little black clips are what make it possible for you to take a blanket, sheet, piece of fabric, tablecloth, or whatever you can think up, and pin it up in ten minutes. If you are good with a sewing machine or a needle, you can make a classic shower curtain with no problem. If you are like me though, and you are not the best with a sewing machine, or you want to use items you don't want to put holes in (like that gorgeous tablecloth your mom gave you), these clips are for you.
If anyone knows where to get these, please tell me in the comments below! We live in a tiny apartment that was furnished when we moved in so some of the things here were not mine, like these great shower curtain rings. Hence, I have no idea where to get them. Though to be fair, I have never just scoured the bathroom section at my local hardware store for them either. Approximate cost: $0.00
A word of advice on décor, or anything in your life: don't hang onto stuff and never use it. I'm not saying you can never save anything for something special, like that outfit you're planning to use for Valentine's Day, or that set of dishes you use every year on Christmas Day just to make it special. I'm talking about that thing that is beautiful and special that you put up in the top of your closet for someday and then never use or enjoy. Or that beautiful cashmere sweater that you never wear because someday hasn't come yet. I'm here to tell you that someday is today.
One of my friends told me recently that there was a man who had died and when they laid him in the coffin he was wearing a brand new suit and shoes because he had saved them for someday. And for what? Like they say, you can't take it with you.
Up until just very recently, I had been doing the same thing with some décor items of mine. We expected to move into a home of our own a long time ago, so I saved items for that special someday when we would set up a home in our own space. In May, we will have been married for seven years, and guess what? We are still in the same apartment, on the same riverbank, by the same river, in the same village. So a year or two ago I decided, no more saving up stuff for someday, I'm going to make where I live now a place I love, a place Gary loves. If I am happy in my home, chances are whoever I share it with will be happy too. And while there will always be things about here that bug us, like lack of storage space or not being able to paint or even use my own set of couches, I grow more and more determined to make this tiny space I have, into something I will be happy to call mine for now.
As time goes by I realize there are lots of things I can do to make my place feel like mine. Something as simple as hanging up your own artwork or changing all the knobs on your kitchen cupboards, it's something I can do, and it doesn't have to wait for someday.
I encourage you to live in the moment and celebrate right now. Being alive is a reason to celebrate, dress up in something beautiful that you love. My family is worthy of my best set of dishes, tonight, we will dine in style. My best friend needs someone to go over to their house, make them supper, and cheer them up TODAY, not tomorrow, not next week, and maybe, next year they won't even be there anymore. Do it now, don't wait for someday.
And if you find yourself falling out of love with something, don't hide it in a closet and let it collect dust, give it to someone who will love it!
I had a pair of shoes in my closet that I loved, that were beautiful, that I wore maybe five times. They hurt my feet. So I kept them in my closet for at least five years. Did they make me happy? No, they made me unhappy because I couldn't wear them. Did they serve a purpose? Yeah, sure, they collected a lot of dust probably (rolls eyes). Finally, I had the sense to give them to one of my friends. Ah! Liberty! Someone who could use them!
My sisters and I rotate clothes a lot. If one of us has something that doesn't make us happy to wear, or that feels too tight or too loose, we pass it on to one of the other two. I think every time, the sister who gets the "new" clothes wears them to death. Why would I keep something stashed away, ok let's be honest and say, why would I hoard stuff I hate; when I could pass it on to someone else who would love it and use it? I have it in my power to make someone really happy, so why wouldn't I?
Bottom line: don't clutter up your life with excess thoughts or items that make you miserable. Share your things and spread joy to someone. And if it's worn out, THROW IT OUT. As Marie Kondo says, thank it for its service and then chuck it with no regrets. You're not doing anyone a favour by keeping worn-out or broken items because you might be able to salvage some of it someday. True, there are items that while worn out can still have uses once taken apart, etc. but if you find your scrap pile overflowing and find yourself never using any of it but only adding, it's time to be realistic and start making some changes.
I have a rule; sometimes I have items I save for projects. I frequently go through cupboards and drawers to purge, so when I come across some of those items that I still haven't used, I am honest with myself. Sometimes I just know, I'm not going to use this so I sell it, give it away, or throw it out as the case may be. Sometimes I am reluctant. I feel like I might still use this item. So I give it the month time limit. If I don't use it within a month, I probably never will. And out it goes.
So don't do someday! Enjoy the now, here, and today. Whether it's clothing, décor items, or your mind, the Bible states that we need not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow has enough worries of its own. Live in the moment, there are so many beautiful things in it you will miss if you don't make the best of right now <3