Christmas Home Tour and Hop

The halls are decked and

our home is ready for Christmas.

I am joining Chloe Crabtree and many other creative bloggers for Celebrate & Decorate's Holiday Home Tour blog hop.  There is a ton of inspiration here if you are looking for ideas to decorate your home for the holidays.  I will have all the links at the end of my post.

I am going to start in the kitchen for my little tour.

We have a very open floor plan, the only thing separating the kitchen/eating area from the living room is our two sided fireplace that stands in the middle of the room.

I used a lot of red accents in the kitchen.

I kept it pretty simple in the work areas of my kitchen.

Lots of greenery!

I used a gingerbread theme for the kitchen mantle,

and hung the majority of our stockings on the kitchen side of the fireplace.

We have a small flocked pencil tree in the kitchen/dining side done in simple red ornaments.

Our hutch kind of bridges the kitchen/dining area to the living area.

I have a few of my favorite Santas joining some Christmas plates in the hutch.

Now, we are heading into the living room where I decorated everything with more natural, earthy tones and items.

Lots of snowflakes since we live in northeast Ohio!

 The snowflakes inside the baskets were my favorite project this Christmas.  I have had these snowflakes for years and have used them many different ways, but this is my favorite yet.

And starring (get it!!) our newly painted fireplace!

You can read about our fireplace redo in my previous post.

 The Holy Family is taking center stage on our mantel.

Well, I hope you enjoyed the tour!

Just so you know, no animals were hurt during this decorating, but there are two dogs who are sick of listening to me sing Christmas music at the top of my lungs as I have been decorating!!

Have fun as you decorate your home for the Holidays.

I wish you a very festive Christmas!

The following blogs are participating in the Home Tour hop,

so please stop by and check out the other beautiful homes.

 Monday 

Everyday Living | My Kentucky Living | Panoply

Tuesday

Savvy Apron | Hey Fitzy | Celebrate & Decorate

Wednesday

Belle Blue Interiors | Red Cottage Chronicles | Dining Delight | Bluesky at Home

Thursday

The Painted Apron | Corner of Plaid and Paisley | Living With Thanksgiving

Friday

From My Carolina Home | Supper Table Talk | Me and My Captain | Our Crafty Mom

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Ann

I have linked up to the following parties:
Tablescape Thursday @ Between Naps on the Porch
Foodie Friday @ Rattlebridge Farm

Halloween Graveyard Mantel - St. BoneAdventure Cemetery

It's that creepy time of year again!  When all the spooky, scary things you can imagine come out of hiding to do their best to give us a fright!

This year I decided to turn my mantel into a Graveyard.

 Welcome to St. BoneAdventure Cemetery!

  Watch out for buzzards, bats and rats!

The name of my cemetery was inspired by a recent trip to Savannah GA where the Bonaventure Cemetery resides, not to be confused with St. Bonaventure Cemetery in Allegany, NY.

And definitely not to be confused with the St. Bone Adventure Cemetery that lurks in my mind and now on my Mantel!

Of course I get these ideas and then find out why I haven't seen too many people do this, transform their mantel into a cemetery - right?! I would have thought that I was not the only one wanting to do this- but there must not be that much call for it - because I had a really hard time finding things at the right scale for this project.  I ended up making many of the pieces myself.  

The gate pillars are styrofoam, along with two of my grave stones.  If you have ever worked with cutting styrofoam - you will know - it is not real easy to get fine details and it makes a mess.  So I stuck with kind of simple shapes.  Then I sprayed them with Krylon Make It Stone spray paint.  I used a Sharpie Marker to add the bricks, names and details, then spayed them again with just a very light spray of black just to add some shading.

 I cut the Cemetery arched sign out of a thin foam core poster board I had left over from another project. I found a large oval tray to trace around the side to find my shape and then free handed the lettering in and used an Xacto knife to cut away the parts between the letters.  This took me a while -the cutting actually took me the whole Ohio State vs Northwestern game. It truly got a little scary during that game when Ohio State wasn't doing very well and I had an sharp instrument in my hand!  But both the game and the sign turned out as I had hoped!  Yeah!

I hope you enjoyed your visit!  Many here at the St. BoneAdventure Cemetery have so much fun that they have decided to stay for a while!

As kids, our neighborhood went all out for Halloween - so I have always had fond memories of spooky fun.  I hope I didn't creep you out too much!  

A special Thanks to all three of my kids who encourage me to keep going!

Thanks Allie, Shawn, and T.R.! and my Son-in-Law, Casey too!

Click on link to revisit Last Year's Halloween Fun:
2012 Halloween Mantel
2012 Halloween Tablescape

I am linked up to the following parties:
The Sunday Showcase @by Stephanie Lynn- Under the Table and Dreaming
Inspire Me Tuesday @ A Stroll Thru Life
The Scoop @Confessions of A Plate Addict
Thursdays are Your Days @52 Mantels
Tablescape Thursday@Between Naps on the Porch
Seasonal Sundays@The Tablescaper

St. Patrick's Day 2013 Mantel

St. Patty's Day is right around the corner and I just starting putting on the green!

I started with my St. Patrick's Day Mantel.

I keep finding myself drawn to moss, ferns and burlap, so I used a mixture of these natural items for my mantel decorations. 

 But boy!  Did I make a mess!  I wanted to use part of a Honey Suckle vine that I am planning to use the rest of in my foyer.  So I tore the thing apart.  Stuff was all over the place.

Someone snapped a picture of this mess!

But I kept trying- eventually my mess began to look like something

I just kept layering pieces of the moss, excelsior, and different greenery.  Most of the items were purchased at Hobby Lobby (on sale of course!) I added a few burlap rosettes by just folding the burlap ribbon in half and rolling them up.  I used a needle and thread to gather them just a bit and hold the roses together before I glued them on.

The two smaller frames were very easy to make.  I backed one with burlap and added a simple wood shamrock painted green.

The other sign is a simple piece of scrapbook paper with the Irish salute of Slainte.

I printed out the word with a Gaelic font and then used white carbon paper to transfer it to the green paper.  Then used white paint markers to color it it in.  Very easy!  

I added a burlap bow to the top!

So Cheers or Slainte!  As soon as I vacuum up my mess - I will be ready for a green beer.

Then it will be back to putting out more green, I have my foyer and my dinning room table to go yet!

I will be linking up at the following parties:

Saturday Night Special @ Funky Junk Interiors
Strut your Stuff Saturday @ Six Sisters Stuff
Seasonal Sundays @ The Tablescaper
Sunday Showcase @ Under the Table and Dreaming
Busy Monday @ A Pinch of Joy
Inspire Me Link Party @ Homa Style
Wow Us Wednesdays @Savvy Southern Style
Party Junk @Funky Junk Interiors