I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday! We were quite busy between my husband working/taking call and all the Christmas decorating. My husband is very strict no pre-Thanksgiving Christmas decorating. So, the day after Thankgiving is spent decorating and listening to Christmas music, not Christmas shopping. In fact, I haven't gotten anything bought in way of presents. I've made a handful of items and bought maybe 1 or 2 things. I'll have to get busy in the next couple of weeks with the items I'm making, and the few I'll be purchasing!
One thing I love about Christmas decorating is using natural elements. I love the smell of fresh cut pine; however, a real tree isn't practical right now with two dogs and two kids. But, most of all, I love real garland. Anytime I'm playing around on Pinterest, there is always a beautiful banister or entry that catches my attention, and it always features real garland. Real garland is outside of our budget, and realistically it makes more sense to have artificial so I can continue to use it year after year. So it was time for a little DIY!
This year I was looking at our pre-lit garland (which was sad and fake and only $5.00 after Christmas) and decided I needed to do something to jazz it up. After some searching on Pinterest, I found out places that sell real trees often have a pile of clippings that are free for the taking. There was some very convincing pictures of how much difference it makes to add some real cut needles to a fake garland. Free & Easy?! Sold.
I was at Lowe's buying tile for my back splash and decided to pop over to their Christmas tree shop. I asked the helpful employee about the magical tree clippings location, and she pointed me to a wagon full of branches. I took as much as I could carry while still looking like a sane person and was on my way.
I hung my fake garland on my door and banister. It was wimpy. I grabbed my floral wire, fresh clippings, and some ornaments and went to work. Now I already had the wire since I use it a ton during Christmas time. I had some of the ornaments (Also cheap after Christmas). I did buy some fake berries for $3.00 at Lowe's. I went with two different looks. Inside my house, I decided years ago to stick with traditional red and gold with a rustic feel.
The outside I decided to try something new using my husband's prized pheasant feathers. I decided a couple of years ago that if my husband was going to hunt every weekend, I may as well get something out of it. He had been saving the tail feathers ever since. Those pheasant feathers were added to the garland along with some chocolate brown and gold ornaments.
I'm very happy with the results. I have some left over clippings that I put in a old milk carton I already had with some Christmas lights to complete my look. What do you think? Not too bad for only a couple of dollars and an hour of work!
My new Nativity scene. More details to come on that later!
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