Even the garden gets in the act

I have a view of my backyard garden from my kitchen window...and thought I would add a little holiday cheer in the garden for my viewing pleasure...

First I found an old leather dog collar...and tied on some jingle bells...my version of horse sleigh bells...

Greens were free for the taking from the Christmas tree lot at Lowe's
where they trim off the bottom branches for customers...

The vintage silver tray added that extra layer to tie it all together...

A little wire, a little ribbon...and a few more bells...ready to hang on my junk trellis...


Joining the Christmas Junk Party...still time to get inspired...

From the heart, part 3

Its Monday...
its the holidays...
its time for another simple gift idea...
my weekly holiday installment of 6 easy projects you can make with your hands and give from your heart...












Sometimes you just need a little something to share with someone...might be a small gift exchange with girlfriends...or a simple thank you for a special favor...these easy sachets are the answer...

Start with a handkerchief...might be a pretty vintage one with embroidery...might be a fun floral pattern...or even something lacy...

Gather up the sachet makings...here are lavender buds that I collected at the end of summer from the lavender plants in my garden...

I made a mixture of lavender with a few rosemary leaves and a bit of buckwheat hulls...the buckwheat hulls add a little more heft to the mixture without detracting from the lavender and rosemary scent.  Don't have buckwheat hulls...throw in a few lentils...

I used about 1/2 cup of mixture for this sachet...

Gather up the four corners of the handkerchief and wrap it up tight, bound with a pretty ribbon...

For an added bonus...I put the sachet into an orphaned tea cup...I use single tea cups all the time to organize stray bits on my desk top and my bedroom dresser top...there never seems to be any shortage of single tea cups at Goodwill...usually for less than $1.00...

Looking for a more rustic, junker look...use a stray napkin...this one is quite festive with its red strip...how about a mixture of cedar chips with dried orange peel and a few cloves or a cinnamon stick...tied up with jute twine and a rusted jingle bell...















We're definitely into the low key Christmas this year...simple gifts are on the list...
want some other ideas for easy, simple gifts to make with items you most likely have right at hand...
click here to check out art journals made from composition notebooks
and click here to get the lowdown on making great candles from old socks and recycled jars...

what else can you do with vintage finds...linking up to Knick of Time Vintage Inspiration Party...

Sources quite ordinary

As you might have guessed, I don't do ordinary Christmas decorating...can't even remember the last time I did any sort of traditional tree...I like to pride myself on the antithesis of retail Christmas...what can I create that uses ordinary elements with nothing that I have to buy...(to think that I work at one of the big box stores...a girl's gotta pay the mortgage...)

Step One - round up all of my spools of string and twine...
whittled down the numbers by concentrating just on cream colors...
and ones that looked relatively clean...

Step Two - round up a bunch of finials and door knobs...

I thought that marrying a spool with a finial might look like a modernist junk christmas tree...

Since I was keeping the vibe for decorating simple, I decided to have essentially a deconstructed tree...the germ for this idea was something I spied in a Ballard Design catalog and adapted it accordingly...

A large branch that had fallen off of a tree down the street from a recent wind storm was dragged home...trimmed up a little...and hung suspended from the ceiling...initially I was a little hesitant to put two holes in the ceiling...but as I was climbing down from the ladder, the Southern Man commented to me that I must have gotten over it...they're small holes...

A little bit of tulle...a string of white lights...a  few vintage shiny brite ornaments...

Just for a little divergence, I added in one spool of copper wire...as a perch for a stone bird...

Since I have no mantel, this trio of bookshelves in my dining room steps in to fill the role...
and this vignette brings a soft glow to the room...and helps fill the house with warmth during this festive but cold month...

joining the Junk Party over at Funky Junk Interiors...plenty more holiday ideas...

With one click

With one click of my camera phone yesterday, I captured the essence of the season...
you don't always know what you will get when you snap a pic...it can end up being just what you wanted...
with just the tiniest help of a little photo editing...

Linking up to Kim Klassen's Texture Tuesday...the woman who first taught me how to turn up the "wow" in my photography...image edited with kk texture aurora...

From the heart, part 2

Its Monday...its the holidays...its another Simple 6 project...where I share a simple gift idea that can be created from the most common of items...made by hand and given from the heart...

If you want to visit the first project in the series, art journals made from composition notebooks, click here

There is a soothing presence about candlelight...the warm glow, the dance of the flame.  I am not a religious person but I always offer to burn a candle in lieu of saying a prayer whenever there is distress, pain or agony...the light does seem to banish the darkness...so why not give a gift of light...











Let's start with collecting a few glass jars from the recycle bin...
I find that straight-sided jars with a large mouth work best...

Next I gathered up a pair of worn socks and a nasty old wool sweater...washed both of them in hot water to shrink them...I'm going to use the sleeves from the sweater and the ribbing of the socks to cover the jars...

I cut the ribbing off of each sock...and then trimmed one of the ribbing pieces so that the length was exactly equal to the height of the jar it would cover...the foot piece that's leftover...ideal for another project - applying paint or wax to my art collage pieces...nothing goes to waste here!

Same process for cutting the sweater sleeves...the length of the sleeve cut is equal to the height of the jar it will cover...

 

Before I slide the sleeve over the jar, I fill the jar about 3/4 full with sand...

I'm going to nestle a tea light in the sand...

 

I like having the tea light up off the bottom of the jar...and when its burned out, its easy to replace.  If I was going to give one of these lights as a gift, I'd probably would include 3-4 tea lights as well.  Don't have any sand?  how about rice...beans...salt...or coffee...what you are looking for is any substance that can add some weight and hold the tea light firmly in place...

After sliding the sock and/or the sweater ribbing over the jar, I used jute twine and a few vintage mother of pearl buttons to add a little interest and to make sure that the ribbing didn't slide off when you picked up the jar...one of my holiday notecards adds an extra flourish...












Here's the completed set...

As you can see, you don't have to fill the jar with sand and a tea light...here I grabbed a handful of dried poppy pods...holly and greenery would certainly echo the spirit of the season...or a couple of paperwhite narcissus bulbs would work quite well...

 

I'm loving my candles so much I think I might have to keep them...but there's no shortage of recycled jars and worn out socks...so it will be easy to make more for gifts...

 

looking for more holiday inspiration...there's plenty out there...I'm joining the holiday junk fest over at Knick of Time...

and the Party Junk festivities over at Funky Junk Interiors...

Happy Thanksgiving