Christmas Decor

This past weekend, my family got our house all decked out for Christmas and I have been loving it! The twinkle lights have been such a joy to cuddle up and read by! Here is how we do Christmas decor at my house...

Lost Socks?

This is something that I made AGES ago!! Like I think it was done in June!! My little sock hanger has been on my list of things to blog for 3 months and I only got around to taking pictures of the final product today! I made this sign based off of a few ideas I saw on Pinterest - it's a compilation of 2 or 3 other sock signs that I saw!

I started with a plain piece of wood that I stained with a dark stain I had at home. I let the stain dry over night before doing any of the lettering. I cut out the letters on my cricut - I didn't have any vinyl on hand so I use plain white card stock and glued it onto the stained wood using Modge Podge. Once the letters were positioned and glued, I Modge Podged over the entire piece of wood to make sure everything stays on there well.

Once the staining & lettering was done I enlisted my dad's help because power tools are not my forté! He drilled two holes in the bottom of the wood and bent a metal coat hanger to make the little bar that hangs under the sign. We hung three clothes pegs along the wire and that's it! It is currently hanging in our laundry room and it is cute as can be!

Thanks for reading!

Cheers to the Fall!

Happy Fall!! I realize that I said in an earlier post that I would wait until it was actually fall to decorate, but I lied! This decor has been up for about a week because I just couldn't resist! The weather cooled down and I was feeling like surrounding myself with fall! Here is a little look into my family's fall decor:

Summer Banner

My family has a great window in our kitchen. I love it because it lets in so much light but also because it is the perfect place to hang banners. This whole banner thing is relatively new to our family, but I have gone all out on the seasonal banners since valentine's day! I will share what is hanging in our window as the seasons change but for now we are celebrating summer!

I love making banners because they require very little materials and they are so quick to make! I made this one using my Cricut! I used scrapbooking paper for the background of the banner (the rectangles with the little triangles cut out). I have a lot of scrapbooking paper and by a lot, I mean too much! It is especially too much because I don't scrapbook, I just love fun paper! I just sorted through my paper and found prints that worked best with summer (ie. lots of flowers, birds, bugs, bright colors...).

I used white cardstock to make the white backing for the letters, and I used colored cardstock to cut out the letters to spell summer. My intention was to use bright summery colors, but I don't think yellow ended up being the best idea because that second 'M' is barely visible. In the future, I will definitely use darker colors because I think the 'E' and 'R' turned out the best! All the gluing was done with a regular glue stick and it has held up great!

I used a whole punch to punch 2 holes in the top of each banner and strung the banner with twine. This banner has been great because it's festive and fun without taking over the whole decor of our kitchen!

Happy Summer!
Kenzie

Chalkboard Cupboard Door

I spotted this idea on Pinterest the other day and I couldn't wait to get to a craft store to get materials! I picked up a 18x57" adhesive chalkboard, a blue chalkboard marker and 16 transparent adhesive hooks to hang the measuring cups and spoons.

I measured and marked my cupboard door with pencil to make sure the chalkboard was centered. It was a bit hard to get the chalkboard stuck without having air bubbles under it. I would recommend sticking it on little by little using an object with a square side to secure the chalkboard against the wall (A hard cover book worked the best for me).

On the top of my chalkboard I wrote down some measurement conversions that my family can quickly refer to when they are cooking/baking.

The cupboard that this door conceals has shelves at different heights, so I measured the space I had to hang the measuring cups and spoons and used painter's tape to make sure my cups/spoons would hang in a space that would still allow the door to shut properly.

Once everything was measured and labeled with painter's tape, I stuck the adhesive hooks right under the painter's tape. Then, I removed the Painter's tape, hung the measuring cups and spoons on the hooks and wrote the corresponding measurement right above the hook in chalk marker.

Here is the end result with the cupboard door open and a little peak of our craft wall... you can see our rainbow fish and our sea turtles! So far I have LOVED having this little chalkboard up to hang our measuring cups and spoons. We used to keep our measuring cups and spoons stacked inside each other, which wasn't always convenient, especially when we only needed one! This way they look cute and they free up some much needed shelf space!

Mantle Tour

I mentioned in a previous post that a beach theme had sort of taken over our house. It started with the egg carton sea turtles in the kitchen and slowly traveled to our fireplace mantle. Our fireplace mantle very rarely changes, so this beach theme is exciting!!

This is the left side of the mantle. Once I decided on a beach theme, I hunted around my house for beachy items. I found this jar full of shells in one of our bathrooms and coiled some string lights around the sides. The jar is a little treasure from a garage sale and it's filled with shells/coral/sand dollars from various beach trips. The string lights are from IKEA and I have just hidden the switch to turn them on or off behind a picture frame. The 2 big shells are from a table centerpiece we use during the summer. The pink shell is from a little shop in Florida and the starfish is handmade.

This is the right side of the mantle. The sign is from Florida and the little far is from HomeSense. I've filled the little jar with sand from the beach in Anna Maria Island, Florida and some little starfish, shells and sand dollars from a little beach-side shop.

I mentioned the handmade starfish above, come back tomorrow to see how I made the little banner of starfish!

Kenzie