Ornaments in a Jar

I love to find different ways to display some of the beautiful ornaments they have for sale these days. There are so many great color themes out there (red & silver, red & gold, bright colors, silver & gold, etc.), but you can't exactly do every theme on your tree at once. So, I try to do little mini displays using the themes around the house. I saw these ornaments at Home Depot last week and I knew I had to have them. I already had a large jar from the Pottery Barn Outlet and I knew they were look great in it. What do you think? How do you display ornaments at your house?

Christmas Apothecary Jars

NOTE: WE'VE MOVED! Visit: Ramblings of a Suburban Mom for lots of apothecary jar ideas! 


I am not sure if this is my final product, but I wanted to share my Christmas Apothecary Jars with you. Let me know what you think. I usually do garland in one of the jars, but I wanted to try something new this year, so I did the bows.

Outdoor Christmas Decorations

I know it's still a little early for outdoor Christmas displays (typically I stick to the after Thanksgiving rule), but I just couldn't wait this year. I showed you earlier this week how I made my wreath and garland and I used to pre-lit trees from Target to finish off the display. The trees came two in a package, so it worked out perfect. I added the bulbs to them so that they would match the other items. I would still like to somehow "dress up" the planters the trees are in, but I am not sure what I want to do yet. Maybe just add ribbons / bows to them? And the doormat is more functional than part of the display.

The garland was too heavy to hang using hooks with just stickies on the back, so my husband drilled holes and attached permanent hooks to the wood surrounding the door. I hate to have to do things like this, but it will make things a lot easier in the future and I will not have to deal with coming home to sections of the garland hanging down.

If you are going to make "ornament garland", like this, I would recommend that you hang the garland first and then attach the ornaments. I am not sure why I did it the other way around, but it resulted in many ornaments falling off when it was being hung and a few shattering on the porch. Don't learn this lesson the hard way like I did!

After I did my project, I was browsing on the Pottery Barn website and saw this! Without even knowing it, I pretty much replicated their design. And for a small fraction of their insane price!

Christmas Garland

In addition to making the bulb ornament wreath, I also made a garland to hang around the doorway. The fall garland I used was pre-made and just needed to be attached. However, I was unable to find any Christmas garland that I liked, so I ended up making my own. I used the five 9ft. strands of pine (fake) garland from Michaels. The strands are very thin, so I elected to double them up. Just like with the leaf wreath, I just attached the bulbs using ornament hangers and made sure to secure them very tightly.

Price breakdown (all items purchased from Michaels):
-Garland: $2.99/strand
-Ornaments: $4.99/box (I used probably six boxes of different sizes ornaments - I am sure I could have found these cheaper somewhere).

Making a Bulb Ornament Wreath

Sorry for the lack of posts, but I was on vacation and not doing anything creative! But I am back and got started on some Christmas projects this weekend.

My first project was a Christmas wreath. I want to do a Christmas display in my entry way similar to what I did for the fall, so I figured a wreath would be the best way to get started.

I picked up a Christmas pine wreath from Michaels, some cheap bulb ornaments (two different sizes) and wire ornament hangers. I attached the bulbs using the ornament hangers and made sure to twist them very tightly so they would stay nicely. I attached most of the bulbs to the "base" of the wreath instead of to the actual branches to try and get them to attach more securely. This was a very easy project and took maybe 20-30 minutes. But I have to admit, it was a pain to secure the ornament hooks because they dig into your skin when you bend them.

Here is a price breakdown (everything was purchased at Michaels):
-Wreath: $4.99
-Ornaments: $10 (estimated - not exactly sure what they cost. I probably should have just used ones I had at home).
-Ornament Hangers: $2 (you will have a ton left over)

Pumpkin Carving - Stencil Style

When I was younger, we have to carve pumpkins using only our imaginations. If we were smart, we used a pencil to draw the face we wanted to carve on the pumpkin. Those days are over.

For less than $5 I picked up a Sesame Street carving kit at Target. I am sure you could find free stencils on the internet, but I like to have the special tools. Here are the steps we followed:
1) Pick your stencil and tape it to the pumpkin. I always cut the paper to help round it to the pumpkin.
2) Transfer the outline of the stencil onto the pumpkin. I like to use a "poker" tool to do this. I actually think this is the hardest part because it is so tedious.
3) Remove paper and start carving.
4) Touch up any areas you may have made errors.

I think each pumpkin took 45 minutes to an hour total. Not bad at all in my opinion. And I think these look so cool all lit up. I used two tea lights in each one. I used a different camera than before to take the last picture and I think it turned out great.





And you may wonder why my husband is in every picture and not me. Well, it is because he is a good sport and does not mind posing for my pictures at all. I actually think he likes it.

White Pumpkin Project #2

This was my first time ever carving a white pumpkin. I expected it to have an orange filling (like I had been told it would), but it actually had a yellowish center. And, oddly enough, it smelled like cucumbers. Very interesting. I gutted the pumpkin out and then turned the project over to my husband. I am not good with power tools and I had heard that it drilling holes in pumpkins wasn't the easiest thing to do. My husband did a great job and just drilled a bunch of holes free hand. I probably would have tried to make sure they were equal distance apart and measured everything, which would have taken hours. The pumpkin turned out very cool, although, I did a horrible job of capturing it with my camera. But trust me, it looked way cool. I will for sure be doing this again next year!