Bling bling your light fixtures

First of all, thanks for all the sweet comments on my Bub. He had a great birthday, and I cannot believe he is two! Funny how the terrible two's started literally on his birthday. Huh. Interesting. (His "terrible" is not so bad, but still.)

So tonight I wanted to share how easy it is to add some bling bling on your chandeliers or light fixtures. My example for the class is my $30 kitchen chandelier. (Yes, $30, told you, don't hate.)

Every year I stick greenery and a few ornaments up there. This year I did bit more:

Last year I added the glass ornaments filled with "snow."

This year, I added MORE ornaments, filled with curled up ribbon. I saw this somewhere in blogland, and Erin did a CAUTE version I loved!!:




So to bling them up some more (why don't I say that one. more. time.) I used my snowflake puncher to cut out glittery snowflakes and glued them on:


Added my little beady green sparkly things that go on candlesticks to the lights...

Some cheap snowflake ornaments from the day after Christmas last year...taaaa daaa!!

Just so you don't miss a square inch of it, another view. Sheesh Sarah:

Really, the cost for this is just in the glass ornaments...which at Hob Lob is about $3. And then the snow, which is $2. (Warning -- you need a good funnel for this. Major pain the bootay. Fake snow sticks to everything. Everything.)

Oh my goodness...I have so much to show you, it's hard to decide what to show next!! I'll show you some wreaths later this week...any other ideas? OH, and I'll show you how garland pukes all over my house too. OH, and my craft projects. OH and fun ideas I've seen all over...OH OH and my easy, cheap gifts. OH!

I'm done.


Edited to add: CRAP my countdown DOES NOT say "14 days till Christmas." Santa, don't lie!! 14 DAYS??

5:33 p.m.

At 5:33 p.m. two years ago I thought:

I had loved

I had felt joy

I had cried

I had seen miracles

I had known the random kindness of strangers

I had felt love

I loved my husband

I knew so much

My heart was full

And then, at 5:34 p.m., this boy came into our lives:

And then, I understood

that there's no love like the love for your child

what unadulterated, boundless joy felt like

that I had never cried quite like that

that I'd never seen a miracle close to him

that people are mostly wonderful, kind people

that I had never felt that much love

that I had loved my husband,

but nothing like I loved him as the father of our child

that I knew nothing and everything all at once

that my heart would just burst from the joy...

but it kept growing, and growing and growing...

My baby boy has brought so much indescribable joy to our lives.

I had no idea.

I had so much fun being pregnant (till the last four weeks or so!), I had so much fun staying in the hospital for three days before he was born and two days after (high blood pressure, he came three weeks early), I had fun laboring (for 24 hours!), and had SO much fun in the delivery. Yes, I'm one of those freaks. We had fun. It was a hard two hours of pushing, but I would do his whole childbirth experience again in a heartbeat. It was easily the best two hours of my life.

And then he came. And the fun had just started.

Thank you, thank you God for picking me to be his Momma. Thank you for allowing me to raise, love and watch this boy grow.

Thank you to my Bub, for being the sweetest human being I've ever met.

Happy Birthday my Baby. Always my Baby.

Our beautiful tree. Take two.

Isn't that gorg? I used the starburst setting on my camera!

First of all, ya'll are SO sweet! You made me feel so much better, I almost did cry just reading all your comments! :)


So we did the tree back up and I think it looks as good as the first time. It took FOREVER to get all the ornaments, ribbon, beady things, flowers, back in...how is it this time it took longer than the first when only half of them came off? Gah.

I had taken pictures last night of the tree, but couldn't bring myself to post them until it was back up...didn't want to jinx it you know!



But here it is in all it's glory! Hope you enjoy it:

I was laying on the floor enjoying the view!:

This was before, last night:

Tonight:

***Edited with new pic -- Mom Mom (what is your name? I love you, thanks for the idea with the lamp!!) I retook this so the lights turned out better.

Can you tell in the first one that it's leaning ever so much?? Oh yeah, sign of things to come...

Sigh. I do love our tree. Every year, I love it more. My favorite parts are the poinsettia blooms and ribbon. I think they totally finish it off. We always get a real tree for the living room, always ten feet. I just LOVE real trees, even with this year's drama. I have a couple other fake trees around the house that I'll show you soon.

Which do you have, real or faux? Either way, they are magical. Not so magical on the floor, but magical.

P.S. NO the stain is not out. It's bad. And yes, I took pictures. I'm calling Sears tomorrow and I am PRAYING they can get it out. The tree water also left a yucky mark over that whole area, so I'm going to have them work on all of it. Not crying...

P.P.S Oh and you SO KNOW I was on my way down to the basement to get the fishing wire, my drill and the anchors before we realized the base was cracked. I was going to rig that thing to the wall for all it was worth!!

Tree catastrophe

Soooooooo yeah...

Remember yesterday when I said I was going to get all of the Christmas stuff done and out and all the bins put away? Well, I did. I got it ALL done. And I was basking in it all evening. Even got to bed before midnight.

This morning we woke up to this:

I didn't cry.

Close.

I didn't cry.

Our ten foot real tree, base filled with water...on the floor.

Oh for all that is good, you've got to be kidding me.

I've had a real tree almost every year of my 33 years and nothing like this has ever happened. While we struggled to get it back up, I realized the stand was cracked and that's why it fell.

The floor was soaked. And the ribbon got soaked. And stained the floor.

Big. pink. spot.

Yeah. Really.

Took a trip to Target, got a new stand, new bag, new ornaments. I'm OK.

It is still in the old stand, barely hanging on. I'm waiting for it to fall any second...Hubby is performing at a show and Sister isn't home yet. When they get back we'll get everything back to normal. Till then even the cats aren't allowed to breathe on it.

And I'll show you our magnificent tree later. Sniff.

I'm not crying.

I swear.

The winner is...and holiday stress

The winner of the Favorite Things giveaway is Erinn at The Pack Crew!! I loved her favorites too, so this is perfect. (My sister picked the number, so it was totally unbiased. And I added all of you in who don't have blogs too!) And if I haven't visited you yet, I will!

Sooo, are you done with your decorations yet? I'm almost there. Today, I swear, I'm done. (I've been saying that for a week now.) I want every single bin and random fluff of greenery back in the basement by midnight tonight.

Then, I can just relax for the next three weeks...work on some fun Christmas crafts, eat candy cane Hershey kisses by the fireplace with my feet up. Ahhh, bliss.

But WAIT.

I still have to:

take our holiday picture

address the cards

mail the cards

finish the advent calendar

wrap a trillion gifts

BUY a trillion gifts

bake a trillion cookies for an exchange

secure babysitters

make gifts

plan the Bub's b-day party

wrap the Bub's gifts

finish the Bub's gifts

throw the Bub's b-day party

take a nap

and THEN I can relax...

Tis the season, right? Do you do what I do every year? You SWEAR you'll be better organized and start earlier and blah blah blah...

Last year we were here over the Thanksgiving week:



(That would be FANTASTIC, beautiful, relaxing, Honolulu. I snorkled here in this bay. DO IT if you ever get the chance.)

When we got back it was a whirlwind to prepare for everything. I SWORE this year I'd be better. Nope. But you know what? I still love it, I still love the season. And when I stop for a second, count to three and breathe, and then look at the tree all lit up, the magic comes back.

Take a second, breathe, and remember the magic.



P.S. I had so much fun with this favorite things thing that I think I'm going to do a Christmas tree party. Sound like fun? It will be super easy, no stress, since many of you have already posted your trees! I'll do it later this week, I'll let you know when.

So I can put stuff in them...

Here's the link to the Favorite Things party again...I won't pick a winner of the giveway till Saturday morning, so you have till then to join in! This has been so much fun!

So lately I've become quite enamored with apothecary jars, as I know many of us have. I just didn't want to spend a load on them, so I've been picking up a few as I've seen them over the past few months. My sister (She lives with us right now -- a recent graduate. Yes, she has a job. A good one. No, it doesn't pay crap.) gives me the stink eye every time I bring one in and fill it with stuff.

Me: Look, I filled it with fill-in-the-blank! Isn't it cute?
Sister: (Stink eye.) Why do you buy these glass things and fill them with stuff?
Me: (Giving her my best you-don't-know-anything-about-anything groan.) It's CUTE. Look!
Sister: I don't get it. Why can't you just leave them alone?
Me: (Horrified.) I only get these so I can put STUFF in them. Gah, don't you know anything???

So anyhoo, I've had so much fun filling these up for Christmas!! Our hutch in the dining room houses most of them:

Puhleeeeze don't buy the $7 gold pine cones from Target!! Buy the cheap ones and spray paint them gold! I got a bunch for .49 from Goodwill and painted them myself:

This one was a Goodwill find for $1.99. Whooty-freakin'-hoo! I knocked a few women over to get to it. (You think I'm kidding.) Filled with $2 of bells from the dollar store:

Got this one for 50 percent off at Micheal's. I love how Shannon put snow in one of hers so I totally copied. Threw in some sparkly ornaments I dug out of the basement:

This you may have seen back on my birthday post. I think it's meant to be one of the cheese platter thingys, but I painted the base black so it would look like it is supposed to be another "glass thing to put stuff in:"

Over the years, I have made our hutch into a sort of wine cabinet. I installed the wine glass holders up above, and put our wine rack inside soon after we got it. Now I want to continue the wine theme, so I got some corks off Ebay months ago and found this beauty at my local consignment shop a few weeks ago for $8!!! I LOVE the huge glass stopper. Ohhh this thing makes my heart go pitter-pat:

Isn't it GORG? I put a strand of $2.50 gold beads inside:

I've shown you this with a pumpkin in it, it's another cheese plate I transformed in my quest to find yet another "glass thing to put stuff in." I've got problems. But it was only $1.99 people! I threw in some garland scraps and gold stars I had from Christmases past...

Have you seen these at Target??:

Please don't buy them! Go to the floral area at Hobby Lobby, grab some of the wood thingys shaped like a tree. Spray paint them gold, then spray a coat of gold glitter spray paint over that. These were something like $3 each. I made them years ago and they still look perfect!

More glitter:

We got this platter for our wedding from my sweet friend Penni. It has always had a spot right in the middle. :)

Pretty eh? I love my glass things to put stuff in.

What do you put in YOUR glass thingys??

And last but not least, I found these at Micheal's too, and actually paid the full price of $4 each for them because I just adored them. Look! Itty bitty apothecary jars!:

But wait. I hate candy canes.

Ah yes...sweet bliss! Much better. HANDS OFF FAMILY.

I'm watchin' you.

Evil, I tell you.

Keep linking here chicks!!

Alrighty, at least two of you evil sweet ladies posted about THESE:

All I have to say is I hold you personally responsible for the FIVE SEVEN pounds I'm going to gain this week from eating these.

And I don't like candy canes. But I. love. these.

EVIL.

Tiny bit of mint, whole lotta chocolate, little bit of crunch = HEAVEN.

I've even been passing them out to random people to share the lusciousness. Sweet right?

But then it hit me. GAH!! What am I doing? I need them all for me, me, ME!!! I went to Target to get more today and they. are. gone. Is everyone in my town reading this blog?? I think not. Give them BACK!

Hubby, they are hidden from you as of tonight.
Sister -- BACK OFF.

Bub, well you don't even eat candy, you're cool.

Ladies who posted these, I will hunt you down and sit on you and you will be sorry (after this week...I need to wait for the extra seven pounds so it really squishes you.)

That is all.

P.S. Just for now that is... I'll be back later tonight with more!