More Christmas decor and the machine that will change my crafting life.

I was not quite done with my Christmas decorating until now.  I had a few areas to finish and I will show you what I have been doing...

I am always a bit stumped on what to do with the half wall behind the couch in the living room.  I had this partial pallet in the garage and knew I could do something with it.  So started but hanging it up on the wall.

Then it was time to embellish it.  I have been drooling over DIY JOY signs in Pinterest lately and I knew I wanted to make my own.  It was more difficult than I thought it would be to find the right letters but here is what I came up with...

I honestly cannot get the "dwell" off the wall, may need to paint over it at some point.  Also, these pics are crooked and I am too lazy to adjust them so you are just going to have to deal.  #bloggingnono

I found the J and Y at Michaels and spray painted them red.  I got the pom pom garland in the $3 bin at Target.   I had the wreath and lace trim laying around.  I lighted the wreath with a strand of the Phillips Dew Drop lights (which I cannot find in any of the Targets around here anymore unless you want the multicolored variety.  I already own 8 strands and it is not enough.  People are eating these up.  The secret it out!).

I added a little holiday cheer to the bedrooms in the form of mini tinsel trees and dew drop lights.  But I decided to add a bit more to the master bedroom.

I literally can't stop hanging things from these deer heads.  They are the perfect holders for banners.

I went with gold and green in here, kept it neutral.  I didn't take a pic of the tree on my dresser but it is gold as well.

 I finally hung those windows up on the wall.  I saw them on my way to work one morning on the side of the road.  Felt like I won the lottery:)

Here is the view from the hallway.  I had big plans to change out this light fixture since the day we moved in 10 years ago.  Clearly, that has not happened but I did remove the glass fixtures around the lights and hot glued the shade on there.  I expected it to stay up for a week, tops, until I could get to the hardware store and get the proper screws to keep it up there, but a year later, it is still holding strong (and I still have not gotten the proper hardware for it).

Finally, I have been doing some online christmas shopping (for myself) recently.  I have been eyeing up a Silhouette cutting machine for years now.  There was a black friday sale for 50% off the machines and I decided it was time to get one.  I could not pull the trigger on the more expensive, larger machine so I settled for the Silhouette Portrait machine after reading some reviews and doing some research.  It arrived yesterday.

Cue the chorus...

I set that baby right up.  I didn't have any of the fancy vinyl that Silhouette sells yet so I just used some black contact paper I have and made my first project...

Some antlers I stuck onto a mirror.  You guys, watch out.  The possibilities are endless with this machine and can barely even contain my excitement!  Probably going to start a whole blog series for Silhouette project, stay tuned.

Silhouette, and other stuff

I vividly remember sitting as still as possible, with a large piece of paper on one side of me and a transparency projector on the other side of me, while a teacher traced my shadow.  This was later cut out and mounted in a frame for my parents.  My brother had one done of him too the next year and they were hung in the hallway leading to our rooms and stayed there until the house burned down.  I didn't really think they were that cool, but I didn't have my mom goggles yet.  These are kind of the rage right now (ok, more like last year but whatev) so I decided to make one of Sully.  There are many options out there for how to make one.  I just took a side profile pic of the boy, 

printed it out as an 8X10,

cut out the profile, turned it around, traced it,

cut it out and mounted it in a frame I had laying around. (the curl was tricky)

This brings me to my next project of the day, the photo wall in the dining room.  It was driving me crazy as it was all over the place.  Here is what it looked like before.

I bought a few narrow shelves from Menards for $9 each, white washed them and put them up.  Then I lined them with frames while hanging a few as well.  I like it much better.

(in case you are wondering if I know that the lowest shelf is a bit crooked, yes I do and yes I plan on fixing it.)

In an attempt to distract the little tornado, I gave him his Valentines day gift early...

He is really keeping me guessing as to whether he will be a righty or a lefty.

He looks really into it, right?  Yeah, he was for about 35 seconds before he started throwing the crayons around and then escaping up the stairs into naughty zones.  I have to work on better distractions.

The big deal for the day was Turbo getting groomed.  I LOVE it when she gets groomed.  She looks like a little fawn and is so cuddly.

Notice the Valentines hankie.

And finally, Sully got a Valentine card from his great-grandma and great-grandpa Dohms.  Lucky boy.

He loved it.  And then he dunked it.

Happy Monday!