Wax Paper Garland

Last year, I saw a picture of a Christmas tree that had very

pretty garland on it - turns out it was made using wax paper!

Click here to see that picture and view that blog =)

Anyways, I started making this garland LAST YEAR...

but didn't get too much of a start on it due to a family health crisis.

So this year over Thanksgiving break, my sister helped me finish

this project on a 3 hour roadtrip. I put it on a skinny 7.5 foot tree
in my dining room and I am happy with the way it turned out.

 

I used a circle punch to cut a bunch of circles. 

HOWEVER... I bought 4 different circle punches, but none

of them cut a clean circle. So I finally decided to just trim the

edges with scissors. Then I hot glued the wax paper circles to

fishing line. We ended up making a lot more circles than what

I actually needed... so if you want them, I will let you have my leftovers!

 

 The garland looks so pretty with the white lights illuminating it!
It looks much better from far away than it does close up though.

 FYI - my sister said this was probably her least favorite project

that she's ever helped me with.... but she said that without seeing

the finished product on the tree, so she can't fully appreciate all her hard work!

By the way.... all the rectangular cards are wishes from people who were at
my wedding! We had a "Wish Tree" instead of a guest book. I love it that
each year I get to read what people wrote to us on that day!!
 

Book Page Wreath... love it or hate it?

The book page wreath - do you LOVE it or HATE it?

My husband thinks this is the ugliest thing in the world and refuses to let

me hang it up in our house. He said if it goes up, then he is mounting deer
heads in all the rooms of the house! I found a loophole though - I haven't
technically "hung" it up - it's on a wreath stand! But I gotta keep my eye
on it... once, I found it in the trashcan! I told you my husband hates it!

I THINK I love it, but I spent a TON of time working on it, so I'm
not sure whether I actually love it, or just am so invested in it that I
can't bear the thought of not using it?!? It's been over a year since I
made it and I still can't decide. I don't usually care what my
husband thinks about my crafts... but he's never been so adamant
about anything before! So maybe it really is as awful as he says it is?!?
 

Anyways, in case YOU love it, here's how I made this book page wreath...

I tea stained old books, using a fan to dry out the pages after they soaked
in hot tea.  Then I ripped all the pages out of the books. Some of the
pages I rolled, and some I folded like an accordian, then folded a tab on
the end and hot glued that to the wreath. I glued the pages all around the inside
of the wreath first, then the outside, and then filled in the middle. I ended
up having to rip off part of the page for many of the pieces so they wouldn't
stick out so far.  I rolled some pages tightly, and some looser, and I
folded the pages differently to make the wreath a little more interesting.
I added a brown satin bow at the top with hot glue.

No Sew Ruffle Tree Skirt

I saw this no sew ruffle tree skirt on Pinterest last year,

and it's been on my to-do list ever since! I finally was able

to make it during my Thanksgiving break and I absolutely love it!

And better yet, it didn't cost me a single penny because I already

had all the materials I needed =)

 

I started out with a large piece of white fabric (I think it used to

be a sheet maybe?). The tree skirt I have used in the past was a

little too small for my 9 foot Christmas tree, so I wanted this

one to be bigger than the standard size. So I put my tree skirt

on top of the sheet and cut around it, but added a couple inches all

the way around. Then I cut a line to the center of the sheet to make the

opening for the tree skirt.

 

 I used gold satin fabric for my tree skirt - the fabric is actually

some of the chair sashes from my wedding! It worked out well, because

the width of the chair sashes was perfect for the tree skirt, so I didn't

actually have to cut any pieces.

 

All I did was hot glue the chair sashes down, pleating the fabric in order

to make a ruffle. I started at the bottom and worked my way up.

Each row should overlap the one before it a little.

It wasn't hard, just took a long time because the tree skirt was so big,

and it just became a little monotonous after a while. Thankfully my sister

glued every other row down for me to give me a break.

  

  

I love how it looks under my tree....  very soon I hope to makea few

more Christmas decoration items using this no sew ruffle technique!!!

 

Merry Christmas!!