Christmas Sparkle

I finally, finally, finally took some pictures of my tree. I know, right? It took forever. I took a few close-ups of some of my new favorites just for your enjoyment. My tree is in the process of turning into a sparkly, shimmery, winter woodland wonderland. I've been buying birds,
a few pine cones, some new icicles, leaves, and anything else I think qualifies. And my wonderful baby sister (though she is the mother of two little boys, she will always be my baby sister) even bought me two glittery butterflies.
I admit, I was skeptical of the butterflies at first, especially because of the glitter, and, who sees butterflies in the winter when there is snow all around? But, now I love the butterflies. In my imaginary, winter woodland wonderland, butterflies are all around. They are magical, and every Christmas tree needs some magic, right? So, without further ado, the Christmas tree! (insert hand flourishes, ta das, etc., here)

St. Patrick's Day Decorations

In addition to my leprechauns that I made many, many years ago out of brown paper grocery bags, I created a shamrock garland for the front window, and some "Lucky" blocks, since it's too cold and snowy for my "Spring" blocks to come out, and the "Winter" ones have been out for too long.

The leprechauns were a bit time intensive, but pretty simple to do. I free-handed the different body parts on the paper bags, then painted them with Cermacoat paint and used scrapbooking supplies to embellish them. My mom had a paper crimper that I used to make the hair have texture, and that thing was AWESOME! And I used brads to attach the various body parts together. I think they took about two hours to make, but I can't remember for sure.

The blocks are easy too. I will give a step-by-step process.
1. Gather 2x4s (we always have tons of scrap pieces laying around that I use)
2. Cut 2x4s to random heights. I don't even measure. I just eyeball some bigger, some smaller and don't worry about perfection.
3. Sand 2x4s as needed.
4. Gather scrapbooking paper. The pieces need to be 3" wide, by whatever height you need.
5. Coat wood with Mod Podge and attach papers.
6. Cover papers with another coat of Mod Podge and attach letters.
7. Cover letters with another coat of Mod Podge and let dry.
8. When Mod Podge is dry add desired embellishments.

For my rainbow I used colored tape that I got from Oriental Trading Company years ago. You could just use a rainbow sticker or something though.

And for my garland, I keep the grapevine up all year long, and then change out the decorations. For this I had a shamrock die cut that I traced on coordinating pieces of scrapbook paper, and then cut out. I ran a ribbon through the grapevine, and tied the ribbon in several places to the curtain rod. To attach the shamrocks, I used gold brads that I put through the paper and the ribbon. And I attached some butterflies that I bought at Michael's to the grapevine. The butterflies came on wire, so I just wrapped the wire around the grapevine. Pretty simple, but I like it!