Hold the balls

I've been busy Christmasy-ing up our house.  Beside the whole Harry debacle (he's still standing btw), I've been working my way through all the rooms, adding a bit of Christmas cheer.

Since this is our first Christmas in the house, I don't know where to put anything.

In the condo, everything had its place and decorating was a piece of (peppermint flavored) cake.

Now, that we have more rooms (than the 2 that the condo had), I'm trying to Christmas-up all our rooms, which is a tough task.

I'm still in process, but here is what I have so far.

Still rocking the burlap runner with garage sale holly & tray

Jake Locker & the Huskies will always be a part of Christmas at our house

Harry finally decorated and standing upright

Garland and a Christmas themed glass dome in the entryway (I knew that dome was multi-functional)

Rosemary Christmas tree from Ashley (thanks!)

A body-less St. Nick (only mildly creepy)

Our outside is a bit more challenging, as we have never had any outside decorations before (condo associations usually frown upon homeowners trying to decorate the building).

I did swoop up some garland that I stapled to the front porch roof.  I told Chris I was going to "swag it" across the porch.  He let me know that first off, I'm not a rapper and I don't have swag, and second, you can't "swag" something.

I disagree on both accounts.  I will swag if I want to.

Totally swagged it.

Outdoor lights are a bit more difficult for us, since our house was built in 1918, when electricity wasn't even the norm in houses.  Apparently, when they did bring electricity to our home, they didn't see a need to install any outdoor outlets.  I'm not sure what the old homeowners did for the last 50 years.... didn't they use any electronics out doors?  Needless to say plugging stuff in outside is a bit hard.  Like really hard.

The only option we have is to dig a hole under the front porch and into the crawl space in the basement, and then run an extension cord through the basement out through the hole.

Neither of us has volunteered to get in the crawl space, or dig a hole under our porch, so our hopes and dreams of outdoor Christmas lights were slowly dying.

That is, until I discovered solar powered Christmas lights.

Actually I invented them in my mind.  I told Chris we needed some and he said that they didn't exist.  Oh ye of little faith- they do exist, and they are super cool.  Save the planet and solve our electricity problems. Another Christmas miracle.

I ran to HD to swoop some up, but they let me down with their poor selection of eco-friendly light selections.

So I turned to my friend, the internet, to find me the perfect ones.

The internet never lets me down.

I'm patiently waiting for the lights to come, and I'm crossing my fingers that we have enough sun light these days to power the lights.  I'll let you know when they arrive and I test them out.  I hope they arrive soon, the acceptable window of decorations is dwindling.

Until then, I made a holiday wreath for the front door.

I used burlap.  Shocker, I know.  It's super easy.  Hot glue, fabric, burlap, scissors, wreath, balls- done.

Here are the steps in pictures:

Cut fabric 12" wide double the length of the wreath

Hot glue the fabric together

Let some fabric hand over, so there are 2 layers

Scrunch the fabric together

Then cut a strip of burlap and bunch.glue it on top

Finished scrunching

Goodwill holiday mini-balls

Hot glue the balls around the edge

 When I was all done, I decided I wanted it to be a bit more festive.  So I strung some holiday ornaments on a ribbon and pinned it across the middle.

At first I only used 3 and it looked weirdly phallic.  Then I used 5. That was better.

Then I realized it was too much.  I listened to my inner Coco Chanel "When accessorizing, always take off the last thing you put on."  So I took off the balls, and I liked it much better.

Less is more.

My new saying is "When decorating- add the burlap, hold the balls."


Write that down.