Pom Pom Garland for Christmas

Awhile back, maybe two or even three years ago, I bought four sizes of Clover pom pom makers at JoAnn. At the time, I was inspired to make all kinds of pom pom crafts. And Bailey had started knitting up a storm so I decided to buy her a set, too, because knitted caps and such look cute with pom poms. 

 

 Fast forward to this year: I FINALLY got around to making a pom pom garland! I can't even remember what I initially wanted to make with my pom pom makers, but this project ended up being just the ticket! It was easy to make and, even though I was skeptical at many points along the way, I love how it turned out. I think it could be used for various holidays throughout the year.

Because I knew we would be having a long drive to Texas for Thanksgiving, I decided that I'd make pom poms as we drove along. Unlike reading or staring at my phone, this seemed like something I could do to feel productive whilst still carrying on conversation. And other than the yarn fibers which made Spouse sneeze, it was a good task to do in the car!

 I had no idea how many pom poms I'd need for my garland plus I thought I'd make a few tassels, too...LONG STORY SHORT, I ended up buying WAY TOO MUCH YARN! But the skeins were really inexpensive and I figure I'll be able to use them up over time.

I did learn that you need a certain weight (thickness?) of yarn to make a decent pom pom. Thin yarn makes feeble-looking pom poms. At JoAnn, most of the yarn is a Size 4 (indicated on the package), so that's what I bought. This size worked great.

So we headed off to Texas, me with my ginormous yarn skeins on the floor next to me. Luckily, the skeins were already wound to pull from the center. If you pull yarn from the outside, the skein will be tumbling all over the place.

I know you can make your own pom pom template with cardboard but seriously, these pom pom makers are just the best! Take a look at a video HERE. 

I started out with the medium size pom pom maker and made quite a number of white and cream pom poms before we even hit Missouri!

 

 In no time at all, I was producing pom poms right and left!

 

 After I made a few medium size pom poms, I made the same number of small ones. The smaller ones were super fast to create. 

Before you use your pom poms, you'll want to trim off the bits of yarn that are a little longer than the others, just to give a neater appearance.

 

Once we were back home, it was time to create my garland. To string the pom poms, I used a craft floss (I could have used yarn since I have plenty!) and a darning needle. It was easy to string them onto the floss and just move them to the proper position. I ended up having to make several more to fill up my garland.

Of course, I couldn't stop at just ONE garland. I wanted to add a second one with felt balls, also purchased at JoAnn. I strung them onto the same floss.

 

 

 Eventually I had enough to make a long chain. Again, the balls can be easily moved along and positioned where you want them without much slippage.

 I decided to position my felt ball garland first. I tacked up the two outside ends with painter's tape, then made shorter loops in the center, counting to be sure I had the same number of felt balls in each loop.

 

 Next, I positioned the pom pom garland by taping the ends in a similar way to the top of the mantel. Instead of four loops, I decided on three. This step was a little fiddly as I had to get the correct number of pom poms in each loop and make sure they were spaced evenly. 

For the garland, I think using a thicker thread or yarn might have been better because those larger pom poms are a bit heavy and they tend to distort the loops a little. But in the end, I just left it as is.

To cover up all the tape holding the operation in place, I added a garland across the mantel. I hadn't completely thought all of this through so had to scramble and dig around to come up with enough greenery to make a decent garland! This one is actually made with branches from an old artificial tree we got rid of a couple of years ago. I kept some of the branches (and the top!) to use for decorating. I added in a few berries and pinecones to jazz it up.

 I'm glad I finally got around to using the pom pom makers. The pom pom garland was a fun way to do something a little different with my Christmas decor. Now to come up with a few more pom pom projects to use up all of my yarn!

 

 

Feline Friday: Santa Came!

 Santa made a stop at our house and dropped off some goodies for Lily!

 

 He generously filled our stockings, too -- some of which feature red puffballs which are sewn firmly on, much to Lily's dismay! 🎅

 

 He filled Cousin Rory's stocking, which also has a lovely hanging puffball which could not be removed, despite her best efforts!

 

 We hope Santa made a stop at your house, too! Wishing you a lovely end to 2018 and the very happiest New Year!  

 🎄Janet & Lily🎄

Feline Friday: Ready for Santa!

Lily is ready for Santa! First she helped me put up all the Christmas trees.

 

 Then we made a whole bunch of cards. She was not impressed!

 

Finally, she helped me do a few crafty things which she found much more enjoyable.

The whole Christmas season has been exhausting! 😉

Now she is ready for Santa. But I fear he will not find her tucked in the corner behind the tree!

Wherever you are, we wish a you a very

Happy Christmas with the people 

and fur-babies you love!

🎄Janet & Lily🎄

Christmas Decorating

 

Boy, I had planned to get back to this little series of posts about Christmas decor but somehow life got in the way! We are expected our daughter and her boyfriend in just a few days, so I'm scurrying like a little beaver (actually more like a SQUIRREL!) as I try to finish up a number of class projects before they arrive. And of course I need to finish shopping, cleaning, and hopefully do a little baking!

 So back to the Christmas trees! In my recent Feline Friday post, I shared some photos of our old dining room tree. Lily knocked that tree over so many times that it was getting pretty bedraggled, so this year we decided to replace it. Spouse found a very nice pre-lit small tree at Hobby Lobby at a good price. Although it's the same height, it's a little bit narrower than the old tree. I love the tree but am going to keep a close eye on the lights, after our recent "fire" scare with our big pre-lit tree!

I put this new tree in the dining room in front of the bay window. I really like having it there because the lights look really pretty from the street. Since Lily is much better behaved these days, I can safely put my grandma's old mercury glass ornaments on this tree.

This year, I kept with the gold/silver/copper color scheme which works well since I have a lot of ornaments in those colors! To fill in around Grandma's ornaments, I added a few mercury glass ornaments that I picked up on the cheap at a garage sale last year. The gal hosting the sale was GOING TO THROW THEM AWAY and offered them to me, so how could I refuse? LOL

 Speaking of the old dining room tree, I decided that it could be deconstructed and still used. In fact, the top of the tree was in perfect condition -- undamaged by little white paws -- so I poked it down into a metal bucket. This worked great and now I have a small tree for the hearth! (Not that I needed more trees...) The only "ornaments" are pine cones from a recent visit to Texas.

 

In addition to the top of the tree, many of the branches from the old dining room tree are still in pretty good shape so I've used them as "greenery" around the house. I see no reason to throw out the tree when it clearly has more life in it...transformed!

Moving on to another tree! I have a 4 foot pencil tree on the landing. Over the years, this tree has had various themes. This year it holds a set of old world Santa Clauses given to us by Spouse's parents many years ago.

I filled in with some inexpensive red balls and silver "bell" balls, as well as some snowflakes punched from white cardstock.

I have a second pencil tree in the living room next to my grandma's old desk. The decorations also vary but this year I used more mercury glass ornaments in reds and blues to match the decor in that room.

My grandma's desk is one of my most treasured possessions. When I was growing up, we went to her house for Sunday lunch almost every week and after the meal was over, I was allowed to color and draw pictures at her desk. After she passed away, my parents had the desk refinished for me to keep. The typewriter is also very special and belonged to Spouse and his family.

On the desk you'll find my old camping lantern and a small shadow box I made this year. I really don't need any more Christmas decor but sometimes I just can't help myself! I had a lot of fun putting this little box together using some Christmas goodies from Tim Holtz.

The old calendar and snowman came from my grandma's house. I actually found them in a tub out in my parents' garden shed as I was preparing for their auction. Mom had brought home a lot of treasures from Grandma's house but didn't have a chance to sort through them all before she passed away. Finding treasures such as these brought me great joy and now I enjoy getting them out each year.

In the next few days I hope to share a few more Christmas decor and crafting posts! Thank you all for stopping by and I wish you the merriest of holidays!

jp

Christmas Decorating

Back in the olden days, I had a vision of having a Christmas tree in every room of the house. My idea was that I'd have one large/main tree then several smaller ones with different themes each year. Since I have a December birthday, I have accumulated a lot of Christmas ornaments so I have enough to mix and match easily. 

I have never succeeded in having a tree in every single room but I have five trees in various sizes, most of which I've had for years. It takes a fair amount of room to store them but I think we all enjoy them when they're up! In this post, I will share pictures of a couple of trees, with more to come in another post.

We replaced our main tree seven years ago with a pre-lit 9-foot tree. I love the "mixed" branches and the fact that we didn't have to mess with lights! Unfortunately this year as we plugged it in to check the lights, we smelled a hot/burning plastic scent. NOT GOOD! Upon close inspection, this is what we found! The plastic housing was melted completely through and even smoking in two different areas. YIKES!

I'm so thankful that this happened right away...and not when we were away from home with the tree lit! The lesson is this: If you have a pre-lit tree, unplug it when you leave home!

Now when the lights on a pre-lit tree fail, I think the assumption is that you'll throw it out and buy another tree. The pre-lit lights are so tightly and intricately wound that they're somewhat intimidating to remove, but that's what I decided to do. I love the tree too much to just toss it, and that seems really wasteful. After a few hours, I had all the lights off so we could re-string it with regular lights. Now it's as good (almost) as new. 

I will say that it took a LOT of fluffing to make the branches look full again, as the old lights were so tightly wound!

 

 Speaking of fluffing, did you know there is a proper way to fluff the branches of an artificial tree? I actually ran across a blog post or video somewhere which gave some helpful tips. I used those tips when fluffing our big tree above.

Here's a quick "tutorial" using branches from our very old kitchen tree. If you have the kind of tree that has branches like this, it's easiest to fluff them before putting the tree together. If the branches of your tree are not removable, you can still fluff them in the same manner. Just start at the bottom of the tree and work your way around and up, branch by branch.

Start at the back of the branch, closest to the hook. Pull those back pieces straight up and fan them out like a peacock tail. This will help conceal the trunk of the tree. Once that's done, pull the remaining pieces out to the side and up, staggering them.

 You can see how nice and full the branches are once this is done!

 Now you can go ahead and assemble your tree. Of course, you'll have to do a bit more fluffing once the branches are all in place. This tree is very old but I really love the blue-green color so I hope to keep it for a long time. Proper fluffing makes a big difference!😃

 This year, I got out a set of decorations by Cosmo Cricket I made in a class I taught years ago at Memory Bound. The papers have a blue-green base which makes the ornaments prefect for this particular tree. I used my grandma's old picnic tablecloth for the skirt.

Thanks for stopping by today! I'll be back soon with more holiday photos. Meanwhile, it's back to Santa's workshop for this elf! 

🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄

jp

Feline Friday

This year, Bailey decided to get a small Christmas tree for her apartment. It looks so festive!

Of course, our immediate concern was that Rory would destroy the new tree. She's quite the climber so it seemed only logical that she would scale the tree in no time, like this:

  

 A few of you may remember the years when the Christmas trees at our house were tethered to stationary objects with fishing line because Lily literally DIVE-BOMBED them. Even then, she still upset the trees. One year I had to take down a tree before Christmas! So naturally, I expected that Rory would do the same.

As Bailey put up the tree, I waited for updates about Rory's behavior. As usual, she was very interested in the box! 

 As Bailey decorated the tree, Rory watched quietly from the couch. You can see the tree's reflection in her eyes! Rory's first Christmas tree...awwww!

 

But other than curiously bat at a few ornaments, Rory has been a MODEL KITTY! She has not bothered a thing!

She loves to sleep photogenically under the tree.

What a sweet girl!

Rory is on her best behavior for Santa! :)

Christmas Decorating with Meaning: Part 2

 Welcome back to the second installment of my little holiday decor tour! In today's post, I'm focusing on the dining room. If you've followed my blog, the dining room decor will look similar to how I decorated this space last year. 

 

I feel like I'm a little bit limited in the dining room simply by the colors of the walls (olive) and the green and gold chair rail border. For that reason, I think the "woodland/metallic" theme works pretty well in the space. As long as I continue to like it, I'll keep the theme!

It's really hard to get a good picture of the dining room with the tree lit. This picture makes it look very gold, which it is not. But the gold ornaments and decorations do give a bit of a gold glow.

The top of the china cabinet is very much the same as last year, with a combination of things I've made myself (the nut tree and pinecone tree) and family heirlooms. I made those trees (and some hanging nut balls!) when I was 8 months pregnant with Bailey and working at Spouse's office. I remember hot gluing nuts and pine cones in between my "official" duties! This must have been my woodland "nesting" phase!

This footed compote is a real treasure. I keep it up on the china cabinet year-round, out of kitty jumping range! It belonged to my great great grandmother on my dad's side.

Here's a new addition to the dining room holiday decor -- this beautiful old footed bowl/compote which I found at a thrift store for less than $2. I quickly identified it on eBay as pressed glass known as sandwich glass and made by the Indiana Glass company in the early 1900s. I have some dark green sandwich glass dishes which belonged to my grandma (I'll be getting them out for Christmas!), which is why the bowl caught my eye. It looks so pretty filled with these old ornaments! Someone let go of a treasure when they donated this beautiful piece. I'm very glad I found it!

Under the dome are some wooden woodland critters I bought in Germany during college. The wooden box is filled with gold and silver pine cones my mom used at Christmas.

 I made this little guy last year by antiquing the car and strapping the tree to the roof. I haven't decided which size of wood base to use, so right now it's perched on two!

 These wooden trees came from a thrift store a couple of years ago. I love their simple shape and how easily they work into lots of different holiday themes.

The dining room tree holds all of my gold, silver, and bronze mercury glass ornaments, plus other ornaments in that same color scheme. Last year I sorted my mercury glass ornaments by color which made it much easier to find the colors I needed when I decorated the tree this year! One year I'm going to have to do a pink tree because I have a TON of pink mercury glass. Too bad I'm not a fan of pink! Hopefully it will grow on me because I'm not parting with those beautiful ornaments, regardless of the color!

 Thanks for following me around the house this year! I'll be back in the coming days with more holiday decorating photos. 

Happy holidays to everyone!
jp