Christmas Home Tour – Part II – The Great Out-Doors!

Ahh… Welcome to the great-outdoors — Of my front yard, that is!

When we moved into our cozy, dream-home, one of the things that I was so excited about, was the pretty front porch that I would get to decorate! Since decorating a ginormous front porch can get a little costly, I tried to use items that I already had, plus lots of greenery from the back yard.

I made my very own Cedar Boughs with some wire and pliers. I then made these super-easy, 2-Minute Bows, from only one roll of geo-mesh for $10. 6To dress up the area around the front doors, I made very, very simple Christmas urns. I used my cheap summer flower pots, but spray-painted them all a metallic-black color to make them match. Next I stuck boughs of Spruce into the pots, and then tied very simple mini-version-bows onto the boughs. 14Last night when I was about to do my photo shoot, I realized that I didn’t have a wreath for my door — a major faux-pas! So in house-coat, high-heels (because they were the closest shoes to me??!), I dug out the ladder to find my old Christmas wreath…. It wasn’t anywhere! Panic-Alert!!!! So after running around trying to come up with something else to use, I found this cute, little, tin-bucket and stuck some old garland and branches of cedar in it. Whew — Crisis averted! 

Matt, (my husband), was in charge of the Christmas lights, and I must say, he did a fabulous job!10Below is my big, beautiful, grape-vine wreath that my wonderful mother made for our wedding! It’s about 5 feet in diameter, and I absolutely love it! All I did to “Christmas-Up” my wreath was add some lights to it, wrap it in red geo-mesh, and add a matching cedar bough and bow to it. It’s so sparkly and pretty… definitely my favorite piece of holiday decor, this year! 5Total cost for this front porch Christmas decor, $21.00!!!! $10.00 on geo-mesh, and $11.00 on spray paint…. Now, all we need is some snow!!!!!!!

 

Cedar Boughs! – A How-To-Guide

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Why spend money on Christmas decor, when you can simply make your own? Here’s how to create the Perfect Cedar Bough!

Step 1: Gather your cedar bows. Cedar trees are a very popular North-American tree that you can find growing just about anywhere!

Step 2: Take your cedar boughs and line them up end to end, overlapping the ends about 3 or 4 inches. Layer as many boughs as you like on top of each other until you get a nice “full” look.

Step 3: Cut about a 3 or 4 inch strip of wire and wrap it around the bow ends. Take the ends of the wire in a pair of pliers, and twist. (Be careful, if you twist the wire too  much it may break off!)

Step 4: Hang and decorate as you please! 🙂

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