The Sixth Day of Christmas

In between building closet doors for our bathroom closets and gutting and remodeling the Workout Room, we've surprisingly had a little time to squeeze in a bit more holiday cheer.  (Don't worry- I'll have updates on those other projects coming up soon, it's just taking a whole lot of time to finish them up, and we don't have an abundance of free time around here this holiday season. )

So in the mean time let me remind you of our little Christmas miracle. 

Really, when I think about it, it's a miracle we even got in this house.  Last year at this time, our Bungalow was on the market for about 3 months already without a bite, and the bank had been sitting on our offer for this big beast for 3 months with no end in site.   And it's another miracle that 8 months after move in this room has a seven gallons of paint and brand new wood floors to replace the pee-stained carpets.  (That's animal pee by the way... or at least, we're pretty sure it was...)  We are so blessed to be celebrating this first Christmas in our first home we worked so hard for, that I can't help but go a little over board with Christmas spirit.

And since even in the holidays my favorite 4 letter word is free, (unless I'm using power tools...) in addition to the hearth arrangement and the big 36" diameter wreath I made for free, I added a few additional no cost items to this room to give it a little more jingle.

Like replacing all the candles in the room with red ones that I had on hand, like this one in our lantern from Ikea.

 

And this one on our console table that I paired with a couple of decorative Christmas trees I picked up a few years ago at an after holiday sale.  

I also took the time to frame a few of our Santa pictures from year's past to remind us of how much our cute little nugget has grown.  All the photos I had were 4x6s, but I happened to have a stash of 5x7 frames that we used as table markers at our wedding. (Note: Free) So I quickly whipped up a bunch of mats.

I had some red card stock left over in the junk drawer, so I first cut it to 5x7.

 

Then I pulled the glass out of a 3.5x5 frame and used it as a guide to cut along with an Exacto knife.

Viola. 

Filling my glass bowl with $2 worth of dollar store ornaments from last year was another quick way to add some sparkle.  As you can see, my little paper white in this room is not growing nearly as fast as it's testosterone filled bro up in the Dining Room.

Adding these frames throughout the room on the shelves bring just a little touch of holiday, and I love this little hand print tree Ry made a couple Christmases back.  Oh those little hands...

 And have I mentioned how much I love the smell and ambiance of a real tree? While we went with a more modest, and cost efficient smaller tree this year, I can't wait to chop down our very own Oswald Family tree on future Christmases to make use of those super high ceilings.

In the meantime, break out the Tom & Jerry's and the almond bark.