Tomato Cage Christmas Tree

I have been getting lots of festive holiday crafting inspiration from Pinterest. It is fun to add a little something new each year and I really wanted to have some lights outside. Light up decorations can be really expensive so when I saw this idea for light up trees using upside down tomato cages as the base I thought that is something I can actually pull off! So I grabbed a few cages from the back yard and picked up a string of led lights for each tree. I used wire based garlands to swirl around the cages. They were very quick and easy to set up. You can just use the branches like a twist tie to anchor it to the cage in a few spots. Then just string the lights through the garland and fluff out the branches. I also learned the hard way to weight them down with a brick. We had a crazy storm front come through the other day and actually ripped the lights right out of the socket.

Christmas DIY

I usually make a handmade ornament for everyone but this year I let myself down. I did make two of the crochet snowflakes but they still need some fine tuning. Maybe if I got started now they would be ready next year. Lots more handmade holiday inspiration here.

The Habit of Being

Hey I recognize that image from the beautiful blog The Habit of Being via Enhabiten! Looks like someone else couldn't bear to throw out her Nikki McClure Calender at the end of the year. ( see my calendar post for more ideas) Here a few more pictures I love. How can anyone not fall in love with little baby Ralph.

Calendar Recycle Projects

Every January I reuse my Nikki McClure calendar from last year to make little greeting cards. Most calendars have little preview pages on the back. I cut these out and paint black gouache over the dates. I use a metallic paint pen to write my greeting on the gouache square and use the back to write my message. You could probably do the same thing with acrylic paint if you had a shiny calendar you wanted to use. This year I also made a beautiful poster with the cover of the calendar. I used black gouache on the background, painting over any text and added highlights to the egg with white gouache. Can't wait to cut up this years calendar and see what I can make from it.