DIY Tomato Cage Christmas Trees

Now that I have a house it seems like my main obsession is decorating my house. I hate having empty rooms with no character. I want my house to look lived in, but still well organized at the same time. When you have a bare room with no art on the wall, no little cute touches, and not even a specific color on the wall other than the plain color that it was painted by the builders, then it's just a tad bit boring. That is why my main obsession since moving in has been to work on slowly decorating room by room. I get my source of inspiration (like many other people) from Pinterest. Obviously, before I even was in the market for a house I had an entire board dedicated to how my house would be decorated and built. Not unlike the many single people with boards full of baby stuff and wedding inspiration. I mean we all dream of our future, so why not create a Pinterest board for said future? Anyways, now that we are closing in our Christmas I'm searching my boards to decide just how to decorate our new house for our FIRST Christmas as a married couple. My husband and I don't always agree 100% on our vision for the decorations, but we did agree on this front porch.

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My husband and I love this front porch! It's whimsical, but still has all the typical colors of Christmas without being too cutsey. Sometimes when I decorate I like to sway from the traditional, but my husband was determined to go green and red for Christmas. Now it was time to search for the supplies to get our front porch to look exactly how we wanted it. I started off by looking for Topiaries for my front porch. I thought about buying trees to place in my front porch planters or buying a full set that comes in the planters. I wasn't finding a ton of options of trees to place in my planters, but I did find plenty of topiaries with planters. However, the ones I was finding were not at a price I was willing to pay. 

Even checking back today with Black Friday deals, there were still many topiaries coming in at more than $50 per tree. That's just not a price that we can easily afford as a young married couple. Therefore, I decided to make my own. I used: 2 X 3-feet tall tomato cages, 4 X 9-feet Unlit Pine Garlands, 2 X boxes of LED C3 Warm White Lights,  twist ties, heavy items (bricks), and my two planters. My total cost for the 2 topiaries was around $38. After gathering all my items I got to work. My husband being the super sweet guy he is helped me out with this project.

After filling the planters with bricks we gathered the random twist ties we have saved over the years and started tying the tomato cages to the bricks. I contemplated taping the tomato cages to the bricks, but with how cold it has been all of my tape would not stick for very long in the cold. I've noticed especially with masking tape that it starts to peel off as soon as you stick it in cold weather. 

After the cage was all tied down we could get to work twisting the garland around the tomato cage. We used a twist tie at the very bottom to attach the initial strand to the tomato cage. 

After finishing twisting all the 18ft of garland onto the tomato cages I went back and twist tied more sections to the tomato cage. I used mostly darker colored twist ties so that it wouldn't be visible while standing in front of it.

Based on how cold it was outside I decided to bring my work inside as I was finishing up winding the garland around and adding the lights. I figured this would also allow me to work on cooking dinner for my husband and I as we worked. Once we had all the garland on all that was left to do was to add the lights and place everything outside. I'm very happy with how it ended up!

We got our lighted gifts from Kirklands when they had a 20% off sale and we found the wreath at Michaels for $19. Now my husband and I are working on decorating our large outside tree and the inside tree. So far we have the lights on the outside tree. Now we just need to find affordable giant ornaments.

I just love decorating for Christmas. I'm curious to see how other people are decorating for the upcoming holidays.

Seasonal Wreath Ideas

Since we've moved into our new house I've been trying to come up with ideas for wreaths that match the season or the holiday. Here's a few I've made so far...

This cute little monogrammed bunny was for Easter. I got the cutout from Unfinished Wood Co. through a deal site called Groopdealz. It arrived a little later than I expected so I only had time to paint it before it was already Easter weekend. Next year I think I'll add a cute little bow.

This one was one I created to Welcome Spring. I made a burlap wreath then added a few floral decorations as well as a burlap bunting that matches the flower color. It looks really nice on our front porch with the pink flowers in the stone planters.

Now, it's almost July 4th and time to celebrate being an American. I'm trying to decide what wreath I want to make now. I really want something patriotic, but I don't know exactly what I want. 

Here's a few of the Pinterest inspirations I have found....

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Now I just have to decide what I want to do for my patriotic wreath for July. It looks like it's time for me to go shopping at my local craft stores. I think the first place I'll hit up is Michael's since they are having 15% off your entire purchase from 3pm-7pm today.

<3 Kelly Jean

DIY Door Decor

For years now I've had one of those typical boring green wreaths on my door. I was too lazy to take it down once the Christmas season ended, so I left it up on my door. Finally, after seeing so many beautiful inspirations of wreaths on Pinterest I decided my door needed a little decor of its own. This lead to one of my many enjoyable experiences craft shopping at Hobby Lobby for any supplies I needed. 

My supplies included: 

• 8" Grapevine Wreath
• Burlap chevron ribbon
• Wooden letter B
• Mint blue acrylic paint
• White hydrangea flowers
• Blue rose
• Glue gun with glue sticks
• Paint brushes

I started out by painting my letter B. While this dried, I cut the stems off of my flowers and searched for a great tutorial on making bows. I found super easy to follow directions at this site www.onsuttonplace.com. Once all of that was completed I assembled my wreath. 

Ta da!

I love it! Now I'm on the search for the perfect doormat to match my wreath.

<3 Kelly Jean