Homemade Christmas 2010

I love the idea of rooms having a name instead of the traditional "formal living room" or "family room" so I've decided to call my "formal living room" (which we never use as a formal) the Blue Room. The walls are white and the ceiling is sand, so to dress it up I used robin's egg blue, aqua, and cream colored pillows, art and accessories.

To go along with my "blue" theme, I was lucky several years ago, to have purchased a HUGE box of all silver, glass, and glittered ornaments at an estate auction for $5.00. Most of the ornaments were in their own box all marked "Elder Beerman" and some still had their price tags on. It's one of my favorite bargains. So, to those ornaments I then added ones I already had in whites and silver, and have purchased some blues at after Christmas sales, usually from Hobby Lobby.

I also started collecting snowmen years ago, most of them were gifts to me from salon clients, at least half of them were handmade by the gifter (I love them all).


I always pick up wrapping paper, tissue paper, tags and bows at after Christmas sales almost always at 50% off. This year I added the color chartreuse and lime green to my blue and silver decorations.

For my Homemade (or should I say Handmade?) gifts, I made Kahlua and dressed up the bottles with a label I made up on the computer and Martha Stewart die-cut borders, along with jute string that I added some jingle bells and large sequins to. Wrapped up in blue and green tissue paper with a white satin bow, they looked pretty snazzy I thought.

I also found an idea from Melissa at theinspiredroom website (she's my hero right along with Martha)...you take a mason jar, add some jute around the top with a couple of jingle bells and some snow glitter (also Martha Stewart)...add epsom salts in the botton, a white votive and wallllaaa, cute and cheap but fun to make. Sorry I forgot to take a pic of them but the photo shows how I wrapped them up in green bags with the blue and green tissue paper and attached to the handles, I found the prettiest glittery ornaments in all different colors at Wal-mart for only a $1 each!

Homemade doesn't have to look cheap or tacky, but it DOES have to be thoughtful, and if you love what you are doing when making items for gifts, I think the recipients feel it!

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas!!!