DIY - GaddingGal

December23rd

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Merry Christmas {2012}

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One of my favorite things I get to do at Christmas, is a Christmas card. I sorta stumbled into this non-traditional photo thing, and have brainstormed each year trying to think up a good photo. Not that beautifully posed Christmas cards aren’t awesome, we just started with unique picture and wanna keep it that way. The only rule…everyone has to be in it, even Roxann. Yes, I love my dog, deal with it.

So here’s what this Christmas card ended up as, in case you didn’t get one in the mail. The idea, however, came from my better half.

It was a pretty intense photo shoot, but Roxann brought her best model poses. It turned out to be a pretty cool card, if I do say so myself. And since I’m all about these Christmas cards, I have the previous two years framed and displayed.
2010-We were in our lederhosen & dirndl which was appropriate since we had spend most our of first year of marriage living in Germany.
2011-Was a picture (we took self-timer!) in Charlotte, NC capturing our time living in North Carolina. It might still be my favorite card so far.

From my heart to yours, I wish you a very Merry Christmas! Remembering and cherishing the reason we should all be celebrating.
December12th

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{DIY} Christmas Tree Skirt

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I know the no-sew thing is going around, but this tree skirt requires sewing. I actually sewed this one–by hand. Just like when I made my Christmas stockings. Still haven’t bought a sewing machine yet.

It was actually crazy easy. Except for the amount of time it took to sew. I took the burlap garland (you can get it at Michaels, and I’m a little obsessed with it) and sewed it to my double-sided quilted fabric in a cream color. I made a pleat every inch or so to create the ruffle.

There it is. I only pricked my finger about 50 times. What about you? Do you put anything at the bottom of your Christmas tree??
November19th

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Making It Work

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One of the big things about moving, is you’re normally never in the same house. Weird. The square-footage is normally in different places, maybe two floors to one open floor plan. And that’s exactly where my master bedroom ended up; in need of a little creative thinking to make it work.

The first “problem” was that is was considerable smaller. I think we knew that we probably wouldn’t have as big of a master, but I wasn’t sure all of our furniture was even going to fit into our new bedroom. We have a queen size bed, two end tables, a chest of drawers and a dresser with a mirror.

The second problem was those three windows. More specifically, where the windows were on the wall…which is off center to the room. There was no way to fit the bed, centered under the windows and still keep all of furniture. The only option–while keeping all of the furniture–was to set the bed up, off center of the windows. Which may not bother you, but really bothered me.

So my super handsome husband thought up this idea to make our master bedroom work. And I have to say, I kinda love it. It gives me all five pieces of our bedroom set, and the off-centered windows blend in because their not the first thing your eye goes too.

I’m guess some sheets and bedspread would help too, but adding the pictures around the windows took the focus off of them, as lovely and off-centered as they are. And it’s a way to use some of my wedding pictures, which I still love. How about you? And weird walls or windows you’ve had to work around?
November13th

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{DIY} Coffee Filter + Burlap

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I know that most of you have probably made a coffee filter wreath, or a burlap wreath already. I just made my first wreath– BUT I used both the coffee filters and burlap. It was crazy easy; the only casualty was my poor finger which got hot glue right on it. I had everything already in my house, so I didn’t buy a thing for it, well, at least not today.

You can see the wreath I worked with–just something I picked up from Dollar Tree a while ago. And I used the burlap, which I cut into squares and brown coffee filters (not pictured).

I alternated sections of the burlap and coffee filters. Wrapping the burlap around a pen and then hot gluing it into place. The coffee filters didn’t need to be wrapped as much, but I folded them almost accordion-style and fluffed them out once they were glued into place. I think it came together pretty well!

I haven’t done anything else outside, but I’m thinking of how I’m doing to add some Christmas cheer to it soon. But I’ll keep this little wreath around, even if it’s not on my front door. I love all the natural colors!