Holiday Home – Blue Spruce Wreaths & Garland

Making wreaths & decorating for the holidays using greenery from the yard has become a major passion of mine in recent years. I like to try something different each year using what I have available outside or foraged and then I usually add one element that is bought – like Eucalyptus.

Here is a look at our Newmarket home decked out for the holidays in 2018 using Blue Spruce from our yard as the base.

This beautiful, mature Blue Spruce supplied greenery every year that I filled the house with – I can’t believe in our first year living here that I was buying boughs of pine when I had this readily available.

I save all pruning until November and December now so that I will have plenty of material for decorating. In the case of this tree, I actually found that it grew more small boughs thanks to all of the small cutting done each winter.

I also made a 15 foot garland using the Blue Spruce by wrapping it around our Christmas lights making it an easier job to create. This went over the garage door.

The base of the wreath is made on a wire frame and then I added some dried silver dollar Eucalyptus I’d saved from something else I’d made in the summer. The pinecones I collected with my kids when out on walks.

The picture frame moulding made the perfect display area to hang a sash that I sewed from some silk look material I had. Since we choose not to have a large Christmas tree I think I tend to over compensate with fresh wreaths and garlands!

A detail of this table trestle leg – have you seen what it looked like before in this Apartment Therapy feature? It was a big project to refinish the table but so worth it.

Here’s a glimpse at the front of the house with the garland. There is a post showing how this garage door looked before it was painted here.

There is a tutorial on making a fresh wreath like this one here. Also instructions on this shiplap wall can be found here.

How to Make a Fresh Holiday Wreath

This weekend I’m planning to start some of my holiday wreath making using the pine and boxwood that we have in our current yard. I started some clipping last weekend with this simple branch. The wreaths here were made with driftwood I collected in the summer and this fireplace got a paint update last year.

If you follow me on Instagram I have created a hashtag #shibangwreaths to catalogue some of my wreath projects over the years. There’s a lot that doesn’t make it to my blog but it is on my Instagram @shibangdesigns.

Happy decorating & foraging!

DIY Aged Terra Cotta Pots

Do you add more houseplants & flowers to your home this time of year?

Terra cotta pots are a classic & inexpensive option for plants but the ordinary colour isn’t my style. Doing a quick paint job adds that aged look.

Here’s a look at the before and after – which only took a couple of minutes and hardly needed any supplies.

Supplies:

• Terra Cotta Pot (from a home improvement store, dollar store)
• Paint Brush (any size or shape)
• White, Cream or Grey Paint ( I use my leftover house paint samples)
• Newspaper or scrap paper to dab paint

 

The trick to this look is using a dry brush technique. Dip the paintbrush into a tiny bit of paint, then dab most of the paint off onto the scrap paper. Apply the paint to one spot on the pot and then rub it with the brush and gently spread the paint outwards until no more paint is left. Continue these steps until the whole pot is covered.

Using very little paint is key.

Here they are finished and below is a pot I did a few years ago with white paint. This larger herb pot was left outside over a couple of summers too so that’s what added to the patina.

Well spring may be a few months away still but it feels more lively in here with extra plants & forced bulbs around. 

Thrift Store Farmhouse Table

Farmhouse tables with light wood and trestle or pedestal bases are my favourite style for dining and I was determined to make it work in our small kitchen and on a small budget. Many tables in the market aren’t narrow enough to fit our space so when I came across this one at a thrift store I knew it would work after a major refinishing job.

It took hours and hours of scraping and sanding until I was able to get it right down to the wood so that I could stain it a light driftwood grey.

For the pedestals I took an electric sander to get rid of all that varnish and gloss to reveal the solid wood below. I am not a perfectionist when it comes to furniture refinishing in our house because I’d rather get the job done and I know that it’s going to be subject to heavy use and abuse.

The next step is going to be constructing a banquette to go along wall which is why having a pedestal base was important to make it easy to get around the table.

You can also check out this table featured on Apartment Therapy.