Welcome to Tumbleweed Tidings today!  Between my husband having a milestone birthday last week, followed byThanksgiving and hosting house guests for several nights, I haven’t been a very diligent blogger lately.  But stick with me, because for the next month, there will be something for everyone as Christmas approaches.  From hostess gifts and holiday decor, to recipes to host a special open house, I hope you will find some useful ideas to get you through this most blessed, albeit sometimes hectic, time of the year!

Back in 2009, our house was on the local children’s hospital guild Holiday Home Tour, meaning we had nine decorated trees and over 500 people passing through our house. It was so much fun to find creative, yet affordable, ways to make our house Home Tour worthy, and I enjoyed every minute of it.  For a few seasons after that, we continued to put up several of the trees and decor items, but as those of you who put up multiple trees regularly know, it can be a lot of work.

Over the years since then, we have slowly purged and donated many of the decorations and trees to charity and our church. Now we have two trees, some wreaths, and other decorations that are much more manageable for us.  Even with all of that purging, each year as the Christmas holiday approaches, I begin to think about any new items I want to add to our seasonal décor to keep it contemporary and fresh.  I also try to upcycle some older items with either new parts and pieces, or my old friend spray paint.

While many people may not know this about me, I love a good garage sale, and especially love browsing through Thrift Shops and the Goodwill. A few years ago, I found these JOY letters at a garage sale.  Joy is probably my favorite word to describe Christmas, and I have versions of it throughout my holiday décor.  Convinced I would hang these up every year, I bought them and promptly put them in a cupboard.  Every time I got them out to install them, I remembered why they didn’t work.  The holes in the backs weren’t in the proper location, so they hung all wonky.  Not wonky in a good way, but wonky in a bad way that made no sense.  So there they sat until the other day when inspiration struck.  If they were mounted onto a board with glue or nails, I could make them as straight or crooked as I wanted.  And, even better, this was the perfect chance to make them the colors that I wanted, and get rid of the drab country burgundy that dated them.

I found a perfect mounting board at our local craft store for $15 that looks a little like pallet material. I then sprayed the letters in the metallic palette I’m using in my dining room this year; white, silver and gold, with a little copper thrown in just for fun.  After they were dry, my husband used a nail gun to mount them to the board and voila!  What was old is new again, and I just love it.

The next project in my quest to update seasonal décor came in the form of several nice quality wooden trees I found last summer at a nearby garage sale. For some crazy reason, the woman was selling all of them for $1 or less each.  It might have been the hunter green color, but I don’t scare that easy!  I scooped them all up with high hopes of turning them into something dreamy, and marched back to my car.

First, I cleaned them and taped off the tree trunks and bases, as I liked the natural wood color. Then it was just a matter of spraying over that hunter green into something that would go with my metallic dining room theme, in shades of gold and silver. For the sake of full disclosure, my niece Audrey actually sprayed the trees for me while visiting for Thanksgiving.  Thanks, Audrey!

On the flat bottomed trees, I used sand paper to rough up the edges a little, and that was all.  The end result turned out really great, and the cost was minimal because I already had metallic spray paints on hand.

The last project I completed in my holiday décor reboot was to take pinecones from our yard and and add German glass glitter to them. Luckily, we have a couple of very large pine trees in our front yard, so I have a never ending supply of pinecones. (Now if I could only find a craft project that would use up those pesky pine needles!)  I placed the cones on waxed paper and painted the tips, one pinecone at a time, with glue using a paintbrush.

Then I sprinkled the glass glitter on them, shook off the excess and returned them to the waxed paper.  After letting them dry for an hour and they were ready to put into our holiday decor.

They look so festive in various arrangements around the house, and the glitter really reflects nicely with the candlelight so prevalent this time of year.  The pictures may not adequately portray how glass glitter sparkles like diamonds, compared to regular glitter.  If you can find the glass, it is worth the extra cost.  I purchased mine from one of my favorite bloggers, Miss Mustard Seed, but I do not know if it is still available.

I hope my “what’s old is new again” concept will inspire you to look at stale items in your stash that could be refreshed to follow the newest trends in holiday décor. And don’t underestimate garage sales and thrift shops as a great place to find items that can be transformed.  Sometimes all you need is a little imagination, some spray paint, and a little glitter to make it all sparkle.

Good tidings,

Diane