Welcome to Tumbleweed Tidings. I am so very glad you are here! Before I jump into today’s post about my Christmas wreaths, I want to digress for just a moment and talk about creative slumps. Usually, I am bursting with decorating ideas and am planning projects two or three in advance and always trying to find new ways to use our decorations in new and interesting ways. But not this year. This year, I am lethargic, uninspired and lacking my usual holiday zeal. The other day, I actually went to look at the pictures from last year in hopes of just copying what I had done before. I haven’t experienced a decorating slump like this for a while, but it feels like what I imagine a “writer’s block” to be like for an author. And though I’m not sure why it has happened, I have my theories.

First, we just underwent two renovation projects in the past few weeks; replacing our kitchen countertops with new quartz, and putting hardwoods in the living room to match the rest of the house. While neither of these projects was majorly intrusive, there was a fair amount of preparation and cleanup. In addition to that, I’ve also been finishing up the fall semester at WSU and going through final projects, presentations, and tests. It has been a little tiring, to say the least.

To get my creative juices flowing again, I decided to take a break from inside decorating and make two new wreaths for our front and back doors. A trip to Hobby Lobby, paired with items I already had on hand, made the job easy. The first step was to make the bows. I had some rustic ribbon with deer on it purchased from Costco, and I paired that with some gold metallic ribbon to provide a rustic-glitzy contrast…one of my favorites.

Then it was just a matter of hot gluing the cute cardboard deer and holiday picks onto the wreath. I also filled in with some pinecones from the yard, and some Christmas ornaments I already had.

My husband installed a cute dragonfly hook from Lowes on the door to replace the metal screw that had been there before, making it much more stable to hang wreaths on all year round. We also flipped our Welcome sign over to the reverse side that says Cheers. Finally, time to hang the wreaths on the doors, take a step back, and admire my handiwork:)

Making the wreaths really gave my creativity just the kickstart it needed, and I was able to finish the rest of the house decorating with my normal Christmas enthusiasm. In case you are curious, after getting all of the pieces for half off, the total cost for the two wreaths was $42 or just $21 each!

If you find yourself in a decorating slump, here are some ideas I learned that that might help you power through it. Look at magazines, Pinterest, or other blogs for inspiration, and then head to your decorating stash or the nearest craft store and make or buy something new. As you can see from this wreath making exercise, it doesn’t have to be expensive or time-consuming. If all of that fails, go buy a new pillow. In my experience, a new pillow can cure almost anything!!

Good tidings,

Diane