Children as art

My new light fixture, all dressed up, ready for a party!

I didn't go crazy this week. I got the mantel and dining room (all but) finished last night. The best part is all of the boxes are put away now.

My challenge was to finish without making yet another trip to Michael's. Technically I was successful, I did have to grab a couple of 2 for $1 candlesticks at Walgreens and I printed the pictures. Amazingly I had a five dollar bill to cover the costs of the pictures and the candlesticks.

The Before....


The After.....



CLOSE-UPs
Most of the "art" hanging in my house is pictures of my kids. I thought the garland needed something more so I stuck in these sepia prints from our Christmas photo shoot. (we call it low-cost/no-cost in the biz. $3.13 still counts as low-cost in a recession right?).




And did I tell you about my personal problem? I have no capacity to remember all of the Christmas things I buy, namely at the day after Christmas sale.

Stocking Surplus: Last year I didn't have a stocking for Keith. I couldn't find one that I liked and he didn't know the difference. Everyone who came by our house commented on the lack of a stocking for the baby. I kind of had a complex about it. So unbeknown to the Me of Christmas Present, the Me of Christmas Past bought these cute stockings on sale at Target. The Me of Christmas Present ordered the stockings featured on the mantel (Personal Creations, love it!) when they were 40% off plus free shipping this fall. This was one of the things that seriously slowed down the Christmas decorating. I was frustrated with myself and I had to figure out what to do with the extras. I put them on the wall by the staircase, hoping that toddler hands would be less likely to grab them there. Then I also had to buy two new sets of stocking hangers (not low-cost or no-cost). We're living with these stockings for awhile. No new kids any time soon. Or they have to sign a no new stocking contract when they are born.

The Nutcracker Mistake: The Me of Christmas Past also had the foresight to stockpile some Nutcrackers. Before last year I had never owned a Nutcracker but Patrick has a Nutcracker Passion. Last year I told him he could get a new nutcracker every year. Present Time Me forgot about the Nutcracker stockpile. What was one of the first things Patrick found? The Stockpiled Nutcrackers that were supposed to get doled out across at least two years. To top that off he had already picked out his yearly Nutcracker at Home Goods at Halloween time. The yearly Nutcracker went missing (but not forgotten, I am not completely hopeless) so he had the two new Nutcrackers. I finally found the HomeGoods nutcracker when we were decorating last night. Four total, his goal is an even ten.





I can't put a tablecloth on my table (and I have a ton of Christmas tablecloths) because Keith will pull it off. Otherwise you would see the whole dining room instead of me intentionally editing the table out. Also, my light isn't quite finished. I have a few more pieces to put on it. I was conducting this decorating with Patrick and Keith standing on the table. Keith was pretending that the ornaments were tether balls. Just for going through that gauntlet I think I deserve a little round of applause.

Oh and I shopped for mantels, I knew it was an insane idea. Expensive and 8 inch shelf depth....and unfinished.... Maybe someone will come up with a low-cost/no-cost solution for extending my mantel shelf!