As we were finishing the nursery, there was one element that I knew I wanted to add once the baby was here – the name in a banner across the crib, but of course back then, we didn’t know the gender, and we certainly didn’t have a name yet!

I took some scrap fabric in soft green and gray (the nursery wall is yellow), and printed the letters in regular paper, then traced and cut out on my fabric.  Pinned the 2 sides together and hand stitched all around, leaving a hole to fill in stuffing. Added a ribbon to tie it all together! Fairly simple, but took me awhile as my fabric was pretty soft, so it was a bit hard to maneuver.  If i was to re-do this project, i would add a Heat and Bond layer to stiffen up the fabric, and honestly just use a sewing machine!

Here it is hanging over the crib, and of course my little model!

For the first time ever, I have decided to decorate my house other than just the put up the Christmas Tree 3 days prior.  A lot of fun DIY projects, and cheap finds. Fairly happy with the results.  Think Christmas decor 2016 will have a good foundation to build on!

DIY Snowman from socks and rice…inspired by Pinterest

Upcycled Mirror painted and distressed

DIY sparkly and glittery pinecones from outside

Inspired to do more than put up a Christmas tree this year to decorate our house, I rolled up my sleeves and got right into a mix of DIY and cheap finds. It’s been a rolling process through the month of November, and the house is nearly done.  There will be an overall reveal by next week of all the little touches throughout the main floor of the house.  For now, I want to show one of the cutest DIY Christmas project this year – the DIY Mistletoe Ball.  Extremely simple, but need patience and the vision that it’s gonna be good when it’s done.  (trust me, there was doubts when I first started!)

Materials required:

2 strands of mistletoe garlands from Dollarama ($3 each)
1 styrofoam ball (already had)
Hot glue gun (already had)
wired ribbon of any width and about 3′ (already had)

For me, this project literally cost me $6 + tax – funny how the more you craft, the cheaper things get as you start accumulating a lot of spare stuff!

Start by yanking the little leaves out of the garland – at first I thought I would have to cut them off, but then quickly realizes it snaps off quite easily with a little pull.

with the glue gun, put a dab of glue at the ends and bottom of the twig and stick it to the styrofoam ball.  I started gluing it more horizontally at first, but as I did more, start layering it to lift up the previous leaf to give it more structure.  It gets easier as it gets fuller.  This was also the part where I started doubting if it would work out as it was rather sparse and hard to glue at this point.