My holiday home decor

Well it's that time of year to send out Christmas cards. I love the little birds and how the red ornaments match the red ornaments on my tree. I found these at Wal-Mart.
These are the ornaments I found at Home Depot about three years ago. Still love them.


I use this little door hanger as my tree topper. He is so cute. I also found him at Home Depot.
The tree skirt is red velvet and so soft. Yet again I found it at Home Depot.


I have an artificial pre-lit tree. I got it at Home Depot as well. We've had it for three years and the lights are still going strong. I know some people complain about pre-lit trees because the lights go out and they can't fix them. I figure if that happens, I'll just wrap new lights around the tree and leave the pre-wired lights on the branches unlit.
Here is my red and silver theme.
These are some better pictures of my Pottery Barn ornaments in a glass hurricane.


The real reason for the season. :)
The tree all put together and the lights off.

With the lights on.


Hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas this year. As you can tell this is one of my favorite decorating seasons.

Candy Cane inspired necklace

K, I think you all know by now that I have an obsession with candy inspired jewelry. Don't you just want to eat this candy cane necklace.

I love Christmas Stockings

Source: etsy.com via Michelle on Pinterest

Next step to Christmas decorating

I found this burlap wreath on Etsy about a month ago. Of course, it has already sold it is that cute. But I love burlap and I love Christmas colors so put the two together and you get this wonderfully textured wreath.

Some fun Wal-Mart Christmas decor

It seems I spend a lot of time at Wal-Mart. Small town living is conducive to Wal-Mart being THE place to hang out. I snapped a few pics with my cell phone camera of some things that caught my eye. I am loving purple and turquoise blue to decorate for the holidays. And I can never look at too many tree skirts. I love the variety they had.

Let's start the decorating with a treeskirt

Well, I still haven't gotten my tree up but I'll get to it eventually. I leave my tree up until March so there really is no hurry. I found this beautiful tree skirt on Etsy the other day. Oh I would love to have such a beautiful tree skirt but it has already sold. Happy for the seller but sad for me.

I'll be doing some more Etsy features during the month of December. I haven't been doing my daily Etsy finds and I miss doing them. Life is just getting in the way.

It's beginning to look a little like Christmas

Here are the Pottery Barn balls that I have a major thing for this year. I did the purple and gold arrangement for my home and the red and silver arrangement for my mom. Right now I'm in the process of rearranging my office so we can fit the Christmas tree into it. I'm not going to post pics of that chaos right now. Maybe when I get it a little more under control. Oh the things we do in the name of decorating.

It's that cozy time of year

These are the things that get me through those cccold winter months. Give me some good reading material, that warm cozy fire, and let's not forget my favorite new crocheted slippers that I got for my birthday and I'm good to go. I'm starting to think about Christmas decorating. I have to decide on a place to put the tree. I can never stick to the same place. I like to shake things up constantly. I just ordered these silver Pottery Barn ornaments to help with my decorating efforts. I got red, gold, and purple ones last year for half off. They were out of silver during their after Christmas sale so I jumped on them this year at full price. It's a shame you can't score everything on sale. I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving and all the family get togethers I will be attending this week. Let the holiday season begin!

My fun JC Penney find

I love finding a good shopping deal on ANYTHING. I love the thrill of saving money. I just discovered the JC Penney rewards program and I got this little green shirt for $3. Originally it was $22. I wore it with my black jacket that I have had for years and years that I bought somewhere in San Diego. I have racked my brain for the store name but it has been too long and I can't remember. I remember it was about $20 though. Being a missionary for my church I couldn't afford much more than that. I found the skirt for around $15 at Gen-X clothing. The boots were about $40 from Chadwicks. I think I bought them off season on sale. I love shopping off season to save money as well. Things will still be in style in 6 months is my opinion on the matter. (Please excuse the no makeup look, I was up way too early in the morning on my way to church. Remember I am a night owl.)

Turtle Pumpkin Pie

If you are one of my Facebook friends you heard me talking about getting a hankering to make a pumpkin pie back in August. I ended up making this one and loved it. I don't know where this recipe came from. It must have come in the mail from my Realtor. Now that it is pumpkin pie season I thought I would share the recipe.

1/4 cup plus 2 Tbsp. caramel ice cream topping, divided
1 HONEY MAID Graham Pie Crust (6 oz.) or you can make your own
1/2 cup plus 2 Tbsp. chopped PLANTERS Pecans, divided
2 pkg. (3.4 oz. each) JELL-O Vanilla Flavor Instant Pudding
1 cup cold milk
1 cup canned pumpkin
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
1 tub (8 oz.) COOL WHIP Whipped Topping, thawed, divided

Pour 1/4 cup caramel topping into crust; sprinkle with 1/2 cup nuts.

Beat dry pudding mixes, milk, pumpkin and spices with whisk until well blended. Stir in 1-1/2 cups COOL WHIP; spoon into crust.

Refrigerate 1 hour. Top with remaining COOL WHIP, caramel topping and nuts just before serving.

This is a simple recipe for anyone. Especially for one who hates to set foot in the kitchen like me. :)

A Trench Coat to die for

Coat (see more trench coats)

I found this trench coat on Pinterest the other day and just about fell out of my chair, it was that cute. And I almost had a heart attack when I saw the price tag of $465. I have also just discovered the website Polyvore. It's like Pinterest but it's mainly all about the clothes. All of you fashionistas out there should check it out. Beware it is just as addicting as Pinterest.

Has anyone noticed that I have been blogging more? Yep, as the weather gets colder my desire to blog gets stronger. The correlation has not escaped me. I figure I better not move to some place warm like San Diego or else you would never hear from me.

Clark bars all around

These cute crocheted slippers were one of my birthday presents. They are so warm and cozy. I wore them around the house all day and put them on a shelf overnight. In the morning, I put my feet inside and found a small "friend" had taken up residence inside and also agreed that they were very warm and cozy. Yep... I felt a spider crawling on my toe while wearing these this morning. To say I had a royal fit is an understatement. My husband slayed the spider and now I'm wearing them again. Take that you nasty spider. These are my slippers not yours!


I went hiking up to a place called Silver Lake and found a patch of snow on the ground. Here comes winter ready or not. It reminds me of the song by The Bangles "Hazy Shade Of Winter". Classic song from my youth. :)
Here is Silver Lake.
Then it was time to decorate a door at my parent's church for a Halloween Carnival they were having. I had fun with the spider web and the foam cut outs. And if you look close you will see another little "friend" has found its way into my life.


Enjoy all of the Trick-or-Treaters this year. My husband just bought a whole bunch of "Clark" bars to give out. He feels compelled to give these out to all of the kids. He is very proud to have a candy bar named after himself. :)

A few songs that get the creative juices flowing

I am a music junkie. I'm willing to admit that I have a problem. I'll even make it official, "Hi, my name is Michelle and I am a music addict." Isn't that the first step in getting help? I'm loving "Good Feeling" right now by Flo Rida. I'm also liking "Called Out in the Dark" by Snow Patrol.

I have another little problem. I don't like music videos much. 99 out of 100 times they ruin the song for me. I like putting my own visuals to the music I listen to. So if you're like me, find these two songs on Itunes and just listen to them instead of watching the videos. Although, I do have to admit I like the "Called Out in the Dark" video. It is very smart and clever.

I find that music like this gets the creative process started and helps my creativity immensely. So get that music going and get creatin'!

My sister's wreath

My sister finally got her wreath on her door. I was the culprit behind the delay since I procrastinated gluing it all together for months. Working with dried materials is a very delicate process. I'm used to silk flowers that don't disintegrate in your fingers. But I finally have all of my wreath projects done now. It feels weird not having a wreath waiting to be worked on in my craft room.

More Halloween Projects

Well I finally got all of my Fall wreaths completed. I will be posting pics soon of my sister's dried roses wreath hanging on her door. My mom now wants me to decorate a door for a Halloween carnival they are having at their church. I spent the day at Hobby Lobby and Michael's (my two favorite stores of all time) picking out black butcher paper, ghost and jack-o-lantern foam cut outs and of course cotton spider web with the requisite spiders to live in it.

To spur the creative process I spent most of the day lounging on the deck soaking in the beautiful weather. I watched jets fly over and loved watching the smoke trail they leave behind. I saved a chipmunk that lives in a tree in the backyard from a neighborhood cat who wanted it for dinner. The poor chipmunk was just trying to bulk up for winter by eating all of the food in the bird feeder hanging in the neighbor's tree. I wandered through the garden looking at the last fruits of the season ready to be picked this week before it freezes.

I will also post pics of the Halloween door once I get it done. Time for the Halloween party season to begin.

Fall Decorating

Here is my attempt at Fall decorating. Now I just have to remember which ones are real and which ones are fake. Happy Fall everyone.

My Fun Anniversary Gifts

My husband and I just celebrated our tenth anniversary in August. He knows that instead of an expensive trip, new clothes, or an expensive dinner out I would rather splurge on home decor. Here are the fun things I got to decorate my house with for our 10th.

The pillows and shower curtain came from T.J. Maxx. The rugs and towels came from J.C. Penney. All of this came to just under $200 plus I joined the J.C. Penney rewards program for free and got a $10 gift certificate sent to me in the mail. I went back and got matching wash cloths for $2. J.C. Penney has some amazing sales and the prices at T.J. Maxx are always phenomenal.