Pinterest Wannabe

I've been trying to be somewhat crafty around it.  It's definitely cheaper to do it yourself than to go and buy something already made.  However, making an ornament topiary was more expensive to make and a headache to build.  Here's a look at some of my creations. I found that our porch was looking rather drab since we removed the whiskey barrel.  I found this shelf on clearance at Lowes, as well as the lantern.  The birdhouse, basket, pine cones, orange thing-a-ma-jigs and foliage was all on clearance at Michaels. My plan is to change out the decor for each season.  I painted the birdhouse and instead of putting a candle in the lantern I filled it with those pumpkin looking things and pine cones.  All in all I think I spent a max of $25 for the shelf and decor.

Now that fall is over, I pulled out the Christmas decorations and went to town figuring out what to put on our shelf!  Here's what I came up with.

Same bird house, same lantern (with dollar store ornaments inside), dollar store garland, foam cubes, wrapping paper, and ribbon.  Now that top piece...UGH!!!! It took me 2 trips to the store and I bet cost over $20 to make.  We decided that we needed to somehow tie it down so it wouldn't fall over since the shelf isn't too solid.  I even handpainted it and put lovely little swirls on it.  Elijah dropped it and the pot broke and ornaments went flying.  I should have realized then that it was a bad idea.  Bought a second pot and just glued a ribbon around it.  Along comes lovely NM weather and even with 2 huge pavers holding down the shelf our tornado like winds knocked the entire shelving unit over and again breaking my topiary.  Over it!!! I told Elijah I never want to see it again!  I'm sure I could have just reglued the ornaments back on, but I didn't want to anymore.  So now the pot is there with some garland sort of crap and the topiary went in the trash. At least I got a picture, right??
Here's a couple more pictures of some things we have done to make it feel a bit more Christmasy around here!

This is also homemade.  I like how simple it is.

Our jewel toned Christmas tree

Dining room table decor.