DIY Decor & Crafts

Pier-fect: Pier 1 Holiday Decorating

Published on December 7, 2010 by Our Humble Abode12 Comments

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Pier 1 Imports. All opinions are 100% mine.

I should start off by saying that I was thrilled when I was contacted by Pier 1 to write a post about holiday decorating featuring items from their stores. I initially thought I would peruse the Pier 1 Website, pick out my favorite holiday items and that would be all. Later, I was informed I would receive a gift card to do a little shopping. Then, the bad news came; I wouldn’t be getting the $50.00 gift card after all. The good news? I would get a $100.00 gift card instead! Holy cow! Almost immediately, I decided to focus my holiday entertaining primarily on Christmas decorating.

My requirements: 1. Get the best deals possible. Hello, clearance! 2. Buy items that flow seamlessly from Christmas to year round decor. You know that I hate storing unnecessary stuff, so I tried to keep Christmas specific items to a minimum. 3. Try to get decorations for the most-visible-by-guests-areas: outside, living room, dining room and guest room. 4. Stick to my color scheme of silver, white, blue and green. With my goals in mind and gift card in hand, Everett and I took a little (2 hour) shopping trip to our local Pier 1. Before I show you what we returned home with, I’ll show you some items I loved that didn’t fit all requirements. First up, these cute owl and bird salt and pepper shakers. Cheap? Yes. Cute? Check, but my other requirements weren’t there. I also loved so many of the Pier 1 dishes and drinkware, like these beautiful silver stemware glasses. I don’t have much in the way of kitchen storage, nor do we do much fancy entertaining, so I took only a few items home with me from that department. If you didn’t know this already, Pier 1 has such a fantastic candle and candle holder selection. This angel tealight holder is beautiful, but doesn’t transition easily from Christmas to year-round. These ornament candle holders are really cute, but red wasn’t in my palette. I know I’m really picky, but are you ready to see what did make the cut? I’m sure you are, I won’t keep you waiting any longer. Yep, all of this for $101.98! Sa-weet! I decided to splurge on two items because they were perfect for Christmas, but also year round. Splurge number 1: this mercury glass pillar holder. It was $22.00, but it’s timeless and says, “Look at me. Here I am, love me.” You CARS fans should know that one. Splurge number 2: the beautiful silver leaf bird tray for $29.95 Ain’t she a beaut? (as the Australians would say). It spoke to me: “Take me home! I fit ALL of your requirements!” So, I listened. I love the generous size, bird design and the splash of silver. Perfect for Christmas and beyond. Here’s a breakdown of everything else I walked out of Pier 1 with:

6 metallic gold place mats for $.98 each

1 metallic silver charger for $4.00

1 glittered golden Christmas tree decoration for $4.95

1 small silver candle lantern $4.98

1 large silver candle lantern for $10.48

1 short glass pillar candle holder for $3.88

1 golden bird ornament for $4.95

1 nest ornament for $2.95

2 small leaf bowls for $.98 each

2 golden star ornaments for $1.00 each

4 jingle bell ornaments for $1.00 each

Now, let’s continue to the decorating, shall we. First, let’s visit our doorstep. My one-heck-of-a-deal clearance candle lanterns are accompanied by a few evergreen branches, faux snow (Epsom salt, a trick I learned from Better Homes and Gardens) filled drinking glasses turned tea lights. Yes, I know my candle lanterns are missing the candles. Forgive me. A silver ball ornament wreath, inspired by this one from Pier 1, hangs on our door to greet guests. Nothing says “Christmas” like silver glitter. We don’t have a mantle to decorate, so I treated our entertainment center as if it were. Here’s what it looked like BCD (Before Christmas Decorations): And here is our entertainment center now, decked out in glitz and glitter: The books, picture frames, magazine file, monogram ceramic balls (from a previous Pier 1 trip) and some candle holders stayed. To infuse Christmas cheer, more glass and silver candle holders, including the Pier 1 mercury glass pillar holder, were added along with glittered snowflakes, my Pier 1 glittered Christmas tree and silhouette ornaments. Don’t fret, I’ll provide more details in later posts. Along with our Christmas tree, decorating the entertainment center completed the holiday decorating in our living room. To decorate another guest visible room, our dining room, I hung our stockings from hooks hidden behind the quarter round moulding. The silver charger and golden star ornament turned napkin ring add some sparkle to our everyday dinnerware. The mercury glass candle holder, glittered Christmas tree and apothecary jar filled with monogram ceramic balls at the center of the table add height, texture, and Christmas cheer to the tablescape. This centerpiece arrangement is rounded out by the golden bird and nest, to add layers of height. Here’s another tablescape option I whipped up using assorted silver toned candle holders, my Pier 1 clearance gold metallic placemats and jingle bell ornaments as napkin rings. Two things that could make this setting better? Metallic gold salad plates, like these, to replace the blue ones and a few brass or gold candle holders to bring the gold throughout the arrangement. I kept the decorations in the guest room simple and functional with the pretty silver leaf tray topped with a few guest essentials and a special treat. A white IKEA planter contains travel-sized guest essentials such as toothpaste, soap, and a washcloth. A Christmas-y reindeer print in a silver frame and votive holder turned vase add sparkle without competing with the silver leaf pattern. Another faux snow filled candle and the Pier 1 small leaf dish filled with M&Ms round out the tray. The items are strategically placed to show off the most of the beautiful pattern possible. Want to know what else is on my Pier 1 wish list? Here are a few more of my favorites:

Silver Paper Star Lantern

White Snowflake Pillow

Short Gold Tumblers

Silver Mosaic Reindeer Decor

Green Bird Plate

Circles Citron Pillow

Ruffle Pillow

2010 Gifting: Silhouette Art

Published on December 6, 2010December 6, 2010 by Our Humble Abode6 Comments

Raise your hands if you love silhouettes as much as I do. No, I’m not talking about the Silhouette cutting machine; I don’t have one, but would love to. Personalized art and silhouettes are great, heartfelt gifts for parents, grandparents, friends and family members.

If you like the idea and look, but don’t know how to make one, read carefully, I’m giving you a step by step tutorial.

First, prevent your small child from moving all over. Use food as a distraction to get a clear, complete profile picture, such as this:

Then, open said photo in Photoshop or another editing program. Closely crop the photo around your subject and resize the photo to fit your frame.

In Photoshop, add a new layer and name it Silhouette. Select the pencil or paintbrush and set the size to 5 pixels. Carefully outline the profile.

Here’s a tip: To get a nice, clean outline, hold the Shift button down and click closely in rounded areas. This will prevent your cursor from going crazy, following your very unsteady hand. If you don’t have an option to outline the profile, simply print the photo to the right size and skip to the cutting.

Once you’ve outlined your subject, click on the background photo again. Add a new layer and fill with white, or simply hide the photo and print on normal printer paper.

Carefully cut the silhouette out, keeping as close to the lines as possible.

Then, place the cut silhouette on your final cardstock, facing the opposite direction you want the final design to be. With a pencil, trace on the back of the black (or whatever color cardstock you want). Carefully cut out again, rounding the bottom.

You now have a custom silhouette, ready to adhere to a background cardstock and pop in a frame. Or, you could skip the second round of cutting and trace the silhouette on a painted 8 inch by 10 inch canvas and carefully fill in the silhouette with paint. For Mother’s Day, my two sisters and I make 6 8 inch by 10 inch canvas silhouettes with one profile each of us girls, Ben, Vincent and Everett. My mom loved them.

If you don’t have the time or tools to make your own silhouettes, send us your profile pictures and for only $5.00 we’ll make a digital cut out design for you. For more personalized gift ideas, visit our Etsy shop or e-mail us at ourhumbleabowed@gmail.com to discuss your options.

Oh, Deer

Published on December 3, 2010December 4, 2010 by Our Humble Abode3 Comments

Here’s a Christmas craft project that is great to get the kids involved in. To start, you’ll need a package of clothespins, all purpose glue, small oogly eyes, mini pom poms and thin ribbon.

To make the reindeer ornaments, start by gluing two clothespins together with a loop of ribbon between. These two clothespins make the legs.

Then, glue another clothespin to the front, turning it the opposite direction, making the head and antlers.

Apply a small dot of glue to the tip of the clothespin and place a red, brown or black pom pom. Glue two eyes at the curved area . Flip over and glue another white or brown pom pom tail on.

Allow everything to dry overnight and hang on the tree. Sorry, but I don’t have a photo of that last step, these are all gifts. Have you made any Christmas ornaments lately? What are your favorites? If you have pics, please leave them on our Facebook page for all to see.

Have a Ball

Published on December 2, 2010October 9, 2012 by Our Humble Abode12 Comments

Are you ready for another Christmas craft project? You are? Good, I’ve got just the craft for you, a Christmas ball ornament wreath. To start, you’ll need to acquire a roll of floral wire, a wire wreath form, tons of cheap plastic ball ornaments and a sheet or two of felt to match your color palette. It also helps to have a glue gun and plenty of glue sticks handy.

I got a large form from Hobby Lobby for $3.47 and nine packages of ornaments from Target’s dollar section. I chose all silver to keep it timeless and go with any color palette in the years to follow. Seriously, the best deal I’ve found. Get an assortment of sizes, too. I used 2 1/2 packages of the small (16 per pack), 5 of the medium (8 per pack) and 1 large with 4 per pack.

After you gather your supplies, start by cutting a piece of wire about two feet in length. For this part of the process, use only the two large sizes. String the wire through the top of the ornament. Wrap the wire around the wire form and twist the loose end to secure. Then, wrap the long end through another section of the wreath form, go back up and add another ball. Basically, you’ll make a zig zag pattern with the wire to connect the ornaments on a few long wires.

The zig zag will help keep the ornaments in place. They will still move around a little. This is where the glue gun comes in. Place a few little dots of hot glue where the ornaments meet and allow to dry. This step is most easily done in small sections. I don’t recommend waiting until you’ve attached all ornaments to glue.

Continue attaching the ornaments until you’ve covered the wreath form. You will have spots where the wreath form is still visible, just as I did with the pine cone wreath I recently made. If you have visible areas on the very inside or outside of the wreath, wire small ornaments in place, gluing to keep from moving.

Then, hot glue the smallest ornaments onto the larger ornaments to fill any areas you can see through those ornaments.

Again, continue until you’ve covered all areas. If you want to add a splash of color, you can add a bright bow, hang an ornament in the center of the wreath or choose a brightly colored ribbon to hang the wreath from. The possibilities are endless.

To prevent from scratching the surface the wreath will rest against, hot glue small pieces of felt to the back or the wreath form.

Hang on your door to add a ton of Christmas cheer and greet your guests.

Still looking for Christmas decorating ideas? Fret not, we’ll share another DIY idea tomorrow, but you can check out our Christmas tree in the mean time.

Holiday Gift Sets Now Avaliable

Published on December 1, 2010 by Our Humble Abode2 Comments

Happy holidays! We’ve made gift giving simple over at Our Humble A{Bowe}d by adding a print and stationery set to our shop. Now, you can purchase your favorite print and coordinating set of stationery for a friend, family member or yourself.

Choose your favorite print from our shop selection and we’ll customize it, which is always free of charge, and we’ll alter the print to a stationery card size.

If a custom art piece doesn’t fit your need, (I don’t know how it couldn’t) here are a few items I think would make great gifts. Recently, I discovered Uncommon Goods. It’s a great online shop with unique gift ideas such as a Grandfather Clock Slice. I love the modern take on such a classic.

Or this cute Eye Clock for a child’s room. So adorable!

I really love this Chalkboard Vase, too, though I think a DIY version could be equally great.

Uncommon Goods also has a series of beautiful hand embroidered state pillows.

Seeing anything that tickled your fancy? What is the best or worst gift you’ve received and why? I love giving and receiving hand made or personalized items rather than big box store things. It’s much more meaningful and shows you’ve put some thought into the gift.