My goodness, it smells like sharp cinnamon, the tree is lit, and we're home together tonight, arm-dancing from the couch to the Nutcracker music. For instants like these, I'll beg for more snow.
Our cute (I say in all humility) tree enervated me, and I woke up with the intent to fill our space with tidings of joy in the material form. Silence, please, for the introduction of the newest show in town. Please welcome Home Makeover Holiday Edition: the 'Drews.
I'm not going to deny that I googled "Martha Stewart Christmas Crafts" and had angelic visions of an advent calendar made of baby socks and clothes pins, but there is no Costco here in which to buy 13 pairs of baby socks, and it seems all the children in this town wear designer socks. Needless, other inspirations replaced that one, mostly beginning with ribbons. The style we've allocated is rustic vintage. Roll with it. Honestly, my inner tacky alert wants me to tell you that, really, we aren't this crafty and our house really doesn't smell like moth-balls. But, there’s no denying our couch looked like this, and I did wipe glitter off the table.
But all the snipping and taping and holding ribbon spools up to the light gave us an incredible sense of DIY glory. For starters, when I say it smells like cinnamon, I mean every square centimeter of our flat is infused with actual bits of cinnamon dangling in the air. That's because I used a half a cup of cinnamon and some glue (and some of my horrible tasting applesauce, yes I did!) in my homemade ornament kick. Turns out, many of the ornaments broke in either the cookie-cutter stage, or the hole-punching-with-a-straw stage. Some hearty souls survived.
Ribbons were what initially furled us into our rustic vintage theme, starting with this crocheted beauty, seemingly straight from a general store's rough wooden shelves. Really, it came from a cardboard bin stuffed under gift bags, but it was on a wooden spool (love that word).
We added some rustic touches with rusted stars and pine-cones in the garland. There must be few things more loving than walking through sludge with your wife to craft stores, but Walker more than played along. He chose the ribbon, creating a Scottish-American fusion, and installed the whole thing with 3M hooks (ding!). He can design anything and make it look fab; reason 324 why he is perfect for me.
Ta-da! Living room decorations sorted (I know, this picture is just so natural and candid). Our rustic vintage look could only be complete with one small thing.
Warm old-fashioned gingerbread slathered with cream. Call us tacky or homemade, but the time we spent putting up our decorations was completely what being married should feel like. Bring on the projects, bring on the cinnamon-gritted couch, bring on both needing the scissors at the same time, bring on DIY decorating, bring on the Christmas cheers!
