I apologize for such a very quiet last few weeks on the blog – we’ve been busy elsewhere. ;) No baby yet (praying he comes SOON!), but we’ve had lots of time cleaning, cooking, preparing, and spending time with AG and LB. Yesterday we did the bulk of our Christmas decorating, so it seemed appropriate to repost our “Christmas open house” that I had shared last year – especially for those of you who are newer readers!

I trust you had a blessed Thanksgiving with much to thank Him for – thrilled to begin the advent season and prepare our hearts for the second coming by reflecting on the first!

NP and I always enjoy having people in our home, but especially at Christmas.  I can’t wait to open our home to you, blogging friends!!

So, come on in and grab a mug of homemade hot chocolate, and we’ll start the tour!

I want you to prepare yourself for the shock… we have no big tree this year.

Lots of little trees, but no big one.

We were trying to simplify, yet focus on the meaning of Christmas in our decorating this year.  I hope that you are blessed and “feel at home!” :)

I found these wooden snowflakes for 4 for $1 at a local craft store, NP painted them, and strung them up with leftover ribbon from last year’s wrapping supplies.   I love this Immanuel sign, which I found on sale in the “bargain room” at P. Graham Dunn for $7.50.  I love that place.

I mentioned NP’s transformation of some styrofoam wreaths which he was suspending with fishing line above our armoir… it was fun to watch him experiment with this and I love how it turned out!!

Our mantle was our biggest undertaking this year – it has been months in the making between my names of God ornament musings, NP’s mad creativity, and another visit to P. Graham Dunn where we happened upon this awesome “Be still and know” piece during a 50% off sale.  Yes, please.

Remember my Thanksgiving banner? I had so much fun making that and enjoying having the Scripture on display in my house, so I decided to make a Christmas banner. I love that it is not a “typical” Christmas passage, but is so meaningful. [And that border is nativity toile! So cool!]

Here are some parting glimpses of Christmas throughout our house…

[I must say... I love our new stockings! We found them last February on clearance for $5.00 each at Pottery Barn - much better than the original $30 price tag!!] :)

May you have a blessed, meaningful, and worshipful Christmas this year!

God has come to dwell among us – what wondrous love is this?

If you’re doing Christmas shopping, would you like to win an ipod shuffle for $5? My friend Sandra, who blogs with me over at Scripture Dig and also at her own sites (Heart for Him, Celebrate Every Day, and Today’s Housewife) is raffling off an ipod shuffle for $5 – additional entries are only $1 each! All proceeds will support their adoption – help bring Joel home from Ethiopia to his forever family, and perhaps you’ll win a great Christmas gift in the process! :)

No deep thoughts to write today… they are floating around in my head, but my hands have been busy. My sewing machine and I have rekindled our relationship during the month of November! Starting with that pilgrim hat project and the pilgrim dress, we have plunged headlong into crafty wondrousness in anticipation of Thanksgiving.

I really love Thanksgiving and wanted to spruce up our decorations a little more with some nice things that I will enjoy pulling out for years to come. (Not that AG’s construction paper/feather turkey isn’t GREAT, but you know… we’re looking for classy.) :)

I started with this banner – I must say that I love how it turned out!!

I had seen an idea in Family Fun for making a glue batik banner. It looked easy and fun – so of course I made it more difficult. That’s the way I roll.

I wanted to paint the background of the muslin a darker brown, but didn’t have enough paint. We resorted to staining it with leftover coffee [grounds and all!]. My husband is brilliant! After we had finished step 2 of Family Fun’s project, we then went over all of the background area with strong coffee and let it dry.

It isn’t drastically darker but it did make it look more brown and weathered, which I like.

After I finished step 4 of the directions I ironed it flat, cut the edges more precisely, and then cut strips of 4″ wide fabric long enough for each side of the banner. Next, I just ironed everything, pinned the strips of fabric on, and sewed them with a 1″ seam allowance. Now I pressed the seams flat, and hemmed the outside edges with a 1″ seam allowance again.

To make the letters, I took a letter stencil we had and painted the letters on backwards with a sponge brush. I didn’t want the paint to show on the finished project, but this was way easier than trying to trace out all those letters with a marker or something on that dark felt.

I let AG help a little. Ie: long enough to take this picture. Mommy was having hard time sharing her project. ;)

After cutting out all the letters, I just glued them onto the banner with liquid stitch and then hot glued a dowel rod to the back to hang it from! Time consuming, but easy project considering how much I like the results!

I liked it so much that I started thinking about placemats!

We all trooped back to JoAnn fabrics (affectionately known as “the green store” at our house) and I got 3/4 yard of dark brown, 3/4 yard of heathered brown, and some pumpkiny orange thread and embroidery floss.

I cut the dark brown to the finished size I wanted using another placemat I had as a template, and then cut the heathered brown rectangles slightly smaller. Then, using my paint/stencil technique I stumbled onto with the banner letters, I painted leaf shapes onto my leftover medium brown felt (from the banner project) using a leaf template my husband drew. I covered the paper with packing tape so that the paint wouldn’t bleed through while I used it. Drawing the leaf was a bit of a pain, so if you want to make these, feel free to download our leaf pattern here.

After painting the leaves, I ironed on some two-sided heat-n-bond to the back and then cut them out. Then we adhered them to the heathered rectangles with the other part of the heat n’ bond, and then I hand stitched around the leaves with embroidery floss.

Yes, that was more work than I had anticipated. [Hence, no thought provoking blogging coming from here lately!!] :)

After the leaves were stitched on, I pinned the heathered rectangles onto the dark brown rectangles and stitched around the edge with my sewing machine. I don’t know how to describe these stitches… so – to make the edges look like this:

I used my machine’s D and G versions of the “SS stitches” – D around the heathered, G around the edge of the dark brown.

Now, I must say that I am not good at cutting out rectangles that are perfectly square and even. Just doesn’t happen. The stitches around the outside not only helped these look more finished, but they also helped camouflage my weird shaped placemats.

While sewing around the dark brown edge, I kept my presser foot lined up with the edge of my stitches around the heatered rectangle. Sometimes I was right on the edge of the fabric, sometimes I had almost an inch to spare. :| After I had stitched around the entire perimeter, I carefully snipped the edges even with the outside of my stitches, being cautious not to clip the threads. So, my rectangles might be a little wonky, but visually they look good since the width of the dark brown is even all the way around.

I have enjoyed having a home project to work on, and I love how the banner and placemats dress up the dining room for Thanksgiving.

And don’t they look stellar with my new fabric napkins my sister made me?

Hope you’re enjoying your Thanksgiving prep! God has blessed us abundantly – give thanks to Him and praise His name!

To see what others have been tackling, click over to Tackle it Tuesday at 5 Minutes for Mom!

My mother trained me well – the purpose of a fireplace is to have a mantle to decorate seasonally.

I have followed her advice to the best of my ability. :) I am also blessed with a husband who enjoys decorating with me, and who happens to be quite creative and talented. Changing out the decorations is something we love to do together.

Of course decorating for Christmas begins with the mantle:

I love to pare it down for simple spring and summer decorations:

And now fall has arrived. I love fall. The crisp mornings, the warm afternoons, the colors, the falling leaves, visits to orchards and pumpkin farms, the anticipation of Thanksgiving… not to mention apple cider and pumpkin whoopie pies. Oh, yes.

This weekend we welcomed fall with some autumn decor, starting with the mantle as always. :)

More festive additions:

And, of course, the front door:

Welcome, fall – we wait for you all year long. Come and stay a while, won’t you?

What do you do to Feather Your Nest for the changing season? Hop on over to the Fall Festival at Hoosier Homemade for more inspiration!

It’s “Things I Love Thursday!” This week I had to give you a peek into our new redone grown-up master bedroom… it’s not quite done being “accessorized” and we haven’t hung anything on the walls, but I couldn’t wait any longer to reveal our project!

I love having such a beautiful and relaxing space. The price doesn’t hurt, either – we’ve been collecting things and saving up for a few years now and found some fantastic bargains on furniture, fabric, paint… everything. The whole room ended up costing (including the furniture) less than $500. Take that, Trading Spaces! ;)

We bought the duvet cover a few years back and have been holding on to it until we could do the rest of the room – it was relief that we still love it a couple of years later! We found our dressers on ebay and paid $66 for them both – and picked them up from a nearby town so we had free shipping! :) This week we’ve been hunting for a chair and ottoman – NP uses our room for his quiet time in the morning before work, and there just wasn’t a good place for him to sit. I love this chair we found on clearance at TJ Maxx and ottoman on clearance at Target – who knew we would find a fabric that would go so well with the duvet!

It also doesn’t hurt to be married to a very talented husband. He made that headboard out of used bi fold doors he bought at our local Habitat for Humanity restore and added molding he bought at Home Depot! Doesn’t it look amazing? He even built a little bedside table for me just right for my book and glasses – the other bedside table isn’t done yet, so I’m not showing it to you!

My mom brought her trusty serger the last time they were in town and helped me serge up the fabric for the curtains and bed skirt. That fabric was a steal, too – decorator fabric for $4.50 a yard at JoAnn fabrics!

So, this is a BIG “Things I Love” edition – I really do love it, and am so thankful for a beautiful space to enjoy. We haven’t liked that the kids’ rooms have been done so cute, and ours was neglected. I think it makes a statement about the importance of our relationship and the centrality of our relationship to our home when we take the time to make our room reflect that love and attention.

You might want to hop on over to thediaperdiaries.net and check out the rest of the “Things I Love Thursday” posts – and she has a giveaway going on this week, too!