Ornament Wreath

I had seen several variations of this ornament wreath all over blogland lately. I knew immediately that I wanted to try making one so I bought all the supplies. Then, one night this week after work when I was getting anxious about Alex's impending homecoming, I sat down and got to work.

First you have to hot glue all the ornament tops to the ornament balls. Some of my ornaments that I bought seemed pretty secure so I tried to skip this step....bad idea. The tops started popping off of the balls and that is not good. So, a word of wisdom: Don't be like me. Do this step. Or else you'll be doing your wreath all over again when the tops start popping off.

My thumb looks so fat in this picture...haha. And please excuse the really old, nasty looking hand-me-down-from-my-mom hot glue gun.

Then you take a wire hanger and form it into a circle. I forgot to take a picture of this step but see the link at the beginning of this post for one. FYI the circle doesn't have to be perfect....the process of putting on the ornaments will kind of mess up your circle anyway. The main reason behind doing this is to smooth out the wire in the hanger so that the ornaments will easily thread on.

Once you have the circle, untwist the hanger's hooky part {that's the technical term} and do your best to smooth out the kinks in the non-hanger end. You know what I mean, right? Right. This part required me to bust out my pink needlenose pliers...yes I really do have a set of pink tools and I loooovvvee them. They were a gift at one of our wedding showers so if you gave us the pink tools and you're reading this THANK YOU! :)

Anywho, just start threading the ornaments on! I had a bit of a hard time figuring out what pattern to thread the ornaments on so that it looked as perfect as the Eddie Ross version. I never figured it out but I basically alternated between a large ornament, medium ornament, small ornament, repeat. I think......I don't know. Just do what you want. :)

Keep threading ornaments on until you start getting close to the end of the circle. Keep pulling the two ends together to see when you have formed a nice, full circle of ornaments.


All I did to secure the circle back together was to bend the non-hanger end of the wire back into a sort of "hook" and then I just hooked it around the hanger end. Once again that probably makes no sense. But that's it! Then I just added some poorly tied ribbon "bows" and hung it.

As you can sort of see in the above photo, I left the hook part of the hanger in tact and used it to my advantage for hanging purposes.

It turned out a big more oblong than circular and it's CERTAINLY not perfect, but I still love it! :)

More Halloween Decor :)

Today the weather around here looks like this:

A.K.A. Pouring rain. The perfect day to do some overdue blogging! {And yes I just love looking out my front door at the house across the street with 50 bajillion cars parked in their driveway and in front. That's not even the full extent of it! There are like 3 more cars parked along the street to the right of where this photo stops and they are there all.the.time. Klassy!}

I know you've been anxiously awaiting more Halloween decor and your wish is my demand! Yesterday at the grocery store I picked up these two beauties for my front porch:

The punks in my neighborhood better not even THINK about touching my pumpkins!! I also replaced my Aggie football wreath with this:

{It's driving me NUTS that this sign is sitting off center but everytime I try to fix it it just gets screwed up again as soon as I close the door. Grr!}

When I bought my large pumpkins at the grocery store, I also bought some baby ones that I am in love with! I used some of them to spruce up my table setting:

Love the pop of the orange on the black and white background of the plates! Here's a view of the whole dining table:

Cute! {If I do say so myself} I have a confession about this table setting...it's just for looks! I had some of my very best girl friends over last night for dinner and they all complimented me on my table setting...except we ate off of paper plates in the living room instead of using it. Hehe! What a great hostess I am!

This is a ribbon garland that I made last year {inspired by this post at Your Homebased Mom}:

{Please excuse the ugly navy blue valance that was here when we moved in...it's on my list of things to replace. Oh and the BRIGHT yellow walls...they are actually much brighter than they look in this photo. Oh the life of a renter!} Here's a closeup of the ribbon garland:

It was super easy! All you do is buy a bunch of Halloween-colored ribbon, cut it into equal length pieces, and then start tying it onto a long piece of cording or rope.

Here's another homemade Halloween decoration that I made last year {inspired by that same post at Your Homebased Mom}.

Thanks, Angie for reminding me about this banner...I had actually kind of forgotten about it! Also super easy to make. I think I'm going to do a tutorial later on how to make this one so I'll leave you in suspense for right now! {Not that it's difficult to figure out on your own} :)

Here's a glass hurricane that I picked up from Goodwill, filled with coffee beans, and one of the mini-pumpkins found it's home on top.

And a couple more Halloween touches:

And just for kicks, a picture of my Libbers:

I'm thinking she needs a Halloween bandana or something to match the rest of the house! She's clashing! :)

Fall Decor on a Budget

Fall officially began a couple of days ago, which means I can now display my Fall decor proudly {without getting the side eye anymore since I've had most of it up for weeks already}. And in a miraculous turn of events, the weather here in Texas actually cooled off by about 40 degrees since the beginning of Fall this week. Sometimes I really do think God has a sense of humor....Like as if he said "Haha it's been 100+ degrees for months but the DAY Fall officially begins I'm gonna drop that sucker down 40 degrees!! That'll get their heads spinning!" Welp, thanks God. I'll take cooler weather, despite the fact that I think you're laughing at us up there.

Anyway, on to the Fall decor! I love decorating for holidays but I don't like to spend a lot of $$$ on it. There are some things you can do to save money on holiday decor.

Use items you already have. For example, in the above photo I decided to pull a Fall-colored cookbook from my collection to put on display. I just love the extra pop of Fall-ness that it gives my little nook on the kitchen counter.

I also pulled that glass vase off of a shelf in my closet where it had been sitting for months. It was actually one of those vases that you get when you receive a flower arrangement {not that I get many of those...love you hubby!} The filler in the vase I found at Tuesday Morning for cheap. I just love this little Fall nook now!

Buy holiday decor out of season. This is hard for me because I don't really get "in the mood" to buy holiday decor until it's the season but I try to still keep my eyes open for anything that's just too incredible of a deal to pass up.

I bought the above Fall leaves table runner {which I adore} on super sale from Crate & Barrel last December for {I think} around $10. The plate I bought for 50% off at Hobby Lobby and the candles I already had. Granted, the table decor definitely is a work in progress but I still like it a lot.

Shop for holiday decor at super cheap places, like the dollar store. I bought the strand of Fall leaves for $1 at the Dollar Tree. {And I'm thinking about going back and buying 4-5 more strands of them for the mantle, dining table. etc.} The pumpkins were gifts from people I think. I got the candle & little wreath {on the lower shelf} from Hobby Lobby on sale last year.

Finally, spread your holiday decor out throughout your house {kitchen, dining, & living room mostly}. Little pops of decor here and there are better than a ton of stuff piled in one place.

Now for a couple of Halloween items:

Dollar Tree find

Dollar Tree "Haunted House" sign & Trick or Treat sign bought from Hobby Lobby on sale.

Dollar Tree "Witches Way" sign