A Very Merry Christmas

~from our family to yours~

Thank you for allowing me to share this cozy corner of the web with you. This year has overwhelmed me the great gift of friendship. From those of you who have reached out virtually, to those whom I've had the pleasure of meeting face to face, you are all treasured and I am so grateful to know you.

Please enjoy these photos that some Chelsea's Garage friends have graciously shared of their beautiful homes decorated for Christmas!

What a welcoming entrance for this front foyer!

I'm kinda in love with this "Joy to the World" homemade burlap banner

It couldn't possibly get any cuter in the mudroom.

A sweet friend from college and her 6 month baby belly, (and her pom-pom wreath)! 
She's so stinkin' cute it's borderline unfair ;)

Another beautiful pom-pom wreath! Never would have thought of doing stripes. Love this!!!

What a wonderful way to display Christmas cards! Love that they're out in the open to be enjoyed throughout the season! (And I'm diggin' that pillow like Santa's mid-section with a belt buckle counting down the days until Christmas. Fun, fun!)

Look at these cutie-pies and their  hodgepodge Christmas trees! With a styrofoam cone, hot glue gun and silver metallic spray paint, the possibilities really are endless!

(I spy a...calculator?)

When a friend shared these trees she wrapped in a sweater and some twine, I knew this would be a fun idea for next year! Inspired by similar trees she noticed at Anthropologie, this little pair looks perfectly cozy in cable-nit.

Have a wonderful Christmas and New Years, dear friends. Wishing you a very blessed time with those you celebrate with and the gift of free, pure joy that we've been given as a result of Jesus' most divine birth.

Peace out until after New Years!

~Chelsea

This post was originally published under Chelsea's Garage, now affectionately known as StyleMutt.

~Brown paper packages tied up with strings~

...these are a few of my favorite things!

Hi friends! 

How are you doing? Not spreading yourselves too thin, I hope. This is a challenging time of year for those Type A perfectionists out there.  I'm not one of them. Not completely, at least. But a dash enough to know it can be exhausting trying to get everything 'just so' before Christmas.

Just try and remember that the joys and blessings of Christmas do not rest on your shoulders. In fact, they have nothing to do with how your home looks or what gifts are given. All this decorating and gift exchanging is simply a wonderfully fun way of putting an exclamation point on the reason at the forefront of our celebrating. :)

On that note, I was listening to 'My Favorite Things' the other week while watching the Sound of Music live with Carrie Underwood, (no one compares to Julie Andrews), and the lyrics struck me. Nothing on the favorite things list is all that spectacular, which reminded me of the impact that simple joys can have...

...which prompted my Christmas gift wrap this year!

Supplies:
Brown postal wrap
Teal and white string & Gold and white string
A rainbow of paint swatches collected from Home Depot, Lowes, and Benjamin Moore

The postal wrap, bought from Target for $6, is 4 or 5 times the size of a normal roll of wrapping paper. What a money saver! The string was less than $2 per spool and the paint swatches were free. After all the gifts are bought it's nice to save what you can on gift wrap!

But this simple gift wrap has a festively fun impact, don't ya think?

For each gift I wrapped it was fun to consider the person who would receive it and think about what color to use for them!

Pretty simple but I love the snaps of color with the paint swatch gift tags!

Enjoy your weekend, friends! On Monday I'll post the photos you've sent of your projects and homes decorated for Christmas, so if you feel up for sharing please email me your pics at chelseasgarage@gmail.com!

~Chelsea

This post was originally published under Chelsea's Garage, now affectionately known as StyleMutt.

One A Week {Star tree-topper}

Hi All! I don't know about you, but there is something about the holiday season that slows me down a bit. With all there is to do and prepare, I find myself taking my time with no particular rush. My little ones and I have thoroughly been enjoying some later mornings in our pjs, having picnic breakfasts on the floor of our basement while we watch Christmas movies, and then getting dressed with no particular agenda for the day and seeing where the wind blows us. I try to spend a few quiet moments with the Lord every morning before my kids wake up. Sometimes I just sit and look out the window and pray about things on my heart. Sometimes I crack open a devotional and/or read my Bible. Lately, I've enjoyed going through an advent devotional that started December 1 and goes until December 25. It was given to me and at first I wasn't so sure I'd get a whole lot from it; I thought it would just go slowly through the events leading to the birth of Jesus. But, there is less emphasis on how He was born, and more on why He was born. 

Joy. Pure, uninhibited, free joy. 

Jesus had to be born a human man in the flesh so that he could die with our sin. And, "if we do not need to fear our last and greatest enemy, death, then we do not need to fear anything. We can be free: free for joy, free for others." Pastor John Piper

I guess you could say joy is the root of my recent laziness. There is not a whole lot I feel like doing but bask in the gifts that God has lavished over my undeserving self. Four of them, in particular - my husband and our children. There is so much  that our kids are amazed over at this time of year, and all I find myself doing is sitting back and watching them with a renewed sense of amazement myself.

Today, I have an 'unplanned' One A Week Christmas DIY project to share. Early last week the star tree topper that my husband and I picked together for our first Christmas broke. It made me a little sad; it wasn't anything spectacular, but I have wonderful memories of our first Christmas together. Our first Christmas tree didn't have a lot of ornaments, but it had a bright, lit up star that we had picked out. For its replacement, I tried my hand at making a star tree-topper out of a wire shirt hanger. It was an easy project that my kids enjoyed watching and sharing input.

Supplies:
wire hanger
twine
floral wire

Step 1: Unwind the hook of the hanger

Step 2: Straighten your wire hanger out

Step 3: Bend five 'fingers' in the wire

 Step 4: Pull the 'fingers' around until your two ends meet, then wind the two ends together

Step 5: Tie an end of twine onto your star in a knot, then wrap the twine around the entire star, knotting again at the end

Step 6: Wrap some floral wire around an inset of the star a few times, then 'curl' it out, (the 'curl' will be where you slide it onto the top of your tree)

All finished!

So, the down side is that it's a bit hard to see against our white walls. But, it was a quick and easy replacement and gets the job done. At least for this year. :) 

If you are up for sharing, please send photos of any of these, (or your own), Christmas decorating projects! I'm going to post them all the week of Christmas!

Thank you so much for stopping by!

~Chelsea

This post was originally published under Chelsea's Garage, now affectionately known as StyleMutt.