This past week has been a busy one of decorating for us! Decorating is something I really enjoy as it gives me a chance to be creative and also to do fun activities with my children.
Much of our decorations are handmade. Except for the Christmas lights that Ken uses outside, I don't think I have ever bought anything to use for Christmas decorating. We simply use things that we have on hand or can find in nature. That of course keeps things very frugal (which I like) but also it encourages creativity.
One of our recent projects was candles making. This is our third time to make candles and we decided to try something new: striped candles!
To make candles we simply use old candles that have burnt down to far, or gotten yucky in some way as well as any other wax we can find around the house. I wrote a post with more details here.
To make striped candles (which I didn't explain in previous posts) you simply put in layers of wax one color at a time letting it harden in between. For the tilting stripes you prop your "mold" (like salt boxes) at an angle. Stand it up flat when you do your very last layer.
We also cleaned out some of our old candle holders and filled them with new candles.
Little canning jars are perfect containers for candles as well.
I had seen a neat idea in the Martha Stuart magazine for adding a snowy look to candles. Above Mara is putting modge podge on the outside and then we rolled it in Epson Salts. The finished look was like this:
Candles are fun for decorating your own house with. Our family thinks they are pretty essential at Christmas time. Candles also make neat gifts. If you have old candles and such laying around at your house you might find that they are very economical gifts as well. I will warn you, this is a bit of a messy projects but if you enjoy that sort of thing like we do than you might find it to be very fun! 
Today's project was a new wreath for our front door. I thought it would be fun to make one that I could leave up all winter and the picture above was the result. We think it is rather fun!
Materials used were:
~Grapevine which I shaped into a wreath (given to me by a friend).
~Greenery (which I was able to gather after some trees had been cut down on our church property).
~Pinecones which I painted the tips white on and then dipped in Epson Salts so they looked "snowy".
~A white ribbon for a bow.
~ Old white tights for the snowman body
~ Some little old white t-shirts to stuff the snowman.
~An old sock (with a little piece of ribbon) for the snowman's hat.
~Black buttons for eyes and buttons.
~Felt for nose, mittens and scarf.
~Sticks for arms and a backbone.
~Glue gun to stick it all together.
Now it is your turn! Please join me and share your handmade ideas!
To link up~
~Write a post about anything you are doing that is handmade for Christmas. (Gifts, decorations, food, etc.).
~In that post please link back to here.
~Then using MckLinky, add your link to the list. Please make sure it is linking to your specific post (not just your blog).
~Then have fun following the links to see others' great ideas!
