Christmas Around the House

I'm back again!  You get a double dose of ALO today. Remember the faux mantel I talked about here. Well, I finally got it decorated this weekend. 

I painted this sign with stencils from Scrapping Along Craft Stencils.  It's painted on an extra piece of the barnwood from my great grandmother's.

Hand print and footprint of my 3 year old from a couple years ago.  I hot glued a small grapevine wreath around it- so cute!  Reminds me just how fast he's grown.

Sheet music mod podge is all over the blogs this Christmas and I love it so had to give it a shot.  I started with a paper mache tree from Hob Lob and Mod Podged some tea stained Christmas sheet music. (I need to do something about the brown at the bottom :) )  You can get free sheet music online.  I chose White Christmas and I'll be Home for Christmas, in case you were wondering.  These are the family favorites.  The little sled came from Kroger of all places.  It was just laying there begging for me to take it home.  I paid more than I care to admit, but I loved it so much that I had to have it.

I debated a long time whether I should replace the picture with a wreath, but I really love the picture and what it represents that I just couldn't do it.  See this picture is of a very special place.  The picture was taken of Hindostan Falls in southern Indiana.  They sit on the White River.  They aren't huge falls by any means, but when I was little, my grandfather, who passed away last September, took me there almost every weekend.  There is a huge flat rock that juts out into the river and gives you this perfect view of the falls.  We used to go and collect shells and admire the falls.  He always took me fishing, but we never fished from here for some reason.  Lots of people did, but we always went to a nearby lake.  I suppose this is where I fell in love with waterfalls. 

My parents found this picture in a local photography shop and gave it to me for my birthday in October.  It was meant to be because they just happened to be walking along and saw this picture in the window.  There was only a couple of weeks between my grandfather's passing and my birthday and they found this just a couple days before my birthday.  I think my grandfather had a hand in it!

So that's the story of this picture.  Christmas is all about family and since he is no longer with us in person, he is always with me when I look at this picture.

 Now onto the kitchen:

A little garland and red berry garland I picked up at Hob Lob this weekend and an old Christmas Oreo tin.  It's from the 1990's.  I have 4 of them.  This is my favorite because its of a grandpa reading a Christmas story to his grandkids.

The staircase:

 Just some garland that I tied a bunch of silver ornaments to it.

In the Living Room:

Another sheet music mod podge tree I made this weekend. (Ignore the red paint glaring at you from the upper corner.  We will be putting up some trim one of these days.)

I'm linking to the these parties:

Go on over and check out all of the beautiful decorating.