Countdown to Christmas

Only 13 days and counting until Santa brings a sleigh full of goodies!  Every year I have great intentions of having all of my holiday shopping finished by the first of December, but I usually have 1 or 2 that I'm scrambling to finish the week before Christmas.  I've seen tons of organizing ideas on Pinterest and in blog land that I WILL do next year.

Anyway, on to the real purpose of my post today.  I am so excited about it!  I have been searching for a nice advent or Christmas countdown for awhile.  We are so busy this time of year travelling since our family lives so far away, the reality of getting to do a daily activity are grand, but not practical.  We do the Christmas tradition (2 years now) of reading a Christmas book every night beginning December 1. 

With my kids being 1 and 4, I get the constant question of "When does Santa come?".  So using the powers of Pinterest, I found this really cool countdown and decided to put my own spin on it.

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Unfortunately, I didn't get any in process pictures.  I was just trying to get it done and see if it would turn out anywhere close to what I had in my head. :)
I am very lucky to have a stockpile of old barn wood from my great grandmother's.  So I began with a small piece.  Then I cut the words in vinyl with my Silhoutte and put them directly on the wood.  I was going for an old, worn look.  Then just painted over the words.

Once dry, I removed the words and rubbed Valspar Antiquing Glaze over the entire piece and sanded to further enhance the old, worn look.

For the numbers, I looked everywhere for inexpensive metal numbers like my inspiration piece, but didn't have any luck, so I found a package of numbers used for mailboxes at Wal-Mart for $7.  Of course, the stark white numbers didn't work for me, so I rubbed the Antiquing Glaze over them and added some glitter.
To make the countdown easy for daily updates, I just attached some eye hooks to the back and tied jute to the numbers.  I did add some small washers I had laying around to keep the strings from being pulled through the eye hook.

All done and I absolutely LOVE it!  A holiday countdown for years to come.

Santa's Cookies

I finally received my Silhouette on Monday and have been spending the past few nights just playing.  I have used this machine more in the past 3 days than I've used my Cricut in 2 years!  The Silhouette is so stinkin' cool!  If you don't have one, I am recommending you put it on your Christmas or birthday list.

My three year old asks me every night if we can make the cookies for Santa.  In my efforts to try to buy some more time, I made this:

Not Picasso, but I think it's cute for my first attempt at vinyl.

I am so excited for Christmas this year with my little guy!

I'm linking up to these parties:

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.

O Christmas Tree

This weekend was quite busy (just like every weekend around here).  Saturday we had our family pictures taken for Christmas.  It snowed so driving anywhere was a little more time consuming.

Sunday was a busy decorating day here at the ALO house.  We finally got the tree up.  Our three year old was super excited and jumped up and down the entire time the husband and I put the tree together and fluffed.  He had so much fun decorating the tree this year.  Most of the ornaments have ended up on the bottom half of the tree, but I love it!

My little helper.

Notice the train track on the bottom.  It's my little helper's Thomas train.  This track is over 4 1/2 feet!  It takes up most of the open living room floor.  This is one of the primary reasons we don't have a coffee table.  He has a toy room just around the corner, but the toys always end up in the living room.

I love the look of a perfectly color coordinated tree, but I live in the real world with kids.  I think my tree is just beautiful and is filled with memories.  Every ornament on the tree is one from my childhood, my husband's childhood or gifts for the kids.  We have a tradition in my family where every year St. Nick brings a new ornament for every member of the family.  Needless to say we have our share of cartoon inspired ornaments!

This is our main Christmas tree and typically our only Christmas tree, but this year we are starting a new tradition.  We just finished remodeling our basement so this year we bought a real tree that we're going to put in the basement.  Now this tree is even more special because he will be planted in the yard come Spring.  Maybe I can decorate this tree in perfectly coordinated ornaments.  I'll post pictures once we have a chance to get the basement cleaned up again.

Christmas Vignette

Well, I haven't been able to get my faux mantel completed yet.  I was trying to have finished so I could link up to Layla's Christmas Mantel linky party, but it just hasn't happened.  I WILL be decorating it and will post soon after, so check back.

Okay, now for my Christmas vignette.

This is the hutch that is in our living room.  I bought the hutch several years ago for a steal.  My uncle works for a furniture manufacturer in my hometown and they had a friends and family sale where they had TONS of furniture available because of minor scratches, dings or in the case of this hutch- a damaged box.  Crazy!  There was nothing wrong with this gorgeous piece of furniture.

Anyway, I always enjoy decorating it for the seasons. Here's a closer look:

This Santa picture was made by my grandfather several years ago.  I absolutely love it.  He passed away last year so it was a little bittersweet when I pulled it out of the Christmas box this year.  I still miss him terribly.  Okay, happy thoughts! :)

The glass bowl is my husband's grandmother's and I filled it with ornaments.  All of the ornaments were bought after Christmas in years past.  I use them EVERYWHERE!  The shot glass is from college and went with my red, white and silver theme and on top sits a baseball from my little brother's first home run.  Yeah, he gave ME the ball.  We are tight like that! :)

The rusty star candle holder was a gift I got in high school from a friend.  The Santa was from my sister-in-law.  The plate is from a local shop, I just love it.  The dolphins were a gift from my husband that he gave me back in high school.  It has nothing to do with Christmas, but I love dolphins and I liked how it tied in with the rustic-ness of this vignette.  And lastly, we have my IU snowman.  Again, another gift.

Everything from here was free also, all gifts.  The snowflake in the back came from Wal-Mart during an after Christmas sale.

Another Wal-Mart snowflake.  The beer stein is my husband's that he got in Germany.  I filled it with some icicle garland.  They stay in the hutch year round, I just fill with seasonal items.  The Santa snow globe was a gift too.

This is the top of the hutch.  The garland with the deer was made by my mother-in-law.  We always have deer in our back yard and my husband is an avid hunter, so it fits perfectly in our house!  The pottery is from Pottery Barn, but I bought it on clearance several months ago.  It was like $25 and it's huge.

Well, that's a little peek at my Christmas-fied hutch.  I'm linking up to Rhoda's Christmas Vignette party over at Southern Hospitality.  Such great ideas, be sure to check them out!

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

I officially started Christmas decorating last week.  Silly me decided to drag everything out of the attic the night before we left to visit family for Thanksgiving.  (Couldn't help it, I was in the Christmas spirit!) I've been a little late in posting the pictures because we didn't get back until last night.

So without further adieu, I present to you the beginnings of Christmas in the ALO house:

In my curio cabinet.  I will post more as I complete it.

This is a little area above the entry closet.

Outside (yes, I know the pumpkins and straw bale are still there!)

Inside the front door.

So that's a little taste of the Christmas decorating that's begun!

Christmas Faux Mantel- Sneak Peek

Yes, I know it's not even Thanksgiving and I'm already talking Christmas.  Well, I already have my Christmas decorations up outside.  I took advantage of the beautiful weather a couple weekends ago and put some of the garland up outside (I'll post pics later).

Anyway, I wanted to give you a little peek at my faux mantel.  We don't have a fireplace, but we do have this ledge as you walk downstairs to our basement.  It will be perfect to treat as a mantel. My wonderful hubby finished planing a piece of barn wood and staining it this weekend.  The wood isn't secured yet, but once he does, I'm all over decorating it! 

Isn't this barn wood gorgeous?  This was FREE!  It came from my great grandmother's farm.  And the picture, well there is a very special story behind it that I'll share later.

All for now!

PS- I'm entering the Silhouette giveaway at Tatertots and Jello.  Wish me luck! There are so many projects I have planned that could definitely utilize this little guy. You can find out all about it here: http://tatertotsandjello.blogspot.com/2010/11/just-in-time-for-christmas-silhouette.html