Different Trees for Different Folks!

Since all of my Christmas decor, ornaments, stockings, lights, etc were lost in our move (don't get me started, I'll cry...again) I've been cruising the Internet for some ideas to "start over" so to say with my holiday ideas.

Through pinterest.com, I found an awesome site for themed Christmas trees (which y'all know I have a soft spot for!) called trendytree.com.

Here are just a few of my favorites! All of the pictures below are via trendytree.com and I am, of course, taking no credit for them! I am just simply in love with them =)

Love them all! Love both the traditional red and green trees, and the less traditional color schemes! 

Different Trees for Different Folks!

Here is another absolutely fabulous tree that has stuck out in my mind since the day I saw it over a year ago on a friend's facebook page! It is a themed tree from my favorite Eric Carle book, "The hungry caterpillar." I could not be more in love with this tree!!

If you have read the book, you know that the little caterpillar eats his way through several different food items, which are all on the tree, so cute. And at the end, he turns into a beautiful butterfly.

Photo by Sarah-Jane, and perfect!!

Weiner Dogs on Wednesday

My sleepin' boys

Oscar boy is so dang cute in this picture I can hardly contain myself!!



Please excuse ugly wood paneling...that was when we were temporarily living in the mother-in-law's basement (which we are very grateful for!) but paneling is no good for anyone =)

Thrift store furniture

I LOVE a good thrift store find. It's always fun to find something that is already in good shape and "ready to use," but lets face it, that rarely happens now does it?

Most thrifty furniture lands at your local Goodwill, Salvation Army etc for a reason, because its old and crusty and someone doesn't want it any more right?

Imagination! That's the name of the game with these places! You have to see the potential in a piece and then convince your husband of that potential when he hassles you about why you've brought home yet another busted, crusty old desk, chair, bowl, shelf, you can fill in the blank here:________________.
(I have a dresser in my craft room with a drawer devoted to thrifty finds that have not yet met their potential and therefore must stay in the drawer until husband can see them,so that I don't get lip from him! ha ha. I does not matter if they cost 25 cents, he will get mad that they are junk!)

So, Imagination and Spray Paint! Those are the KEY ingredients here!

I wish I had some more pics to show you, but here are just a few. The rest are still out there reaching their potential. This first one is an AMAZING desk that my sister, Hannah did with a piece of junk desk she found for a few bucks on craigslist:

Gorgeous right? She spray painted the body of it with high gloss black paint and then the drawers with a turquoise color and replaced the knobs and wa-la! Then she stacked a bunch of crap on it so that I couldn't get a good picture. Meh.

And here is a little somehing I had posted about before, but its craptacular to fabulous!

Have a thrifty Tuesday!!



Giveaways!!

You simply MUST go out and checkout what is going on over at Flamingotoes.com!!
TONS of AMAZING black Friday giveaways that are STILL going on. HURRY HURRY HURRY!!

Different Trees for Different Folks!

I LOVE Christmas Trees!  I love the different ways that people decorate them to show off their different personalities! I personally have 3 trees, and since there was apparently a little mishap with our move, I don't know if I will be able to find all the pieces and parts to make them all go up this year (don't even get me started because I just might cry...I already have, a few times!)

I love traditional trees, and non-traditional trees, and theme trees, and non-sense trees, and trees for kids, and trees for charities etc etc etc. So you will see me posting different trees on here like a madman!! I' going to start with my baby sister, Hannah and her boyfriend, Joshua's tree because she emailed me a picture first! I could find a million pics online, but I like REAL pics from REAL people!!

Hannah is one of my favorite people, hands down, and Josh is a really close runner up! They compliment each other perfectly. They have a different sense of style and would NEVER settle for a "traditional" Christmas tree. Hannah loves peacocks, they remind her of her very best friend, Grace, who was killed in a car accident 2 years ago...so that's why there is a lot of those. The black and the Elvis are hints of Josh. I recognize some of those ornaments as childhood ornaments of Hannah's as well. I think this tree is perfect! I also love my Furry "nieces," Penny Lane and Sophie!

Party Decor

Since the hubs and I got married in Virginia, we decided to have a smallish reception here in Chi-Town to celebrate with his friends and relatives as well. We didn't have a huge budget to begin with for the wedding, so adding a 2nd celebration to the mix made it even tighter.

My wedding was in October, so it made my color choices really easy since it was outside. Chocolate brown, copper, and burgundy. But our reception was in March. I didn't really want to do the same colors, because I didn't think it went well with the season, but I also didn't want to do pastels or cheesy St. Patrick's day themes or anything like that.

Soooo...I stuck with the chocolate brown, and picked up apple green. I liked the color combination and it worked well for the space that we were in. I was able to get chocolate brown table clothes, plates, cups and silverware all at the Dollar Tree, which helped. Then I got Apple green and white polka-dot napkins at Target so that EVERYTHING wouldn't be brown.

Then I was able to have some fun! We had 4 main tables going down the room for people to sit and eat. (These people are German...parties are for eating!!) So in the center of each table, I got a large cylindrical vase from Ikea for $13 and filled them with Granny Smith apples.

Then, scattered throughout the other tables, and along the long tables, Kurt and his cousin, Todd used their drills to drill holes into the apples just big enough for a tea light candle and they looked so nice!! (Oh yes, and these little apples also caused an ER visit, some stitches and a tetnus shot for the hubs...oops!)

I also bought apple green goodie bags and filled them with treats for kiddos and tied them with a brown ribbon. We used the guest book from our wedding and handed out the left over BBQ sauce favors from our wedding in Virginia. The cake was from Costco...$16! Woo!

Hands down best part for me was that my "baby" sister, Hannah was here!! I took 3 days off from work after the reception and took her to the Chicago art gallery, the Sears tower, tons of shopping, and hanging out! I miss her like a fat kid misses pie!!

Oh yes, and that party WAS for Kurt and I, so here is one of me and him as well =)