Happy New Year Unless the Mayans Are Right

May you have the happiest of holidays and a rockin' New Year!

Hi gang! Blitzkrieg here. I hope you have a great New Year in 2012 unless the Mayans were right and It's The End of the World as We Know It (which is one of my favorite songs, by the way.) In that case, it's been nice knowing ya!

I Sorta Got Insulation for Christmas

Last year I asked Husband for garage insulation for Christmas  because I really want to get my garage workshop project moving after painting the walls Smurf Village blue. He thought I was being way too practical (again) and went in another direction.

I’ve been whimpering, or loudly whining and complaining if you want to believe (and you shouldn’t) the other member of my household, that I can’t spend quality time with my compound miter saw (last year’s Christmas gift) once the weather and garage grew cold.   

Lisa really likes this Pink Panther guy

Husband and I decided to bump this project up in priority on our (my) punch list. 

I did a bit of insulation research at the trifecta of home improvement stores (Lowes, Home Depot, and Menards) that are all so close to my house that I may never move for that fact alone. *happy sigh*

Here’s the wall insulation low down:

Make a Chainsaw Reindeer

Here’s a great idea if you have a bunch of tree branches and limbs cluttering your yard from a necessary trimming or a wicked storm – make a tree branch reindeer!  

 I like the little one best.

Floating Jedi Christmas Tree

Every single Christmas tree of my childhood was decorated with red glass balls and shiny gold tinsel garland. No deviation. At. All.

When I got out on my own I quickly changed that. Every Christmas tree I’ve ever had has been a collection of ornaments that coordinate but there was and is nary a shiny ball in the bunch.

Here’s the weird thing. I’m starting to jones for glass shiny ball ornaments.

When I saw not Martha’s take on shiny ball ornaments, I really wanted to run out and buy a set or seven.

Photo courtesy of notmartha.  

I Made a Gift Tag for Portland

I put a bird on it.

If you watch Portlandia you understand what I'm talking about. If you don't, watch the sketch below. Enjoy!


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Make Reusable Cloth Gift Bags

I usually like wrapping Christmas gifts. I have all sorts of tips and tricks to upcycle just about anything into gift-wrap, ribbon, and bows to make magazine worthy gift-wrap. My gift wrap turned art projects reduce waste while the receipt is none the wiser. All they see is a pretty package and that’s the way I like it.

I save the paper gift bags in our stash for Husband because he claims he’s not as good at wrapping gifts as I am. This may or may not be a spousal management issue on his part because it means I end up wrapping almost everything.

As our extended family has grown so large that it takes me days to wrap all of their gifts. After last year’s four night wrap a thon left me less than holiday cheerful (to put it mildly), I promised myself I was going to make wrapping gifts easier this Christmas.

With reusable cloth gift bags!

Made from sparkly recycled materials - for reals.

How to Make Lavender Sugar Scrub

It’s not all power tools with me. I have my girlie girl moments too. One of the ways I like to pamper myself is with a nice sugar scrub. When I found out that my favorite spendy sugar scrub was nothing more than olive oil and white sugar, I decided to make it myself.

I’ve been experimenting with sugar scrub recipes ever since.

Lavender Sugar Scrub makes a wonderful moisturizing exfoliatant!

Lavender Sugar Scrub Recipe

Winter Outdoor Living Spaces an Interview with HGTV’s Dan Berger

HGTV landscaping shows make me jealous of big backyards because my tiny place will not hold a big deck, fire pit, or a little grotto with waterfall. I have a thing for gazebos too. *Wistful sigh*

To compensate, I designed our front porch to be as inviting as possible.

Now that it’s fall going into winter, my perennials are gone and my yard looks a little sad. I wish I had an HGTV designer on speed dial to help me make the outside of my Midwestern home as inviting and usable in the fall and winter as it is during the spring and summer.

I recently given the opportunity to interview Garden Designer and HGTV.com contributor Dan Berger and ask him all my questions about transitioning my outdoor spaces for fall and winter. Dan’s work is gorgeous! He really knows his stuff when it comes to landscaping and garden design. Dan is the owner of LandPlan Landscaping. He has appeared on numerous episode of the HGTV show "Landscape Smart." Dan has also worked with This Old House and been featured in Sunset Magazine.  

Make Christmas Shimmer Placemats

I’m using the holidays as an excuse to bling up the two tonecloth placemats I made yesterday with a little shimma shimma pizzazz..

Green and glitzty!

It's also an excause to play with the Tulip Fashion Glitter Shimmer Transfer Sheets  and the Tulip Fashion Glitter Shimmer Fabric Paint I got from I Love To Create.

I shy away from glitter because it's a hot mess to work with and often sheds from a project. Fortunately neither of these things is true with Shimmer products I used for this project. I rubbed the designs with my finger after the paint dried and the glitter stayed put!

If you do not sew, you can dress up a set of purchased placemats following the same tutorial.

You can also use the Tulip Shimmer products to give new life to thrift store or past its prime duds you already have by artfully covering a worn or stained area with a design cut from the Tulip Shimmer sheets or camouflaged with the Shimmer paints.

How to Make Glitter Placemats

How to Make Two Tone Cloth Placemats

I want to replace my placemats for the holidays. Me being me, I figure why buy, when I can DIY? 

 Learn how to make a nosew and sew versions of my Christmas cloth napkins here.

This project will also help me in my New Year’s Resolution to use my fabric scraps for impromptu projects before buying new fabric.  I made a deal with myself that I cannot start on the sewing room/guest room/room where-furniture-goes-to-die remodel I want to do until I do something with all of the fabric and supplies I’ve been hanging on to for Someday.

Today is Someday.

Kisseo Ecard Giveaway!

I am horribly, epically bad about sending cards. Christmas, birthday, anniversary you name it, I’ve sent it belated.

I’d like to blame it on the ever climbing postage rates or trying to be more environmentally friendly but that would be a lie. The truth is I suck at sending paper cards.

Ecards I can do but recently stopped because some of my not so computer savvy family were using ecard sites that were really covers for malware and viruses. These days, I post a quick “Happy Birthday” status update on their Facebook wall. It gets the job done but its not very pretty or personal but at least its virus free.

I think I found my compromise, Kisseo eCards,  although truthfully I use the Kisseo eCard Facebook app  more because all of the people I send cards to (if I actually sent paper cards) are on Facebook.

16 Christmas Paper Crafts

The Crafterminds gals are at it again! First it is was Christmas paint crafts and gifts, now it is holiday paper crafts. I marvel at the ideas they come up with because paper crafts intimidate me. I'm much more comfortable getting creative with power tools than paper. What can I say? I gotta be me.

I'm running low on homemade paper gift tags and figured I'd give some of my friends paper crafts a try to jazz things up under our tree. I figured you might like to try them too. Enjoy!




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I Need More Bathrooms in My House

Hi my name is Lisa and I am a faucet junkie. I have no idea what type of cabinetry or countertops I want in my bathrooms because the faucets increasingly distract me.  Most likely, because it’s an easier design fix than ripping out cabinets and countertops.

It’s a good thing I’m still in savings mode for our future Master bathroom faucets because I have changed my mind about eighty bazillion times on what I want.

Make that eighty bazillion and one.

Jason Wu, who designed this showstopper of a dress for his last runway show that made me scream when I saw it on the live stream of his show (true confessions time. I like high fashion. I’m also into to Project Runway.)

I would sell a kidney for this dress.

Make a Painted Snowman Candle

I did a little Small Business Saturday shopping at the thrift store and came home with a round candle. With a little Green DIY Diva magic, I turned it into a painted snowman candle in less than an hour.

 Hiya Frosty!

I wiped the candle down with rubbing alcohol to allow the paint adhere to the candle.

Since this is a petroleum based candle, I'm not going to burn it. It is for decorative use only.

8 Plastic Free Artificial Christmas Trees

Christmas ornaments are my favorite part of the holiday! Every ornament on our tree tells a story. Some are handmade; others commemorate a trip or event. I always find myself staring at that tree of memories (not at the gifts under it) throughout the holiday season. It makes me smile.

Unfortunately, the yearly Green Christmas Tree Controversy does not make me smile. It makes me surly because it's a no win argument largely based on preference.

• Real trees are a fire hazard dripping in pesticides that might be better served living outside and photosynthesizing their little hearts out. 

• Fake trees can contain PVC and will never break down if chucked in a landfill. 

When it comes right down to it; neither a real tree nor a fake reusable tree is green because you are adding one more object that does not serve any real practical purpose to your house. That's how Grinchy this "controversy" makes me because one of my favorite parts of the holiday is our sentimental Christmas ornament collection.

While both types of trees have their good points and bad points, I don’t think having either type of Christmas tree in your house is like gathering around glowing plutonium. Although to be on the safe side, do not lick either type of Christmas tree cause, you know, possible pesticides or PVC.

To be even more truthy with you, I’m Team Fake Tree. I favor reusables over disposables, both Blitzkrieg and I have pollen allergies that make a real tree not so fun for us, and a fake tree allows me to break with Danish tradition and put my tree up right after Thanksgiving instead of on Christmas Eve.  

I realize many of you like the reusable aspect of an artificial Christmas tree but hate the thought of bringing new plastic into your home. I can help you out with that. I did untold hours of looking at Christmas decorations because I enjoy looking at Christmas decorations hard, hands on research to find a slew of  plastic free Christmas trees.
 
8 Plastic Free Reusable Christmas Trees 

Genuine Aluminum Christmas Tree - My little retro loving heart wants an aluminum Christmas tree like the one both sets of my grandparents had so bad. The only problem is you cannot put lights on it. If you do and there’s a short in your lights, the metal tree conducts electricity – zap! You just electrocuted Santa and shot straight to the top of The Naughty List.

 

Silver Iced Novelty Decorative Artificial Christmas Twig Tree - This tree might be more your speed if the thought of sorting and assembling all of the branches of a large aluminum tree crumbles your cookies, which is another reason why I don't have an aluminum Christmas tree. Boo.

 

This White Twig Christmas Tree - works well if the traditional pine tree isn’t your thing while still allowing you to hang ornaments from its metal branches.

Pewter Decorative Ornament Display Tree - screams Solstice to me I don’t know why. Maybe because it resembles the bare tree in my front yard.

 

Ornament Display Tree - allows you to put the focus on the ornaments and not the tree. I can see using one to display nothing but cherished kid created ornaments.
 

This 7 foot Gold Metal Tree - may be more your style if you want a full size ornament stand type of tree over the table top model.

Feather Tree and Stand If metal isn’t your thing, how about feathers?! For a more old timey Christmas you can’t beat this hand wrapped goose feather tree and iron tree stand. This tree begs for homemade ornaments!

If a Christmas tree and a Truffala tree had a baby it would be the Kurt S. Adler 4-Foot Shaggy Tree – Bring a little retro whimsy to your celebration with this funky bright green metallic tree. This kooky guy is my favorite of the bunch!

 

Once you made your choice, extend the life of your Christmas tree by:

• Shop mindfully for your preferred type of Christmas tree.

• Take care of it for as long as it is in your possession.

• Dispose of it mindfully

What type of tree do you have? Real or fake?

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I Organized My Office!

Clutter makes me cranky. Which made it easy to pick a project when Apartment Guide asked me to participate in their Holiday Home Organization Blogger Challenge.  I was sitting at it.

 Before: Clutter Central!

Apartment Guide gave me a budget of $150 dollars for my project. I spent a chunk of the budget on repainting and repairing a thrift store wood filing cabinet to replace the flimsy little guy in the office. Good call on that one because the drawer front snapped off when I opened the drawer on the old cabinet to clean it out for the last time. I can't tell you how happy I was when I chucked that baby into the city recycling bin!

After: Clean and Organized!

More Martha Stewart Christmas Paint Crafts Than I Can Count!

Hello friends! Have I got a treat for you!

Are you ready for a little holiday craft eye candy? Eye candy is the best type of candy, because it's nonfatting and won't rot your teeth. 

Santa (in the form of the UPS driver) delivered a slew of Martha Stewart craft paint, stencils, and supplies to  a bunch of my crafty and DIY bloggy friends too! I used my supplies to make a stenciled snowflake bottlecap bracelet. 

 

We've been Facebooking, Tweeting, Pinning, and sharing our crafty holiday projects amongst ourselves. Then Rhonda, one of the gals at Dollar Store Crafts gets smart and generous and creates a linky of our projects so we can share them with you!