Probably my favorite decoration is the nativity set that I made 40 years ago. I hand painted each one. One of the wise men has a chip in it from when our 18-month old son at the time grabbed it and ran through the house with it. Of course he fell with it and that is how the chip happened. The most important thing is that our son was not hurt. The chip is a cherished memory.
See the big chip out of the base of the wise man? I didn't want to fix the chip as I wanted the memory. I hide it well when I set it up.
I set the nativity set on one of our tables. I have always used angel hair and some plastic "hay". I arrange it around the different statues. I add a string of 50 white lights and that is our nativity set.
I always try to come up with something different every year in the decorating department. Last year I saw one similar to this on a Christmas ad on television and then created my own.
I bought the Christmas bulbs at Walmart and attached thread to each one and then attached each thread to a large paper clip. I then opened the paper clip to "hook" over the parts of the chandelier. As you can see each bulb is a different length so the bulbs hang at different levels. I love it and have received a lot of compliments. Just be careful when you take it down and pack it away. When I took it out this year, I had to untangle several of them. And I took care in storing them away so they would not tangle! It's those little gremlins that went in and tangled them up!
This year I saw another idea on Pinterest (did I tell you that I am addicted to Pinterest?). I have seen several ideas of putting Christmas bulbs in a glass container. I have seen bulbs in vases, wine glasses, etc. I had a glass vase that I used for this centerpiece. I went to the local dollar store and bought four tubes of Christmas bulbs. Some had 12 medium sized bulbs in them and others had 15 small bulbs. I bought two tubes of red bulbs, one tube of green bulbs and one tube of red, green and gold bulbs. I put the red bulbs of both sizes in the glass vase. It was pretty, but I wasn't satisfied with it. I wanted something more. I had this red plastic plate that I bought last year from Walmart. So what I ended up doing was putting the glass vase full of the red bulbs on the red plate. Still, I wasn't satisfied. So after thinking on it for a while, I took the bulbs that I had left and just put them around the vase on top of the plate. Here is the result.
It is the centerpiece on our coffee table in the living room. So for about $6 (not including the vase as I don't remember the cost of the vase), we have a nice Christmas decoration.
I would love to see and hear some decorating ideas you have. Leave me a comment below.
And remember, if you are looking for a unusual gift this Christmas, please visit my web site www.giftbagsnmore.com and pick from several selections.
Thank you for stopping by.....................
As Always,
Marilyn
Loving all your decor! How awesome that you painted the nativity set yourself!
ReplyDeleteI finally finished putting all my things up yesterday. I'll probably post them all Wednesday, so come check it out then! :)
Yes, I did over several weeks, but that is one of my pride and joys. I still can't believe that I painted them all myself. My teacher of the class did the eyes for me. I did everything else.
ReplyDeleteI will stop by and check your blog out on Wednesday. Thank you so much for your nice comment. :)
Love the nativity set! Our guys and girls with special needs paint a similar one, but they leave it all white. It's very pretty. I'm impressed that you got so much detail on yours! That's hard work!
ReplyDeleteI hung some Christmas ornaments from some light fixtures last year like you did, but I did not take care when putting them away and this year it was a jumbled mess! Not to mention that Joshua tried to unpack them for me and made the situation worse :) so needless to say they are still a jumbled mess and won't go up this year! Everything looks great!
Dana, I did those when Scott was 5 years old. He used to go with me. I doubt he remembers it. I loved doing it. I would love to see the ones your guys and girls do. And I tell you, the gremlins messed your ornaments up like they did ours. Joshua just finished the job! Bless his heart! Thank you so much for the comment.
ReplyDeleteLove your decor!! Yes, that nativity set is AWESOME!!! The detail, great job!! We hang ornaments from our light fixtures as well, but not like THAT! Holy cow love it!
ReplyDeleteKristine from The Foley Fam {unedited} Blog
Thank you, Kristine. Glad you like it all!
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