2015 homemade christmas ornament

now that i am working on our ornaments for this year, it seems an appropriate time to share the one that our family made last year.  

our ornament tradition is many years old now, and we have fun choosing and creating ornaments as a family to share with friends, teachers, neighbors, and family.  this little ribbon tree was made on a cinnamon stick so it both looked and  smelled delicious!

the inspiration for this tree came from here. 

 few things warm my soul more than a glowing christmas tree covered with family ornaments!

if you want a peek at our previous year's projects:

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

Stay tuned to see what we came up with this year ;)

#happyholidays

our homemade ornament tradition continues

we strayed a tad bit from our norm this year with our homemade holiday ornaments.

while they were all glass balls that we decorated with burlap, lace, twine and ribbon; each one was made unique.

this was a really fun family project, as my 3 year old enjoyed snipping the various cloths and stuffing them inside the balls.  daddy was a big fan of winding and wrapping on the outside, and i did lots of bow tying and label printing.

overall, i am very pleased with the finished product, and absolutely love the shabby-chic feel that they add to my christmas tree.  i kept three (so that we have a family one, and both hendrix and blaire will be able to have one of their own for their future tree someday.)

it seems like the number of ornaments that we make has grown each year....and with the fall being such a busy time of year for my photography business, it was imperative that we make an ornament that was relatively simple.

i think in this case, however, simple is nice ;)

for more crafty inspiration, check out our past baumgartner family ornaments!

2009 - felt wreath

2010 - handprint snowmen

2011 - wooden christmas trees

2012 - button wreaths

i absolutely love placing all the hand-made ornaments on my tree every year (both those that we have made, and those that have been made by our friends and family) and reflecting on all the fond memories associated with them.  

we have much to be thankful for!

rustic dining {diy furniture}

okay, so those of you who have been following our family story know that we moved to a new house a little over a month ago.  since then we have been trying to get unpacked and settled and make our new home feel like a cozy space.

the dining room is significantly larger than the one in our old home, and we felt that our dining room table and chairs set was kind of lost in the room.  after browsing around at new sets which cost way more than we wanted to spend with none of them achieving the look and overall feel we wanted, we decided to make our own.

why not?

we are ultimate do-it-yourselfers, and why should that change just because we have a new home?!?

so, i proudly present to you, our new dining room table and chairs set.

courtesy of my hubby's hard work,

and the combinations of our imaginations.

i like to think of it as rustic meets modern, which seems perfectly in place in our old, very traditional home ;)

the top surface is a rescued barn door (thanks to my dear friend for helping rescue it from the family farm down the street from her)

it got sanded down real good, with a nice thick top layer of epoxy to give it a smooth surface and shine.

the legs are sawhorses.  metal ones.  

oh and did i mention that they are yellow?  

they provide a very nice little color pop in the room.

we ordered the chairs online, and while the two end chairs are a bit of a luxurious shell chair - nice and roomy and comfy; 

the middle chairs are very minimal and sleek which helps us fit 10 chairs around it, with an additional two to add to the ends when we need to seat a large crowd.

i am so thrilled with how it turned out.

i am so glad that my hubby is game for trying my crazy ideas, and that he actually has the expertise to make it happen and make it happen the way i envisioned it.

we are ready for a dinner party....

come on over!

playroom art gallery

i finally finished up my last project for the playroom.  it has been something that i have been developing for a while, thanks to some inspiration from pinterest, but it just kept getting pushed to the back burner.

after hendrix's fabulous finger painting artwork the other day, i decided that we needed to make displaying his creations more of a priority and i just got the supplies and set off to work (with my little helper of course)

the frames are a random collection acquired from a combination of garage sales, good will, and one that i got from the 80% off clearance section at hobby lobby.  i wanted to have varying sizes and styles of frames to make it interesting.  i also picked up the ART letters for 99 cents each.

i did have to pick up one extra paint color, and i chose a spray paint can because i wanted something that would stick well to this frame that is made of some sort of plastic, not wood.  the other two colors i used were leftover from our previous projects in the playroom which i thought would help tie the whole project together. ;)

my helper really wanted to get messy and use the brush to help mommy.  

he was actually a pretty good helper, and he sure made the project more fun.  i thought it was fitting that he wanted to be involved.

i learned that painting on the grass is not probably the best route....as the grass got stuck on the frames, and i had to do extra coats to make it all nice and even.  and there are some big blue patches of grass in my yard now.  oopsies....

hubby was impressed when he came home to these sitting in our yard......i had talked about doing this project, but i don't think he knew how it would turn out.  he loves it!  

as soon as it dried he helped me hang it in our playroom.  and i was so excited to sift through the piles of artwork that i had filed away to find the perfect piece for each frame.  i love that the use of the alligator clips is going to make it so easy to change out the artwork regularly and keep it fresh and current!

it is great way to utilize a big wall and make it bright, colorful and personal!

i love that the playroom now finally looks complete.  

linking up with:

      

Hand-made Goodness

So I have been seeing this trend on facebook of people promising hand-made goodies to the first five people to comment on their messages.  While I have wanted so desperately to sign up on each one of them, I have thought long and hard about it and ended up not joining because I think I might have enough on my plate right now. :) 

This whole fad, however, reminded me of all the home-made Christmas presents that we worked so hard on this year, and I realized that I never posted the finished product of the ornaments that Hendrix made for his family and close friends. 

I must warn for anyone who is interested in a project like this, that the idea of playing in paint would probably appeal  more to an older child. :)  While the size of his little hand makes this ornament absolutely adorable......it was very difficult to get him to make perfect impressions without balling his little fist up.  In fact, Daddy had to go after us with a paintbrush and touch them up a little bit.

The little poem induced tears from his grandparents when they opened them, and I am glad that we choose to do something heartfelt.  I imagine we will see these on their trees for years to come. ;)