fresh cranberry wreath (aka dumbest idea ever!)

It really was the dumbest. project. ever.

My fingers still hurt. It took hours.

But here it is, in all of it's glory. Behold:

The Fresh Cranberry Wreath.

My insanity started when I saw the Target version last weekend in the Smith & Hawken section. It was bout $40. It was gorgeous, but I said "Oh, I can so make that... and I can do it cheaper!" and my hubby said "I like cheaper, you run with that!" So I did.

I did do it cheaper, my version cost about $15. But I don't know that it was really worth it.

Because he loves me, and he's really the best hubby ever, he sat at the kitchen counter with me for an hour and a half last night breaking the toothpicks and poking the cranberries for me. We made ourselves a nice little assembly line. I'm pretty sure he saved me hours! It was fun to sit and talk while we worked, but I kept stopping to complain. The toothpicks kept popping through and poking my thumb and index fingers. They throbbed when we were finished.

I started this project in the afternoon, stopped for dinner, continued after my little boys where in bed and didn't finish until about 12:45 AM. Stupid insanity. Next time I'll shell out the $39 and go to bed early. :) I'm serious, this probably took a year off my life.




It does look like I wanted it to, though, and it is really pretty. I like it better today than I did last night.

If you've got time to waste and you like stupid craft projects, here's the run down on what I did...

Get yourself lots and lots of cranberries. I used 5-6 bags. I found them for $1.50 at Wal Mart. They were about $3 at my Smiths, so look around for a good price. I spread them out on a towel to help them dry a little, I had a little help. :)
All you need is a bunch of toothpicks, break them in half and poke the cranberry through the broken end, put a dob of hot glue on the end and stick it into a foam wreath. I spray painted mine black (red would be better, but I didn't have red) just so the green foam wouldn't jump out and draw your eye in. You can't really see it in most places, the black just looks like shadow.

So it's break, poke, glue, stick in foam, REPEAT. :)


And about a half hour in you'll wonder why you didn't just spend $40 and buy one at Target.

I'm going to try and save it so it's not just a one year deal, we were thinking last night that if we let it dry out just a little bit and spray it with a nice coat of poly that it should help the cranberries keep their shape instead of shriveling up. I'll let you know if that works.

Happy wreath making buying!

Our Christmas Tree

I'm back! I know it's been a while since I've really posted anything, I've had a very sick little boy. He was nearly hospitalized over Thanksgiving, he's had pneumonia and a few other yuckies, but he's doing much better. It's nice to have him healing and have life back to "normal", it was crazy there for a while!

I'm excited to share our Christmas Tree this year, we've added a few more fun ornaments, each year we add a new picture of our boys in a little ornament frame. We added more colors to the tree this year. We kind of had to. A few years of toddlers running around really took a toll on my ornaments.


So on Monday, the boys and I went to Target and purchased a new star (ours was cute, but it wouldn't stay on anymore. We fought with it for weeks last year.) I chose this little vintage looking beauty...


And we added some more bright and colorful ornaments in mostly red, green, blue and orange, but there are a few other colors in there too.




Our yearly picture ornaments look right at home with all of the fun bright colors. I even found some cute little clothespin children with fun little hats and sweaters in bright colors. The boys helped pick the ornaments, they both liked the glittery snowflakes.

I took these pictures while Carter was at school, and Owen really enjoyed "helping" me out. He kept asking "did ya get a picsha of this one?" and pointing to each ornament he could reach. :)

My husband and I were married in Nov of 2004, our colors where a rusty orange and a bold red. That first year as newlyweds I had a ton of red and orange ribbons left over, so we used them on our first tree. Every year after that I added to my orange and red theme.
As our boys came along, we added a silver booty with their name engraved on the bottom for each boy, and each year we've added a new photo frame ornament with a recent picture. I noticed last year that our tree was sure looking naked.

We knew we needed more ornaments, and rather than buy all orange and red again, we decided that we don't want a matchy tree now that we have our little fellas and they're getting old enough to make ornaments, we want to include their homemade ornaments year after year, and with that, we decided to add more colors to the tree.

We went from pulled together and coordinated to bright and colorful and a little crazy. I was nervous about it, but I like the change, it's been fun!

But mostly I just like that we'll add to this year after year and have a tree full of our kids art work and our colorful memories.


Merry Christmas!

Next up:
The Mantel!