My Pinterest-Inspired Christmas

Now that the actual Christmas holiday has passed, I thought I would share with you all my DIY Pinterest-Inspired Christmas stuff.

I already shared my fireplace decoration in this post, but I never got around to sharing my finished tree skirt or other things.

So, here is the inspiration for my tree skirt

courtesy of Do It Yourself Divas

and this is how mine ended up

It's not the best picture, and I just took this today, so it's kind of mushed up with tree needles on it from sitting under the tree and all the presents for the past week or so.

I have to say I am REALLY proud of myself. I went to the store and bought the muslin and burlap (with the help of my mom, since I don't know how to shop for fabric) and I did all cutting and sewing. I did break my sewing machine though... I either just bent the needle, or I broke the thing that the needle is attached to. Apparently I should have been using a stronger needle for the burlap. So I ended up hand stitching the last 3 rows of ruffles on. But anyways, back to my point.

I used old lace curtains that Chad and I didn't want to use that my mom left behind when she moved out, so that saved quite a bit of money. What I would recommend if you decide to do this project is to make sure that you maybe get extra fabric. I just used a random piece of fabric that my mom had laying around as my base, but the tutorial seems to want you to use one of your yards of muslin as your base (or at least that's how I interpreted it), but if i had done that I wouldn't have had enough for my ruffles. Also, depending on how intensely you ruffle your fabric, you may end up ruffling a lot and then not having enough to make it around your base where you are supposed to.

If I ever get the opportunity to be a housewife, I may look into making these and selling them at local craft fairs or on etsy or something because there are a LOT of different variations you can make. There were so many fun kinds of burlap and colors of muslin and whatnot that the possibilities are ENDLESS.

Another thing that I did this Christmas is be a bit more uniform with my wrapping

I used plain brown craft wrap, alphabet stamps, and then a variety of ribbons.

It's not the greatest picture, but I really liked that the stamps gave the gifts kind of a rustic look, and the craft paper made the presents match a bit even with the different kinds of ribbon I used.

Last but not least was something that kind of combined my tree skirt and gifts, and that was tags for my stockings.

I got some plaid stockings on clearance after last Christmas, but I needed someway to identify which one was for who. So I decided to experiment and this is what i ended up with

I took one of the salvaged strips of burlap left over from when I cut my wide strips for my tree skirt and then used my alphabet stamps to put names on them. Then I mod podged the edges, and used my yarn needle and some thin white satin ribbon to do big stitches a little bit in from the edge to give it a more finished look, as well as to have someway to tie them on.

So kids, those are my DIY Christmas projects that I completed this year. Hopefully I will be able to keep up with my crafty-ness this year as I get closer and closer to wedding time.