Christmas Tour 2019

I honestly can't even believe it's time to start talking about Christmas decor...

much less already have it up, photographed and ready to share. 

I can't believe tomorrow marks the beginning of December. 

But I have been soaking up the glorious feeling of having the house decorated and being able to enjoy the lights, the colors and the fun Christmas memories already happening. 

We finished shopping this past week and, for once, I don't have a huge 'to do' list in the upcoming weeks leading to Christmas. 

And I am so ok with that. 

If you are new here, one of my big ventures this past year has been really digging into product photography and I have had the crazy pleasure of meeting and working with so many amazing shop owners. When taking pictures of Christmas this year, I realized how many amazing pieces are from some of these gorgeous shops. I'll share the love below in case you'd like to snag a few pieces yourself as well as finding out some easy DIY options for decor. 

Hope you enjoy my Christmas tour this year- it's definitely topping as my favorite yet! 

DIY Brick & Wood Pumpkin Sign

I posted last week about our neutral, pumpkin filled Fall mantle we did this year and wanted to follow up on the huge Pumpkin sign I made for it. 

It was super simple and packed a big punch.

If you didn't get a chance to see the whole mantle, check out my post here. 

 When we redid the kids bathroom a few months ago, we ended up with several scrap pieces of the faux brick panels leftover. 

Fall Decor & Mantle

Fall is my favorite. 

It's my favorite weather, my favorite smells, my favorite scenery outside. 

And all of that translates into my favorite decor. 

I love pulling out my boxes of pumpkins and sifting through vintage finds that I've tucked away each year that just scream 'fall' to me. I love wheat stalks and my dried okra pieces that my dad gave me. I love pumpkins most of all. 

So before fall even hinted within our weather, I decided boxes needed to come out and, a few weeks ago, fall graced our house :) 

I always seem to start with decorating the mantle. It's my go-to spot and I guess it's the centerpiece of the house so I always start with it. 

DIY Rainbow & Unicorn Felt Ball Backdrop

Hey friends! 

It's been a minute since I shared our last big party adventure -- we've had a crazy couple of weeks dealing with illness, keeping up with work and all the things that go into living life with 3 children. 

I wanted to stop in and give the how-to on how I created the backdrop for her rainbow/unicorn party! 

You won't believe how simple it was and they were the perfect punch of colorful impact I wanted. 

Here's the end result we ended up with: 

Rainbow & Unicorn Birthday Party

Party time has finally come & gone which means...

I finally get to share all the fun details and projects that went into it!!!

I LOVE decorating and designing parties for my kids... since the older two have nearly outgrown all the fun, creative DIY parties (although my oldest is wanting an 80's party for her 13th so there's still some fun involved!!), I love getting the chance to get creative for parties when I still can!!

Little miss turned 5 last week and while I'm still trying to figure out how that happened already... I wanted to share all the magical rainbow & unicorn goodness. 

When you ask Little Miss her favorite color... it's 'rainbow'. When people asked what she wanted for her birthday... she said 'anything girlie'. She's my girly-girl, all things magical & sparkly, rainbow loving girl. Which made it SO fun to decorate this year. 

I figured I'd show you the party in all of it's rainbow glory today and then break apart several of the smaller projects to share with you over the next week. 

We had some amazing shops send some fun things in & I'll be sharing those shops throughout the pictures and again in the source list at the bottom of this post. 

So if you need a direction in your party planning, they are great resources to start with!!

Let's dive in to all the party fun!

The main party table is my favorite to decorate. 

This year, we used fabrics I already had for the backdrop & tablecloths. 

I tried something new & attempted a balloon garland to drape across the top for 'clouds'. 

It was so much easier than I imagined to do and was the perfect finishing touch! 

The huge rainbow was a major labor of love- it was created with pool noodles, tons of yarn and lots of time! 

It ended up turning out so awesome, it replaced the main thing over her dresser in her room. So it was a two-fold win! 

The beautiful '5' banner is from Say It In Burlap and was such a fun piece to add to the centerpiece. 

I'll be sharing a tutorial later this week on how to make the beautiful unicorn/felt ball garlands. They were so fun & easy to do- adding a little extra to the backdrop! 

A Quick Pink Dresser Update

This will be a quick & dirty kinda post. 

Just to show you the power of paint and tweaking a couple things on the effect of a room. 

We have this gorgeous, super chunky, vintage style dresser in Little Miss' room and when we first did her nursery, we painted it a pretty dark pink color. 

Which worked with the colors we had at the time. 

Over the past couple years, we've softed a lot of her room and when we went full on big girl room, her new headboard was a very soft baby pink rather than hot pink. 

And little miss actually decided she wanted to change her dresser (she's a little bit nutty for pastel colors lately) so we took that on this summer. 

DIY Faux Polaroid Photos with Instax 'Duds'

Ever thought how cool it would be if some of your favorite photos looked a bit more vintage? Or looked like a Polaroid image. 

I feel like these have made a come back in a big way lately and who doesn't love the fun look of Instax/polaroid images? 

My two daughters are obsessed with their Instax camera and it's so fun seeing what they come up with. 

When we first gave it to my 12 year old, we let her explore and experiment with it. Which meant there were a handful of underexposed/black photos that didn't work out as intended. 

Luckily for me, she's a bit of a hoarder too and had kept them anyways. 

When hubby suggested I use Instax film to hang pictures in the rainbow frames I had made for my upcoming almost 5 year old's party, I thought it was a great idea! I decided to use our 'dud' photos and create the same Instax Polaroid look but with photos taken with my professional camera. 

I'll give you the quick rundown in case you have some dud photos :) 

The Plate Wall {Updated}

This post is so funny to me. 

Because little did I know that one of my most popular posts would end up being one of the simplest (I feel like, anyways!) 

Back in 2011, I posted some pretty awfully photographed photos of how I did a swirled plate wall in our old house. 

It has since been viewed almost 50,000 times and pinned a bajillion amount of times. 

So I thought it may be high time for me to give you an update on it since we've moved. 

I used the same technique as in the original post here. 

And the same hangers. 

But the configuration changed a smidge :) 

A Peek Into my Craft Room

I'm basically calling it a 'peek' because it's really not 100% finished. More like 90%. 

But I've put it off long enough and decided to just go ahead and share the process with you... and I'll update when I get the last few things I want for it. 

Sound ok? 

Because this room, out of all the rooms in the house, has gone through the most transformation. 

Here's a peek into my little space: 

I didn't clean up alll the way for you guys. 

Because that's not real life. 

It's usually messy, cluttered and full of ongoing projects. 

Which is the way I like it. 

But I spruced up a bit for you :) 

Summer Embroidery Hoop Wreath

I told you I'd be back :) 

I thought I'd throw a little color into the mix and share my new summer wreath. 

We needed something colorful & happy to match the happiness of summer starting a few weeks ago in our household. 

Enter this cutie...

It was so fun to put together and fairly easy! 

The longest part was creating those faux snow cones- but Little Miss and I had a blast doing them! 

Belle Inspired Birthday Party {Plus Free Printables}

I realized as I was going through and updating things that I had never posted Little Miss's 3rd birthday party and it's one of my absolute favorites!! 

She was Princess Belle obsessed (and still is, really!) and Mama was more than happy to oblige as Belle is my favorite too! 

There were so many fun pieces to this party and lots of easy projects to make it unique, gorgeous and budget-friendly. 

Faux Brick Bathroom Update

Have you guys noticed a little bit of a difference around here? 

I took a big plunge and decided to merge my IG/blog/FB accounts under one umbrella & rebrand a bit. 

If you've been around a while, I'll still be delivering Tattered and Inked DIY, painting, crafting content as well as starting to delve into behind the scenes photography, some of the fun product photography I've gotten into as well as sharing Therapeutic fun activities for you to do at home with your kiddos! 

Hopefully things are easy to navigate and find- please let me know if you experience any issues with the new site, I'm still working out a bunch of the kinks! 

While you're having a look around at the new look, let's talk my most current project. 

I've had this idea in the back of my mind for almost two years now. We bought several faux brick panels to hang in the garage for photo backdrops- which have worked amazingly and I always wanted to install one in our kids bathroom to add some texture and interest to the wall. 

So we finally did! 

Isn't it fun?! 

'We are the Luckiest' Free Printable

Hi Friends!!
I'm so excited to be here today! My name is Kelsey and my little blogging corner of the world is over on Tattered and Inked where I share all my favorite things- projects, furniture redos,  parties & printables!!

I'm so excited to be sharing my very first printable ever over here on Mine for the Making!!

St. Patrick's Day is always a fun time in our house- 

it's one of those random holidays we just love to celebrate!
We always have mischievous things happening around our house so I like to add just a few things to make the house happy for St. Patricks.

Printables are such an easy & fun way to change up your decor and it only takes a couple of minutes! 

I usually dedicate a couple different frames around the house for changing out printables whenever I'm in the mood for a change. 

This printable comes in three different colorways and are perfect for spreading a little extra St. Patrick's Day cheer around your home!!

Quick tips for printing in case you're a newbie...

1. Click the download link below for the print you'd like to get. Then follow the prompts to download and save to your computer. 

2. Print your printable as you would any regular picture. I like to print them on white cardstock or picture paper- they tend to print better and with more vibrant colors this way. 

3. These prints are sized to be printed as large as 8x10 and will look best printed as a 5x7 or 8x10 size. 

That's pretty much all there is to it.

So get at it...just click. print. frame!!

We Are The Luckiest- Green

We Are The Luckiest- Mint

We Are The Luckiest- Polka Dots

{Quick Disclaimer}

Printables are intended as gifts for Tattered and Inked/Mine for the Making readers only.

As with all my free printables,

these are for personal use ONLY.

Please do not claim them as your own or alter them.

Some other fun ideas for using your free printable are adding it to a fun St. Patricks' Day wreath, printing them out as a card or note to slip in your hunny's wallet or lunch or adding it to a fun 'happy' gift for a friend! 

I hope you enjoy your new free print & I can't wait to share some more printable fun with you soon!! 

Have a great week!! 

Kelsey 

Easter Countdown Cards {With Free Printable!}

Swooping in today to follow up on a little project I shared on my Insta Stories earlier today and thought it might be worth sharing a bit more here!!

During Christmas, I created a 25 day countdown we hung in our foyer that counted down the days until Christmas and also had bits of the Christmas Story when you flipped it over. 
So by the 25th, we had the complete Christmas story hanging in a pretty way! 

It was so fun to see my four year old get excited each day and start memorizing various verses. She could nearly recite the whole thing by the end of it. 

So I decided last week to do an Easter version with chunks of the Easter story split up into 7 days for her to count down until the holiday. 

I added a fun twist to it this time and added quick, printable activities behind each number so we'd have mini projects to do each day as well. 

The girl loves her projects. Follows her momma's heart all the way! 

I thought I'd share our super quick set-up and share the free printables if you feel the urge to do your own :) 

When I say super easy, I mean SUPPPPER easy. The longest part will be printing and cutting. And that's not long at all. 

DIY Oversized Book Page Signs

Anyone else get the itch when the Christmas decor comes down to change a few things around and freshen things up a bit? 

Just me?? 

I feel like I'm not the only one but this time, instead of changing a few arrangements (I change my tabletop/mantle decor each season pretty regularly) I actually opted to freshen up a larger area of the house. We've  had the same wall hangings up in the living room since we moved in several years and although they filled the space fabulously and have been well loved, I was ready for something new and updated.

Is it terrible that I don't even have a photo of them hanging in the new house? 

So you'll have to settle with this half photo of them in the old house...

The photo signs above the couch.