Transfer Images to Wood for Christmas Name Tags or Ornaments DIY

I love transferring images onto just about anything. Seriously, anything. It's kind of like my new obsession with liquid gilding. So, Christmas present tags with faces instead of names seemed just the ticket.

Good news is I'm the only one in the whole family crazy enough to DIY everything. So guess what, I don't even need to put a "from" on the gifts. Ha!

Since I have been procrastinating and I have a ridiculous amount of Christmas shopping to do today, I'm just going to get ankles deep in this mess...

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Put a Bird on It! My Finished Tree for 2012

Not gonna lie... the first time I saw Portlandia I did not care for it. Probably had to do with the fact that I was hacked off in a super major way and in a really bad mood. I think my subconcious wanted to dislike the show simply because the person I was mad at was laughing at the show. In fact, it took quite some time before I'd try another episode. When I did... it. was. love. 

If you've seen the show, you know all about putting a bird on it. For the final touch of my Christmas tree this year, I decided to do just that. Put a boatload of motherflippin' birds on it. Gotta tell you, I think it's pretty dang awesome. Pair that up with the fact taht it was quick and cheap and this DIY is a total piece of cake.

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A Citrus Christmas - a Duo of Orange DIYs

One of the best things about this time of year is the excellent citrus that can be found. Oranges are my favorite in particular. They smell wonderful, they taste wonderful and I really dig the color orange.

When I was going through those scented melty wax things I saw an orange clove scent. I snapped it up because short of pine trees, it is the smell that most reminds me of Christmas. Later I kind of wondered why it was that I went for the ease of the pre-scented wax when I know how to make the smell myself. 

Whatever the case my be, it's gonna smell like I painted the walls with orange oil and shoved cloves in any available space when I'm finished with this little project.

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German Glass Glitter Christmas Ornaments

When I was a kid, our ornaments included these little, fake, red apples. I really, really liked them. They were nothing fancy. Just fake apples on slight gold string... but for some reason every Christmas I find  myself thinking about them.

As an adult, I'm pretty surprised that I never had apple ornaments of my own on my tree before today. It all happened by accident. Walking through the dollar store I saw a fake lime that caught my eye because of the very small, obviously child-sized bite marks in it. It wasn't a slight, kind of noticeable dent but full blown, the white foam is visible in the shape of some itty bitty chompers. But the thing is, the kid didn't learn apparently, or another kid came along and decided to try their luck because there were two sets pretty close to one another.

The whole thing made me smile and rather than passing by these buckets of faux fruit as I have been for who knows how long, I actually noticed the apples. It seemed just right that they should be on my tree.

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Distressed Gingerbread Man Cat Toys

I love, love, love the whole gingerbread with a bite missing thing (which is why I made a Christmas stocking with the theme). It's funny because they always looks surprised and I, like the rest of the females in my line, think that pain (when occurring to someone else) is hysterical.

Here is an example: My sister falls out of Momma's Bronco when we are kids. But she doesn't just fall... she gets wrapped up in the seatbelt at the same time and is lying on the driveway. She's all sorts of tangled in a seatbelt that appears to be 100 feet long. My mother and I laugh our faces off. Then we all proceed to the emergency room where my sister was fitted with a cast for a broken arm. 

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Little Wreath Ornaments for Big Impact

As far as I am concerned when it comes to Christmas, the bigger the better. For years and years I had a standard 6 foot tall tree. One day, I suddenly felt the need to have a more "grown up tree" at least for the living room. I went out and purchased the nicest and tallest tree I could afford (and not be too tall for the ceiling). When I first put that sucker together and had it up, I did feel oddly more grown up. I can't exactly explain the how or the why of it but it just seemed more mature.

Fast forward a couple of years and I still love my nice and fancy tree. I get really bored very easily, though, so I'm often changing the tree's color scheme. Somtimes the theme will last a couple of years, but last year's silver and teal petered out on me before Christmas.  

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