DIY tinsel garland wreath

I saw this wreath by Creature Comforts featured on Apartment Therapy and knew I had to make it! It was easy, unique, and gave me something to do with at least two of all those tissue paper flowers I made for the wedding (and never used!). If you want to make some too, check out Martha Stewart's easy directions.

Ez at Creature Comforts used embroidery hoops for her base, but since I didn't have any and didn't want to spend the money on one, I just used aluminum foil to create a circle. Tip: Reinforce the joint with a couple pieces of foil, or else it'll come apart while you're wrapping garland around.

Then, I started wrapping a couple strands of skinny green garland I bought from Target around the foil circle, and got little shiny green garland pieces everywhere.

Ez made paper flowers out of wax paper, which has a nice sheen, but since I'd already made a bajillion out of tissue paper, I decided to give mine a holiday sparkle with silver spray glitter from Michaels. To avoid a mess inside, I took the flowers and spray outside. It was about freezing, and since I was hurrying to get inside where it was warm I didn't take any photos. But I just held the flowers out by the floral wire and sprayed them as evenly as I could with numb fingers, and let them try for a couple hours.

I attached them to the wreath using the floral wire that holds them together, and added a little sprig of fake berries I pulled off some garland I have -- and voila! A pretty little wreath that cost me only the money for the garland and spray paint (which really is optional).

Here's a close-up of the glitter on the paper flowers:

I used some red ribbon to hang it from the door.

There really are a million ways you could personalize this. How would you make it your own?

A tale of two trees

We have two Christmas trees in our house, and it makes me. so. happy. I've always been a big fan of Christmas, and having a house with so much space for decorating has been a lot of fun. And since we haven't bought a lot of furniture yet, we had plenty of room for two!

Tree #1 we cut down from the Hubs' parents' property. His family has a wonderful tradition of getting together the Sunday after Thanksgiving for a pot luck lunch and a trek into the woods to cut down a Christmas Tree. Since they're wild, each tree is unique and, by tree farm standards, a bit sparse. It makes them a challenge to decorate, but I still like the end result.

We put this tree in the dining area next to the kitchen, and I decorated it with silver and gold ornaments, plus four white glittery snowflakes from Target.

You can see the garland I put on top of the cabinets. More on that later.

Tree #2 we bought from a guy selling locally cut trees. It's got a more traditional shape and is a little fuller. We put this one in the living room and decorated it with all our sentimental ornaments from childhood and adulthood.

My favorite ornament -- angel frog!

My husband's favorite

And the first ornament we hung on our first tree in our first house!

We also hung ornaments from a collection my mother-in-law gave me as a wedding gift. Called the bride's ornament collection, it features 12 different figurines that are supposed to bring love and happiness to a newlywed couple. It's apparently a German tradition, and all the ornaments, like this angel, are adorable.

And here she is!

Isn't it beautiful? You can see the garland I hung on the stair rails, and our stockings waiting to be hung. We had a little mishap with putting up the shelves that we're going to hang our stockings on, so that's still a work in progress.

I also put garland and lights above our kitchen cabinets. I added in a few red ornaments i bought on sale at Michael's, and filled the glassware I already had up there with sparkly silver ornaments from the dollar bin at Target.

Doesn't it look pretty? I wish I could leave it up all the time...

I'm linking up to Holiday Home Christmas tree party at Thrifty Decor Chick. There are more than 500 beautiful trees posted already...holy cow!