Hand-Crafted Blue and Red Christmas Home

We are excited to do a few Christmas Home Tours this holiday season on the blog. We already took a tour of Alison’s Christmas Home and today we want to share a bit of Crew Member, Nancy Hawes’ home. Nancy recently did a home imporovement project of adding some built-in shelves in her home. We think they look amazing and she did a wonderful job of decorating these new shelves for Christmas! We especially love seeing how the Crew uses our crafty goodies to decorate with handmade items that showcase their own individual style. Incorporating Christmas decor in with everyday items is such a fun way to decorate and no need to put everything away, just add to the design. Sit holiday creatures on books, slip a Christmas photo into a frame or fill a glass vase with ornaments. The touches of red and blue Nancy has in her home are a wonderful start to a trendy Christmas color palette.

Here’s a full picture of Nancy’s built-ins in her living room. What a fun way to display all those precious family photos along with seasonal decor that you can change up whenever you feel like it! Let’s take a closer look at the decorations that Nancy chose for her shelves!

Adding a few pillows with a holiday feel, a bit of sparkle or maybe a snowflake or two in with everyday pillows, instantly transforms the room. If you cannot find the right pillows to match your decor, why not make them by painting blank pillows, adding a bit of glitter or even getting them screen printed with fun sayings, Christmas art or an everyday print that rounds out the color palette. As the seasons change a quick update of pillows will give a new look to the room.

“This is a home improvement project that I decorated with some of my favorite pictures and holiday decorations and incorporated Canvas Corp paper and 7gypsies tags and banner by making a banner, cards and adding little sayings to the frames.” –Nancy Hawes

Materials Used:

Canvas Corp Red & White dot
Canvas Corp Red & Green Mini Chevron
Canvas Corp Jolly Christmas Sayings on White
Canvas Corp Candy Canes on White
Canvas Corp Farmhouse Christmas- Better Not Pout
Cavnas Corp Tags – Krafty Christmas

7gypsies Mini Ephemera – Santa’s Journey Holiday Gift Tags
Canvas Corp Red Jute Cord

Tools Used:

Adhesive
Pop dots
Ribbon

Look through your shelves and see what should stay and what you might want to tuck away until Spring. Some of the decor Nancy added can stay out well past Christmas with touches of snowflakes, polar bears and old tins that have a winter feel.

Here is a few close up photos of some of Nancy’s photos and knick-knacks. We love that she placed holiday photos into her frames, it really drives home the Christmas theme! Also, she added some of our Christmas papers and tags to her frames and other decorations. This is such a quick and easy thing to do with any of your home decor! Nancy also has a few cards she made on display that she used more of our Christmas papers for.

Another collection of photos from Nancy’s shelves shows how she surrounded her pictures with some cute Christmas critters, a tin can and vintage toolbox filled with greenery, and a figurine of an old truck with a Christmas tree in the back. More handmade cards made with our Christmas papers perfectly showcases how they fit in with a vintage, rustic Christmas decor theme.

Along with her shelf decor, Nancy also created this Christmas tree skirt from our Burlap Tree Skirt. This plain burlap skirt is 58″ in diameter and is perfect just as it is or you can add your own embellishments! Large enough for most trees and ready to be personalized with a clever saying, family name or touch of ribbon. Made from high quality burlap it can be decorated with a trendy look, vintage or rustic style and finish up the space under the tree making way for the wrapped gifts.

Materials Used:
Burlap tree skirt
12×12 canvas sheet

Tools Used:

Hot glue gun
Ribbon
Paint
Foam stamps
Foam paint brush
Sizzix Machine
Snowflake die

This no-sew tree skirt was created with a hot glue gun, you can also use fabric glue like Beacon’s Fabri-tac. Add trim, ribbon or a ruffle to the edge of your tree skirt. Nancy adhered the snowflake ribbon she choose to the edges of the skirt with a hot glue gun.

You can personalize the tree skirt by stamping, stenciling or ironing on letters. Nancy used foam alphabet stamps to add the words, “Merry Christmas” and it looks terrific. Don’t forget to use permanent ink or fabric paint if you plan to wash your tree skirt. Keep in mind it is natural fibers so washing it will soften it up a bit, but that look is great too.

Using canvas instead of paper is a great way to add decor to fabric items and using a Sizzix machine is a the perfect way to get the detail and unique shapes. Some of the dies will work better on fabric, so read a bit before to know which ones are bet suited. Nancy chose the Sizzix snowflake die and they perfectly embellishes the rest of the skirt and gives it just the finishing touch it needed!

So incorporate embrace your home’s decor and your everyday accessories and add touches of holiday decor and add small pieces all the way around to get the look you love. You can leave some of the shelves just as they are or deck them all out. We love that Nancy took the time to share her Christmas shelves and tree skirt with us! If you want to see some before and after photos on Nancy’s home improvement project, head on over to her BLOG and don’t forget to follow her on INSTAGRAM as well!

We hope you have been enjoying some of these handmade Christmas cards we’ve been sharing throughout this holiday season. If you haven’t already gotten all your cards written, addressed, and sent out, these cards might be an inspiration to you! On the other hand, if you do have your cards done for this year, it’s never too early to start next year’s cards, right?

Today, Nancy Hawes is sharing these simple kraft note cards with us and she uses them as decor pieces in her home. By using a few of our coordinating papers, she managed to pull off these adorable Christmas cards. We love their simplicity, because when you decide to craft your own Christmas cards, sometimes simple is better! Especially if you have lots of family and friends to send to.

Materials Used:

Kraft note cards

Better Not Pout Tags

Snowflakes on Kraft

Black & kraft Sonnet Reverse

Red and Kraft Ribbon Stripe

Jute

Paper punches

Ribbon

Doily

Embossing folder

Adhesive

Pop dots

Glue dots

Here’s a few tips on keeping your cards simple so you can make a large amount at once:

1. Choose a simple color palate and stick to it. It helps if you can select 3-5 colors and then keep all your papers and embellishments within that color family. That way you know the colors wont clash and you don’t have to worry about coordinating each card. Here, Nancy selected red, kraft, and black as her main colors.

2. If using patterns, stick to a large pattern, a small pattern, and a solid. You can see from the cards that the large pattern is definitely the snowflakes. Nancy also used black as a solid, and the striped paper and sonnet paper would both be a smaller pattern. Nancy kept it simple by sticking to one pattern on each card and then pairing it with a solid or with a tag as the main sentiment.

3. If using cut outs or tags, go ahead and prep them all beforehand. That way when it comes time to add them to your card, all you have to do is select the appropriate embellishment and adhere it down! For instance, Nancy used a tag on each card. If you plan on using the whole sheet of tags, just go ahead and cut them all out at once! Then, when you have your layers in place, just select the tag that coordinates. Even if you plan on doing some quick power-crafting after work, take your papers with you during the day and squeeze in some fussy cutting on your breaks or while waiting at the doctor’s office.

Hopefully this gives you some Christmas card inspiration! We enjoy seeing the Crew’s individual tastes and styles when it comes to Christmas cards. Stay tuned for more cards in the future!

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