Wise Men Gifts

 

This Christmas (the 2nd in our current home), I have more time and energy to do some crafting and decorating. Last year, with no shower, a bathroom in shambles, Bass away on a business trip, and all the painting and cleaning we had to do, we barely got the tree and stockings up.

I get to go through all of our holiday decor and see how it fits in the new house. It'll be fun to see how it will work here. With that, I've got a list of craft projects to do too.
Stenciled pillow covers for the living room
A music paper tree
Wise Men gifts for the kids' program at church (see below)
A new tree skirt
A mantel arrangement for the living room
A Christmas gift for my sister-in-law (It's still a secret!)
Swags for the front windows
Something to display our Christmas cards
and maybe more. We'll see!

The first thing I tackled (because of a deadline) were the Wise Men gifts for church.
I needed a gold gift and something Asian-y.
A trip to Goodwill scored a sugar bowl for .50. That became the base of my Asian gift.
I spray painted it with cream to give it a base coat. Then I used red craft paint over that. I stamped a bunch of Asian images onto red tissue paper and then decoupaged them on the base and lid.
Then I used a foam brush to paint black glitter paint over the whole thing. A tasseled ornament looped on the top finished it off.

The second gift started as a wood box from Michael's and a round biscuit and star from AC Moore. I spray painted the box and star with gold spray paint and the circle with oil rubbed bronze. After I glued then onto the top of the box, I used some rub-on medallion shapes and fake gems to dress it up.

Okay, one project done. More fun Christmas-y stuff to come!

Linking up to some of these parties and here.