Homefront: Christmas Tour of Homes 2012

I changed my long and narrow living room layout to three separate areas from the two I showed last week.  so this is a little teaser. More on that in another post though, because today is Nester's Christmas tour of homes, and I finally feel festive!

 Isaac is in first grade, and he wrote me a beautiful story of his Christmas plans!

 

Until I find my mini nativity pieces, the lion and lamb ornament will keep this cute stable company.

 

 The candle is an advent candle. You burn it one dot each night, until Christmas Day it is down to the last dot. I love this book, A Special Place for Santa. For those who struggle with meshing Santa and Christ together, it tells a lovely story of the historical Santa, and how he ties into the Christmas story.

 We made festive, candied, chocolate dipped stirring spoons for hot chocolate or coffee for the kids teachers. Check out the tutorial, they are so easy and yummy!


2012 Christmas Tour of Homes via The Nester linky party 

Homefront: Massive Roadside Coffee Table

I spied this massive coffee table, hiding under a dirty king size mattress next to a filled garbage can on the side of the road. I told my mom to "stop the car!" and we got out and saved this sucker, (she was worried we were stealing). She held up the mattress while I, in my crazy 9 months pregnant state, slid it out from under. Together, we hefted it into the trunk of my Volvo wagon and prayed it wouldn't fall out as we slowly drove home, since we couldn't shut the door. I had been searching for a sturdy, cheap coffee table and finding one for free is always awesome.

Now, we can all put up our feet, eat snacks, and the boys can destroy it all they want and it's not going to topple. We just removed the iron scrolls since two were missing, and now all it needs is a coat of paint, maybe a neat lace stencil design? This place is getting closer to what I envision it to be every day.

Homefront: Our 1960's Kitchen

I love this table cloth. But really, it's a nice cloth shower curtain I got on major sale. Perfect size, cute colors.

My shabby candleabra that I painted a soft apple green, in one of my first blog posts ever.

I have this changing table my husband painted that housed plants in our former, pretty home and holds extra kitchen dishes and such. We couldn't find a place to put it, so I thought... how about in this here ugly spot? It's the best we could do since we are renting this here house.

Presto-change-o! Now there's more storage, more counter space for a lamp and a catch all bowl and papers.

The top of this cabinet got ruined while painting it, so I lined it with leftover shelf liner. It makes clean up much easier and adds a punch of color.

To hide ugly buills and coupons, I found this letter A at an antique mall. I just put a white cardboard strip under it. and place it on top of everything else to hide the clutter.

Yeah, the fridge got banged up during the move. White spray paint made it look somewhat better. I am fully aware the counter tops are uneven, and a weird yellow color, and that horrid copper tinted tin tiles, improperly used as back splash are a nightmare, but we are stuck with them for now. Though, what Nester did with her renter kitchen back splash was wonderful, we just don't have the resources for that yet.

 The Dreamy Giraffe's Eat Your Veggies Fairy print is trying to hide a poor patch job in the corner.

Keeping an even and neutral color palltte up here just seemed like the best thing for this hodgepodge kitchen.

Here we have it, leading into the playroom. And yay! After a month, our oven was fixed today.