Front Door Christmas Decorating Part 1|Christmas 2018

Hello, I'm Jennifer with Jennifer Decorates. In today's video, it's going to be part one, but it's going to be all about how to decorate around your front door, so stay tuned. So, we moved into a new house about four months ago. We had been in our previous house 22 years, so Christmas decorating this year is going to kind of take on a whole new, I don't know, level. I'm going to have to have some purging and maybe some new things, but for today, I wanted to show you how I'm going to decorate around. I have two lanterns, so what I want to do, I saw this on Pinterest. What did we do without Pinterest? And I want to do, some people call these swags. They're also called teardrops, but I'm kind of a little bit of a Christmas greenery snob, and I like greenery that looks really real, and this is a long pine needle type of greenery, and so I kind of, I don't want to overdo it. I just want to add some ribbon. I'm not going to add any ornaments, and I just want to add a few natural elements. So, the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to make my bow. All right, what I've chosen for my bow is, this is kind of a platinum. It's just my go-to color. Platinum, it just pairs well with gold or pairs well with silver, so it's kind of my favorite, and then the second ribbon, this one has a little bit of a linen color in the back, and then the diamonds on the ribbon are a platinum color as well. So, let me make my bow. Now, I have a video on how to make bows. I'll just put a link right up here, and I'll get to making this bow. Okay, I've got my bow made, and I'm going to attach it to the swag with floral wire, and everybody asks me what I use. I use a 26 gauge wire. Now, usually on swags at the top, they're going to have a hook, and that's what I'll use to tie onto the lantern. So, I'm going to bring the bow down just a little bit and kind of place it about right here. After you make your bow, don't worry about trimming the tails just yet, because I'm going to show you how we're going to attach it onto the swag. Flip it over and tie it on really tight. Okay, I've got the bow on and ready to go, and I'm going to show you how I like to bring the tails down onto the swag. Instead of just hanging and flopping in the wind, I like to tie them down, and the way I do that, I'm going to snip a little bit of the wire again. You don't have to get a very big piece. So, I'm going to come down just a little bit. Let me show you this, and I'm going to make a little bit of a loop right here. So, I'm going to gather up that ribbon and kind of make it so it stands out just a little bit, and then I'm going to wire that straight on to the swag. The one thing about working with the long needle pine, it shows a lot where different kinds of greenery, kind of with the shorter needles, tend to hide things more, and you can kind of pull and twist on them whichever way you want, but I still like to go for the natural look. So, you just have to work just a little bit harder. So, there I have the first part of the ribbon attached to the swag, and what I'm going to do is, I'm going to come down just a little bit lower, and I'm going to do the same thing and let it push up a little bit and attach it with wire. Okay, so I'm done with the second attachment onto the swag. Push it up just a little bit, and then pull down on this ribbon, and then that kind of hides where you attached it to the swag. Now, for the second ribbon, I like to put it in the same exact spot, and that works really well when you choose a bigger ribbon, and then you put the smaller ribbon on top, and I'm going to attach it the same exact way. Okay, I'm done adding my bow, and I've got all of the tails secure to the swag. So, now I'm ready to kind of start building up the swags, and I found these years ago. I know you guys are going to ask me where I got them, and I won't even be able to tell you, but they, I've had tons of them. I'm a little bit of a Christmas hoarder, but they're pine cones that came already wired. So, I'm going to put two. I'm going to wire them right under the bow at the top, and then I'm going to pick out a few little picks that I want to add to the swag. Okay, so I've wrestled those huge pine cones on. Don't worry about how your bow looks. That's going to be the last thing you do after you hang up your swag. Now, remember how I was saying I was kind of a Christmas hoarder? My husband will bring down the Christmas boxes, and he'll find one that's just full of little scraps, and he's wanting to throw it away. No, I save all my little scraps because you never know what you're going to make with them. So, today I'm going to use some of my scraps that have a little bit of snow on them, and I want to add a second greenery to this pine, and I'm going to give it a little bit more depth. So, what I'm going to do, I'm just going to take some wire cutters and snip a few of these. I've got my hot glue ready to go, and I'm just going to hot glue them and kind of set them in the swag in just a few little places. I'm not going to overload it. So, let me show you as I'm tucking this one in. I've got it to where it just kind of brushes over where that wire might show where I attach the tail to the swag. So, I did find these really cool picks at my local craft store, and what I love about them is they're wired. So, again, I'm going to snip several pieces apart, or sometimes you can usually, okay, take that as a no, usually you can pull down on them, but that's a no-go. Let's snip these and add them. What I love about them is they're little branches, so don't put them clumpy on your swag. Do a few at a time and just put them around the swag just a little bit. So, after you've snipped off a few of them, don't get them clumped onto the swag. You're going to just put them, and just see how I only put a little bit here and there of the snow. So, we're going to take a little bit of this and just add it to the swag to make it look really whimsical and elegant. Gotta be really careful not to burn your fingers on this one. I have hot glue scars. Okay, that's it. I'm done. I'm gonna make another one, and then I'm gonna take it outside, and we're gonna see how it works. Okay, I'm on my porch. This is the lantern that I'm your tails yet. You don't want to do that until you get both of your swags up, and then you can kind of step back and take a look, and you can get each one trimmed exactly right. So, let me get this up. Okay, so that is my first Christmas decorating project in the new house done. The second video, I'm going to show you guys how I plan on decorating the planters that sit in, that sit on both sides of the doors. Also, be sure to subscribe to my channel. We're really excited about this. I own JD's, a store. It's a family-owned business, and we live in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Very historic town. Well, every year there's a charisma, charisma? There's a charisma parade of homes, and we were asked to decorate one of the older homes for the tour. So, we will be doing a video all about that because we're super excited. So, be sure to subscribe to my channel, and I hope you have a wonderful day.