6 Clever Christmas Decorating DIYs You Haven't Tried.

Guys Christmas is so fastly coming. Is that even a word? I think so. What happens if you order something online and it comes in and you don't like the color or the finish? So I've got all kinds of DIYs for you. Do you send it back or is there still something you could do with it? I'm super excited to show you. We're going to Christmify stuff. That's a new word. Today we are going to talk about six different DIY projects that you can do for Christmas. Now you may not do these exact ones but I'm hoping to kind of get your juices flowing. What could you do to maybe embellish something you already have? So I've got all kinds of DIYs for you. I'm super excited to show you. Do you guys remember some of the DIYs I've done in the past? I've had some like epic DIYs. Remember the broken mirror Christmas tree? Leave me a comment if you've done any of these DIYs in the past. Either the broken mirror Christmas tree. Have you done the solo cup light fixture? Remember that one when I almost asphyxiated myself and everyone in my office? It was toxic. And then there was the year that we did, oh my gosh, when I took a Bible and I ripped it apart and turned it into an old book pages wreath. I know, I got excoriated for that. I ripped apart a Bible. I didn't know it was in another language. Oh, and then waiting for nature to drop its little magical pieces of gold called pine cones and what you do with that. We're going to talk about pine cones today. So let's get started with all these DIYs, shall we? If you have a light fixture somewhere in your house, in my music room, I decided hmm what am I gonna do to kind of create a crescendo moment? You've seen my Christmas decorations in past years, right? The angels on either side leading into the grand piano. What did I do this year? Nothing on the ceiling, thank God, because that's a hot mess to clean up afterwards, but I did embellish my light fixture. Christmas time you might find that your existing light fixture or chandelier over your dining room table in my case it's over my grand piano can turn into something really special and what I'm doing here is I'm just using some little tips I cut my garland all up and let it just kind of come down to a tip and then I use a pipe cleaner up here to tie it around the neck And just secure it and what it does is it covers up all of those cords and it looks like something really special. It looks very holiday. And then of course I will cover up the pipe cleaners when I'm done with some beautiful ribbon. But that's not where I stopped. Actually, Sarah and I kept going. We actually added, of course, we had the garland that came to the center point like you saw there, but we added some finials. We added some ribbon. We even added some fruit because, you know, this is the year of home sweet home of sugared and bedazzled and bejeweled fruit. So we added a little bit of fruit and some picks and some sprays. I just love how nature, you guys remember I did that pine cone cluster DIY one year? Oh my gosh, we had to use like a football to knock the pine cones out of the tree because I was actually using pine cones from my own tree. Well, this year I wanted to use these big sugar pine cones and they had them at Amber Marine Company and so I got some and I wanted to use them in my fireplace when we opened the box. When you touch them, they left sap on your fingers. So I decided you know what this is a lot of people use pine cones. Let's just do a little DIY and I'll show you how to cure pine cones so that you can then use them in your decorations. Sticky hands free. Nothing says Christmas quite like pine cones and these sugar pine cones are amazing. They're actually my favorite. You know what else? Nothing smells like Christmas quite like the smell of pine. If you're wondering why I'm wearing gloves, it's because this sap will come off onto your hands. It's so annoying. And look how it's all over. But once this gets put in the oven and cured, all of this sap will melt. It'll turn this pine cone into a rich, yummy, kind of almost a stain, a brown stain. It'll get richer in color and it's going to make it smell amazing. And this This is gonna look shiny and luxurious. Now, the first step to To curing your pine cones is to set your oven at 225 degrees. While it's heating up, you can get your supplies together and get them ready. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna show you here. You're going to need aluminum foil and you're going to need parchment paper. Take a cookie sheet and you line it. With aluminum foil is you want to make sure that the sap doesn't get on your pan because it's hard to get off and you don't want it to go down onto your cooking coils in your oven either. All right if you ever do get some of this sap on your hands what you need to do is use cooking oil. You can even use olive oil and if it's super stubborn you can add some rock salt. You add that to oil And you'll be able to get that right off of your hands. With these sugar pine cones, they're so big, I can only do three at a time. And I put them opposite ends just so it fits better. And make sure that you've got this covered. And because this guy is so big, I'm going to kind of angle him so he doesn't drip anywhere in my oven. Ta-da! It is time. Did you hear that? Yeah. I stick these as far back in the oven as I can and just make sure they're not touching. Okay. And now we just set an alarm for 30 minutes and they're done. There's only a couple minutes left so I'm going to put my parchment paper down. This is what you use to let the pine cones cool. Oh and it smells so good in here. Another reason to cure pine cones is to kill all of the little critters or bugs or spiders that could be hiding out in between those little these little cone things. But look at that, do you see how that's all shiny? And it's like a, it has a finish to it. Love that. And it's a richer color. That's the sap. Not kidding. So do you see the difference? Look at that. One with sap, one with it hardened and glazed on the pine cone. Even look at the inside color. You see the difference? This one just looks so rich and yummy. And this one just looks... Uncured, there you go, it's not cured. All right, so that is how you cure your pine cones for the holiday season. I'd take something that could be something you have in your house year round, some people would have this as an accessory piece year round, or something you bring out at Christmas and embellish it, and I call it giving it a coat of many colors. what would you do in your kitchen if you wanted to like bump it up and add some christmas to your kitchen well this is a peninsula and it's a nice big space and so i always want to do something special here one year i had howard the moose was on here i've had a big nativity set i've had all kinds of things this year i brought back my horse this horse is from a couple years ago And I just love this thing. It's kind of a grandma's rocking horse. Doesn't it remind you of that? And I think the blackness of him just looks so great with the leather finish on my countertops. And he's very rustic. What I'm going to do is I'm going to do a really quick how-to. I'm going to accessorize him and embellish him and create a ta-da moment on this countertop, still allowing me some room because this is where I sit with my laptop and this is where I work. Now, what I want to explain to you is this year I had a really great garland that I ordered at market. And I love it because it reminds me a little bit of that look of the sort of Norfolk pine, But it still has more of a... traditional look than the Norfolk which is super drapey and there's some body to this and you can pull its leaves to make it look fuller. So I absolutely love this garland. I've used 16 of these in my home this year and last year I think I used 22. But that's the difference when you have a nine foot over a six foot, you know, you're doing a staircase, it goes all the way, not all the way, but it goes much further. You need fewer garlands. But what I do on this, the reason I love this is it's perfect for cutting. Maybe I'll cut it, I'll come in here and I'll pull back the stems and I'll find this, this spine right here, and I'll lay out Mr. Chompers. You guys know Mr. Chompers, right? I brought him up and I'll show you. Best tool you could possibly ever buy yourself, not inexpensive but worth every penny because it saves your fingers. You can stick him in here on his neck and then chomp down. I don't want to break this one up, but what you'd end up with is this small piece that you could use somewhere and then this piece comes down and it looks pointed again. This is one that I already cut up. This is three, probably four feet. One of these I'm gonna drape it over his neck like this and bring it down in between his legs I think like that So he has kind of an ending point and then this just sort of comes over his back But look already Isn't that pretty so you kind of see you just pull these out and see they They stay once you pull them out. Now this is where all the picks and sprays would be fabulous. Now I'm going to take this persimmon, this guy that I have left over that I used on my trees in my family room, and I'm going to sort of send him down the neck there. Now once I do that, I can take this and kind of run him, run the green. From the garland into, and see how it sort of looks like it's integrated. But look at these leaves. These leaves add such a nice texture and a look to this beautiful horse. I have a small thing of lights. You could do battery operated lights here if you want. I do not want, I don't know about you guys, but I am so tired of battery operated stuff. So I'm going to just simply, this is going to be not, it's not a heavily lit thing, it's going to be simply lit. I'm just going to open this up here like this and pull a couple of those branches through and you know I'm going to follow my own rules about when you're lighting things that when you do it you need to have them plugged in because you don't want to take the time to light something Have it plugged in at the end and find out it doesn't work. You're wasting time. So let me get an extension cord. I'll be right back. Okay. Yay. It works. And I'll just bring this gently through. Just enough to give it some light. And this is just a string of, I think, 30 lights. So it's not a lot of lights. I don't want a lot of lights on this. I just want it to be simply and gently lit. This is paddle wire. It's floral wire and you can take a little piece of wire, your cutters, you can wire this branch to this garland just so you have it secure. It doesn't take a lot, just a little twist tie. And you could do this with a green pipe cleaner too if you wanted. Whatever's handy. Now up here is where I would get a little bit more intense with my lights because this is where the Fancy stuff is. I can run it under the persimmons. But mind you, I'm doing this with cut off garland. One final persimmon that's left over. Not a lot of product here, but I still think I can come up with something pretty and simple. All right, here I'm going to put another wire for the lights. So it stays there, and just twist tie it on. I have these very natural looking pine cones, which I think are gorgeous, but I'll tell you, they just kind of died on the tree. They looked like nothing, they just went bleh. But here, I think they could be really pretty. And I have five, I have five. I also have four. of these orange and red pinecones that I thought would look cool to stick in there with those persimmons. I got some pipe cleaners. We could use brown and I think it wouldn't show up as much. I also have copper wiring so if we used the little copper wire and it's so soft and easy and malleable and you kind of need to wire it to the trunk. The actual stem part, not to one of the leaves, because I think that the leaves, the foliage itself, is not strong enough. That can go there, and then afterwards, I can go through and cut these long things that are sticking out. And this copper stuff, I got at Ace Hardware. I wonder if I, it's Hillman, H-I-L-L-M-A-N. Hillman Wire, copper from Ace. I have videos on the design sessions, I have a package that you can purchase on my website of actual hand-on-hand, exactly what I'm doing now, only doing it on a tree, doing it on a garland, doing it on a wreath, so that you can actually follow along. But it doesn't make for, it's great for tutorial kind of sake, but it doesn't make for great YouTube watching. So that's why we just have it as a separate thing on the Design Sessions, but you don't have to join the Design Sessions. You can purchase it separately and you own it for a lifetime. And then I think we could use one here. Okay, through. So now what I'm going to do is I'm going to cut all these extra little wire pieces. Make sure you don't cut any of your lights. That would be bad. Okay, you know what I think? I think it just needs a bow. And we'll be done. I've got my ribbon here. I love this. It has a rust color on this side. And this side, it turns red, orange, and hot pink. I think we'll do a three-loop. Here's our third loop. Use some floral wire to wrap around it. This can go right here. This, I'm going to go underneath the persimmons and the branch. Tie it on with the wire. Now, we can stop with that, or we could add some streamers. Take these, when you have the one inch particularly, and wrap it around like that. And you can, instead of fishtail the one inch, just do a point. And then when you undo it, you've got this like boingy, curlicue kind of deal. We could do it here, maybe there. Stuff that in on that corner and just go underneath the belly. You know what? It feels like it's on the wrong side. It should be on this side. It's pretty. So the problem was it was the direction it was turning. It was turning. It was coming out of here and turning out. I need it to turn in, right? It got lost in there. That looks kind of nice, I think. And then this guy ends up going in a direction. It doesn't just go straight down. He kind of comes out this way. And look we got just that little tip there. What do you think? Is this the only thing I'm going to have on my countertop that gives me lots of usage space? But I want something right here that breaks the gap before it heads over to my coffee machine and whatnot. So I have a tree. And I'll show that to you. It's super cute. And it comes on this black base. How cute is this? So this would fill in this little area between my garland and stuff. But what I did was I have all these bird ornaments that I picked out this year. And one of them I hung on a branch, kind of like the way he's intended to be. The other ones I cut The cord off, this one I hot glued to sit on the branch. This one I wired in, which is probably why he's rebelling at the moment. So I put this here and have him out. So you see three at a time, and then when you go around the back side, you'll see the other guy. But I did one more thing, and that is super simple. I started off with cloves, cinnamon sticks. And then I also got little anise. Then I also bought fresh ground cinnamon and fresh ground nutmeg. So here's what I made out of it. I hot glued one of my birds onto this wooden bowl. These are actually dehydrated oranges and lemons. And I think there's even some limes in here. How do I then display that with my grouping? This is, look, doesn't it look like this? This, ta-da, it's actually a candle holder set. I have three different sizes. This is the big base one. And instead of buying a big, huge candle, I thought, okay, what if I do this? Then I've got my birds all together. I've got my pedestal of spices that makes my kitchen smell good. And it looks pretty too. All right, so one of my big philosophies is when Christmas time comes, you typically need to move your furniture around. I mean, think about it. How many times do people decorate their homes and leave a six foot by six foot square open, just like an empty corner? I mean, you might have that, good for you, lucky you. But most of us have furniture that pretty much fits our houses for what it needs to be. This is a big year for moving furniture for me. But it also requires thinking some things through. Like, do you see the height right here of the arms of my sofa? That's a pretty high height. You don't want to have an end table that's way over. That's not comfortable, right? But then, this is only like this for Christmas. I'm going to put my furniture back after Christmas. So here was the question, do I want to buy? an end table just for the holidays and where will i store it you know it's just all that stuff so i got really creative and i came up with an idea of a way to create an end table it is the easiest simplest diy ever so let's take a look at what i came up with with my new setup here we've decided to take this pot that used to have a plant right here in the window and we're going to use it as a side table got a tray and i have this like It's a plate kind of thing. It's bisque and we're going to put that on top and it'll be just like a side table, right? I don't have to go out and buy something. Pretty cool, right? It made a big end table and it's the right height. But you know what? I got to tell you, after we finished. I looked back at this table, and the white, and I thought, you know, that makes sense, but that was a lot of white. And I felt like, you know, as I look back, I always am trying to find balance, right, in repeating this color, this matter. My television, I have a little stand that we made this year back here. I wish I could do a DIY on that. But my television is dark, right? So I needed this balance. So I started thinking about it, and I went, you know, I do have something round and black, like black marble, but it's actually a pub table out in my pool house. I went, I wonder if that top comes off. And sure enough, I could unscrew the four screws and bring that tabletop in. So I'm going to come around and help Caleb. The size of this, if I take this off, and Caleb, you put that on. Doesn't that look great? And now the black on the coffee table comes up here. It matches the dark on the oil rubbed bronze here. The whole thing just now feels like it's connected. Isn't that cool? Just think about it. It is a stinking pot. Hot. pot that sits there year-round and I've turned it into a table. I bet there are things in your house that you could look at differently. In fact I want to challenge you to look at things in your house differently. How could you use something that you've always used? Now you're gonna say yeah but what about your pub table out in your guest house? Well no one's gonna be out there. It is a pool house and it's kind of past the time of year to take you know swim. So I don't mind it being off of that table and it just works so well here that it's worth it. I love that one. What do you think? Leave me a comment below. A pot with the tabletop on top, new table. Do you know how much money that saved me? At market, I really saw these four foot tall trees. You guys see my unboxing video? You're going to see that there was this tree. I think it's a four foot tree. It's not tall. But I wanted to use it and I wanted to put it in an urn to lift it up off the floor and have it like a prominent thing and I was going to do a pair of them. So. I needed an urn, and the one they had at market was so heavy. It would have been so expensive. I just knew no one would buy it. So I went on Wayfair, and I found two urns, and they looked really cool. They looked like concrete, almost a stucco finish, like it had a texture to it. And it looked like it had maybe almost moss that was like in the cracks and stuff. Well, let me just tell you, when it got here, it was so ugly. They were the right shape, the right size, but the finish looked like someone had just poured pea soup over a creamy concrete urn. And I was like, ah, it's not what I want. And now I know I have light colored chairs and it could connect, but no. Put it in there and I'm like, it's going up against a black wall. No. So we've decided that we're going to try to do kind of a bronze look on this. And Sarah's here from Wisconsin, my best friend. And we are doing all of our Christmas decorating, so it's fun to do some DIYs together. What I would like to do, Sarah, when I spray paint, is I like to start from the bottom first so that when you turn it over, you're not messing anything up, right? I don't do that part of the bottom, but I get the lip and things like that. And we've already sat and shook these things forever. You ready to get started? I am. Ready, go. Go. So we're starting with this dark, burnished amber. To begin with, and then we're going to go over it with a lighter color, I think. But we'll see as it dries what it looks like in the room and we'll adjust it as we go. Are you an expert painter? No. Spray painter? Heck no. You're great with a glue gun. I am. Here's a little trick when it comes to spray painting. Always buy more than you need and buy multiple colors. I have three different colors down there. We just started with this one. And I have extra cans so that you don't have to stop in the middle of your project and run to the Ace Hardware or wherever you get your paint so you can keep going. But then just return when you're done. Take your receipt and return the ones that you didn't use. But it's best to have them there so that you don't slow your momentum while you're in the middle of your project. Hey, Disney! Good Lord! I think it's the fumes, yep. I like them. They look a lot better. They do. Impuse green. Okay. That's it for step number one! But guess what? Even with the new painted urn, when we got to putting the tree in and all the picks and sprays and the decorations around it, when it was finished, it was too short. So I got Ryan to come back. He just made a box of, and it's six inches tall, 18 by 18, put the urn on top of that, and voila, perfect height. There are so many things you can use. If I didn't have Ryan, I could have done that with bricks, or cinder block, or pallets of wood. DIY is actually what Christmas is. Everything is a do-it-yourself. I mean, few of us can just go open a box and pull a wreath out and stick it on the wall and it look, we could do that. But it's not going to look great. It needs new ribbon, new bows, new accoutrement. It needs picks and sprays. And it needs to go over a deer head or something to make it gorgeous. But my house this year is anything but boring. I've got more color going on in my house this year than I have ever had. So we're going to go on to number six. And I'm going to show you what I did on the countertop of my kitchen. And actually on top of my range, my cooktop. I came across something that I saw on Amazon and I'm going to share it with you. It's, I think it's a brilliant. So I bought one, uh, this, this summer and I bought it in black, but this is what it's called. Get the name of it. So that's what it is. We can put a link in the description box if you guys are interested, but I bought a black one and what it is, it's actually a cover that goes over the top of your cooktop. If you have a 36 inch, like if you're at a 48 inch range, forget it. You're rich and you probably have a much larger kitchen. Just kidding. But it's probably true. Anyway, if you have a 36 inch oven, you can buy these and they come in different colors. So I got black, so it'd be the same color as my countertop. And I put a fresh plant on it and some, you know, sea salt and kind of cute things on it. Well, anyway, I decided for Christmas, I was going to do it as well, but I didn't want to use black. So I bought it in another color and I'll show it to you. This one is the one they call Walnut. And you can see it's a nice, beautiful, rich wood tone, and it fits right on top. Now, I know, go ahead and leave me horrible comments. A comment is a comment, and it matters on YouTube, so it's good. But you're going to say, well, don't you ever cook? Well, yes, I cook, and it's as easy as picking it up and taking it off when I cook. But what this does is it extends the amount of countertop you have in your kitchen. So it's a pretty amazing thing. I was like, man, I need to tell my viewers about this because I think that's incredible. So I started with this. Now, the other thing is I thought, okay, I have a garland, but I've never done anything back here. And if I'm gonna be taking stuff off when I'm cooking anyway, why not put something up there? So I got this really adorable, smaller wreath when I was at market this year. Let me grab it. And it is available, of course, at Amber, Marie and Company. Then I installed a... Oh, I'm not tall enough. Cameraman, could you come over here, please, and hang this? I'm just like a half of an inch too short. Okay. Look how easy that was. Thank you, Caleb. Oh, my God. So now we've got a top. So I could do something on here, right? So I kind of looked around at things I have. And I have an amazing sleigh and reindeer. That is from Amber Marie, and it was something I picked last year, and it didn't come in in time. It came in after, so I still got it, and I think they still have some, if you love this as much as I do, but take a look at this. It's a sleigh and reindeer. Isn't it gorgeous? So I set this up here, and honestly, the lights from the oven, when it hits this, it is... Quite remarkable! So now what do I put in it? So I played around with some different things and you know what I did? These are pomegranates and I just put them down the center here and I love the color they bring in and then I went hmm now it needs more than just this. You see these? How beautiful! When you get them in the light. All right. Okay, so I took the grapes and I was like, okay, okay, I'll stick this down in here. But I didn't like that spine there showing, so I got a little twig off of one of my picks and sprays. And I just pushed it in there. Look, it covers it perfectly. Then I took this little thing of garland that I bought and I had not found a spot for it yet, but I thought, okay, this is so cute. And it just looks like, you know, Santa's sleigh with fresh fruit in it. I'd love to cut one of these open. I think that looks amazing. I have these canisters that I got from Amber Marie a couple years ago. And so you can put those there. And then I remember when I did my unboxing, I showed you guys that I bought this thing. I said, it looks like a Texas fruit cake. By the way, no one has sent me a Texas fruit cake yet. Just saying. So I thought, okay, well, I'm just going to use it right here. Yeah, that's cute. And then one last thing. And talk about temptation. This is my little gumdrop tree. It's so cute. I know it looks like child's play next to my Texas fruitcake, but look how cute that is. And honestly, I could even put my, you know, my cutting board of salt and pepper over here. You know, it still is a kitchen, right? Maybe come here forward with this and put this back here. Back here. So I think that's actually pretty festive. If you're interested definitely look this up because I think that that added a lot and in the past I've had just a little bit of counter space here and all this over here but this just sort of didn't that wow I think I like it a lot. So that's my today's DIYs for you. These are small little projects, little improvements, embellishments, Christmifying your house. All right, you guys, thanks so much for joining me today. I hope that you enjoy it. I hope you enjoy this today. Take some of these things to heart. And the reason, you know, I don't know if you notice this, but we upload, we are very thoughtful about the types of videos that we're going to make every year. It's based on what my heart feels like you need and we upload them in the order we think they're going to help you. So a lot of these how-to videos on decorating your Christmas tree that we put up this year already have come out so you've seen it but let me encourage you to go back and watch it In real time, as you are decorating. And remember, we have Rebecca's famous Christmas recipes available on my website. It's a PDF, and what it does is it gives you the recipe. It's the quantities of how much you need for a seven foot tree, an eight foot tree, nine foot tree, 12 foot tree, so that you know when you're purchasing. You know, if you've got a nine foot tree and you look and you've got 50 balls and ornaments put on that tree, I can tell you right now, Ad is not gonna cut it. So you wanna create a tree like the kinds that I do, you're gonna need more. So those recipes are available if you find that you need help with that, how many rolls of ribbon, et cetera. Okay. Remember to subscribe to my channel. If you've not subscribed in the past, hit the notification button so that every time we have new videos come up, you are notified. And leave me a comment. I love hearing from you and like this video. All right. Those are the three things I ask for all y'all to do. It means a lot to us and it helps us here on YouTube to continue to bring you free content aimed at helping you make your house beautiful, Beautiful, not only at Christmas time, But you're around. All right. Love you. Bye-bye.