Welcome to this week’s Share Your Style #312! Happy Wednesday to you all, dear friends!
This link party is for home decor, DIY, crafts, recipes and the like, but you are more than welcome to share any of your family-friendly posts with us all. Please feel free to share this post too and join my small but loyal band of friends. I appreciate you! I appreciate your subscribing, also. As always, I am glad that you are here…💜
I am Barbara Chapman and I’d love it if you’d follow me here on my blog and on any of my other social media sites, too. Thank you!💜
Happy Wednesday to you all! Hubby and I spent another weekend outdoors working around the back garden. I’ll be sharing what we are working on out there soon, but it’s starting to take shape. Other than that, two days are done for this new 2021-2022 school year, yeah! Only 180 to go… 😉
I worked on some posts but none got published yet, so… Next time! 🙂
Let’s check out this past week’s featured posts…
And here are this week’s featured posts…
About this time every year, we gardeners get the doldrums out in the garden, but Penny from Penny’s Treasures shared this wonderful post on what to plant for late summer prettiness out there! ~ Freshening My Stale Flower Beds.
A wonderful post here about family, fun and Christmas inspiration in July… Thoughts on Loving Well with Coco from The Crowned Goat.
Oh, I was at such a quandery as to which perfect photo to choose from Jeanie of The Marmelade Gypsy‘s wonderful post ~ Paris in July: Something Old! But of course I went for roses… 😉
I love Debbie of Debbie-Dabble Blog‘s posts as they are a fun mish-mash of daily life! Good stuff!! In this post ~ And the Landscaping Continues ~ she shares more about the new neighbor, helping landscape that home’s yard, and more. 🙂
Lisa from Fresh Vintage by Lisa shared this lovely post about How to Make a Paper Snippet Roll. I love all the combined ephemera!!! Such a great idea for repurposing little ribbon rolls! <3
Cloches capture the heart, don’t they? I love Debra’s of Common Ground‘s beautiful late summer vignette. Do stop by and check out her woodland scenes!
Lastly for this week is this lovely crochet piece created by Maya Kuzman from The Little Treasures Blogspot ~ The Charlotte Crochet Pouch. Lovely… <3
Thank You so much to everyone who linked up this past week. A special thank you to everyone for always promoting Share Your Style on your blog and on your social media channels! I do see it when I stop by and I appreciate the love. 💜
If you’d like to follow my Share Your Style board on Pinterest I’d appreciate it, thank you! I do post all of the featured posts from each week’s SYS there plus usually other photos from those posts to my boards.💜 Thanks so much!!! If you are new to French Ethereal, I hope you will think about subscribing to my blog.
If you’d like to follow my Share Your Style board on Pinterest I’d appreciate it, thank you! I do post all of the featured posts from each week’s SYS there plus usually other photos from those posts to my boards.💜 Thanks so much!!! If you are new to French Ethereal, I hope you will think about subscribing to my blog.
Rudy and one other of Santa’s Reindeer out in my best friends’ garden.
Hello and welcome to this month’s $10 on the 10th challenge, friends! Thank you to our host Tammy of Patina and Paint for coming up with this fun idea for this month’s theme ~ Christmas in July!
Today I am sharing my Reindeer designs that I used to make and sell to around our neighborhood in California, in front of grocery stores on weekends, and to many friends back in the late 1990’s/early 2000’s for a little extra holiday money…
The top photograph was sent to me this winter by my best friend Janet. She still has these two reindeer some 20 years later… A little faded but still cute!!!
Supplies you will need
plywood
sandpaper
latex craft paints – brown for body, red for collar, white, black and tan (in ears, or use brown with white mixed to lighten).
paint brushes (large for the body, smaller for face and legs and tail detail)
wood glue
silver and/or colored glitter (for jingle bells – glue on over silver paint)
old fence board
surveyor’s stake
wood screws
marine varnish – to protect your Reindeer from the weather
Drill and drill bits – for pilot holes for screws
When I was making these Reindeer and other holiday signs, I began with a Grade 1 sheet of thick plywood.
Back then those sheets cost about $32 and I could make quite a few decorator signs out of each sheet. I used every piece of wood I had to decorate these Reindeer; Santa and Mrs. Claus, little ghosts and the pumpkins I made.
I made a lot of tea signs back then. They were all a lot of fun to make!
With the wood supply shortage this year, that same sheet of plywood could cost about $82 each… So, use old scraps you have lying around in the garage… 😉 Or buy the smaller plywood sheets sold in stand-up bins at the big box stores.
You can also use an old fence board and a surveyor’s stake to make a fun Christmas-y sign under your Reindeer and the surveyor’s stake will hold up both. These Reindeer are fun to stand out in the yard (or in a flower pot with a Christmas tree behind). The old fence boards were what I used with my tea signs, as you can see.
How to make a Rudy Reindeer
Begin with drawing out a Reindeer shape on paper and transfer to plywood. Draw out the Reindeer’s harness, jingle bells and nose on scrap plywood.
Cut out plywood pieces with a scroll saw, jig saw or hand saw.
Sand each piece smooth along all edges. Wipe down with a damp towel, let dry.
Using latex craft paint, paint each piece letting dry between layers of paint. Add eyes, a smile, hooves and a painted tail and fetlocks, if you like!
Paint the harness, jingle bells and nose and let dry ~ drill pilot holes and screw onto the body with 3/4″ – 1″ screws.
Sprinkle on glitter over glue on jingle bells, let dry. Use glitter wherever you’d like! Rudy noses look especially cute with red glitter!!!
Drill holes in body and screw onto the surveyor’s stake.
Paint a separate fence board (if you desire) with whatever fun saying you’d like to say for Christmas (or holiday). Example: “North Pole this way!” (with arrow pointing)
Varnish your signs on all edges, front and back with non-yellowing marine varnish (used to be about $45/gallon; it goes a long way!)
Our first home ~ Me in 1997, aged 35.
Enjoy your Rudy Reindeer! And now let’s check out the other fun ideas my friends have for you for this Christmas in July…
A year or so ago I made a few French Snowmen out of recycled bits and laces and I thought I’d share some tips so you can make some of your own! This is a fun project to make with your kids as the hot glue can easily be replaced with glue dots for safety…
How to Make Little Snowmen out of Recycled Bottles
Supplies you’ll need:
recycled bottles (like aspirin, vitamin and other bottles from around your home)
styrofoam balls in various sizes
chalk paint and paint brushes
black permanent marker to create a face, or use paint(s)
buttons
fabric and lace scraps for scarves and aprons
glue gun and glue
scissors
gravel from your driveway (for weight inside these light bottles!)
Directions:
Begin by painting your bottles with white chalk paint or leave as they are. I painted right over the product labels since they are often hard to get off even with soaking in soapy water. Apply several coats of paint to cover. Add a few small rocks or gravel inside your bottles for weight and stuff in cotton balls if so desired to keep the gravel from rattling around.
Next, glue on a styrofoam ball to fit the bottle opening. Glue on the original bottle cap to create a “Snow Man” hat or an oak tree acorn cap to create a “Snow Boy.” For a “Snow Woman” or “Snow Girl,” create cute scarves and/or aprons out of bits of lace and fabric scraps.
This little snowman still needs a couple more coats of paint… Oooops! Turned out I grabbed the gesso instead! No wonder it took 5 coats of “paint” to cover. 😉
This is where you can get really creative! I am lucky that we live where there are a type of oak trees with these super large acorns. They have the best acorn caps!! These caps are the inspiration for how I began making these Snow people.
Turns out this species of white oak is rather rare and is a native of Mexico and Central America, called Quercus insignis. The acorns themselves can be up to 4″ in circumference! The acorn cap I used on this “Snow Boy” below is rather small compared to some of the other caps.
Here are the Snow People I made a couple of years ago in this post: A Christmas Craft ~ Snow People from Recycled Bottles. Back then I painted each styrofoam head but this time I didn’t bother, simplifying the process. Also, I just used a Sharpie marker to make this year’s Snowmen faces instead of painting them on, but either way is very fun to do!
He’s a rough and tumble boy with dirt and dust in his clothes. Just being a kid!
I’ll be making more soon but this little guy went off as a gift for a friend who was holding an open house sale at her home about an hour away. I’ll share more of that trip soon… 🙂
That’s it for me this time, friends!
I hope you have enjoyed this fun Snowman Tutorial.
Our Thanksgiving break was all about decorating our home for Christmas and working out in the garden… During the early part of the week, Mr. Ethereal helped me by bringing down more Christmas boxes from the attic and he did some cleaning while I worked on decorating the mantel and set up our new Christmas tree.
Later in the week after a good rain storm, I spent from mid-week onward slowly taking my time hoeing weeds and grass for future garden beds, digging holes, and then planting just a few plants. I wanted to get ahead of the incoming freezing nights so time was of the essence.
Here is how the garden is coming along:
Just before our weather dipped to 32 F and into the high 20’s, I went out and picked the two peppers big enough to continue ripenning and dug up then repotted the Italian parsley/cilantro into a small pot and brought it inside. This “flat parsley” (also another name I see it called in the grocery and nursery aisles) easily made the transition indoors and it is happily growing bigger. I just couldn’t relegate it to the compost pile!!
We made turkey burritos with the last of the Thanksgiving bird on Monday evening and MAN they were good with that fresh burst of cilantro!!! The rest of the plant parts went into the compost heap… 😀
Fresh herbs right out of the garden are soooo much better than the store bought, I wonder why that is?… Let me know in the comments if you have a theory, or know why that is. Anyway, I need to pick up some more herbs to grow indoors. Our rosemary plants are doing well and move indoors as needed.
Tree shopping…
Two weeks ago I went over to Meador’s Garden Center to look for a tree which will eventually shade the southern side of our bedroom. Neighbors have told me there used to be a gorgeous peach tree on the side there but the last homeowners cut it down. So I hauled home an Eastern redbud that Saturday in the back of the Audi because the latch is broken on the Sequoia, my usual hauling chariot.
Mr. Ethereal wasn’t too happy I used “his car” for that purpose, but… I promise I didn’t scratch the car! I brought towels and a sheet to protect the insides. 🙂 The redbud will have lovely colorful leaves in fall and gorgeous pink blossoms in the springtime. It will top out between 20-30 feet tall in time and about 20 feet wide.
I hope to plant this tree a few feet further out from its current spot, if all goes well…
I finished the paperwork asking for permission to move our fence out 5 feet and will send that in soon to our city. I hope they will allow us to move the fence as it will give us a lot more visual room inside the back yard! The short end where the gate is only 12 1/2 feet wide.
We need to remake this gate (below) as it is literally NOT CLOSING anymore and I don’t want our sweet Yoda, who is going blind with cataracts and is mostly deaf, getting out and getting lost. It would KILL ME if that happened.
So… This will be our big winter/spring project if approved!
I finally got the three sun-loving camellias in the ground in the back flower bed underneath our master bedroom window. As I dug them in, I lifted the two mini agapanthus out. After watching so many BBC episodes with Monty Don in them talking about lift plants and putting them in greenhouses for winter, I thought I’d do that for these guys.
Our mini agapanthus survived some pretty low temps in California (22 degrees) but they were mature plants and well bunched together (and the air was less humid), but the weather here can dip even lower in North Texas (teens and high 10’s). Our aggies are just new babies!
How’s it {compost}-go-ing?
The compost pile is filling up with shredded leaves that Mr. Ethereal is chopping up with the new lawn mower every other week or so (his new baby this year!).
I’ve been adding in spent annuals, some cut green grass and kitchen scraps (including lettuces gone mushy) so we get a good mix of “half brown and half green,” the recipe for good compost. As I dig up worms, I’ll bring them over to help break everything down, too.
Our sweet garden angel dressed for the season….
Holiday garden decorating
“The Girls” have new Christmas wreath halos for the holidays… If you’ve never decorated your garden statues, I created a tutorial a couple of years ago that is easy to follow. The move to WP didn’t do some of my posts any good, though. I’ll have to go fix them, so here is a new tutorial.
This year, I actually made these head wreaths even easier!
A Quick Halo Wreath tutorial to make…
Supplies needed:
an old wire hanger or paddle wire to fit statue or on a person’s head
faux, dried or fresh flowers and greenery to decorate
hot glue gun and glue sticks
wire cutters for cutting and shaping
Directions:
Begin by shaping your wire to fit your statue or person’s head. Next, make small bunches of greenery and flowers and hot glue around the wire. Finish with ribbons flowing down the back or tie on other odds and ends.
Morning at our camp host spot in Campground “C”, Riverside County Parks, Lake Skinner, Winchester, California.This is the same head wreath as that picture just above, just after much love.
On “The Girls” original head wreaths I tied on small crystal chandelier drops to the back of them to add weight. The wind can blow pretty heavy here in Texas and the wreaths would end up all over the yard at our last long-term camping spot!
Easy as pie!!!
I am loving this latest incarnation of holiday decor for our Girls!!
The Easy-Peasy Way
For the newer version of these halo head wreaths, skip the metal wire and just wrap your garland around a couple of times, gluing the ends to itself. Glue on flowers and greenery to the garland instead. This style of head wreath is floppier but has its own beautiful charm.
That’s it for now, friends! I’ll be back with this week’s Advent wreath story on Sunday afternoon/evening. If you missed the last week’s Advent story, you can find that link here.
Good evening and welcome to our 187th SYS link party! This week your party host is me, Barbara, from the blog 21 Rosemary Lane.
We are so thrilled you all dropped by again to party with us! Christmas is just around the corner and this is definitely the place to find some amazing inspiration.
Before we get started, please make sure to pay a visit to all of your SYS team members!
Since I haven’t posted an official Christmas tour for this year, I decided to let you all in on some of what I have been up to over the past couple weeks.
The front porch is themed with a red and black buffalo check.
The entry way is sporting more red and a classic plaid.
And in the living room I went with traditional red and white. A candy cane inspired ribbon I found at Michael’s kicked off the entire look, so it went right on the tree! (And on the mirror!)
Fun right???
Gosh you just gotta love Christmas!!!
Well now it is on to…
There were so many fabulous links from last week that it was terribly difficult to choose just a few to highlight. So without further ado here were go…
First up is a gorgeous Christmas home tour from Kristy over at her beautiful blog Starfish Cottage.
Melissa from the blog Dancing Dog Cabin shared her rustic and beautifully done Christmas at the Cabin home tour.
Clean & Scentsible blogger Jen linked up her tutorial on how to make this adorable Hot Chocolate Gift Ornament.
Raquel from her corner of blogland known as Organized Island, shared an Easy Faux Eggnog recipe. It’s a no cook recipe plus it is non-alcoholic, so the kiddies can join in the fun too!
And finally from Taryn Whiteaker, a Free Geometric Christmas Printable.
And that’s a wrap! Congratulations to all of this week’s featured bloggers. If you have been featured please make sure to grab our cute feature button to proudly display on your blog.
Now on to the PARTY!!!!
We would really appreciate it if you would provide a link back to our party from your blog post.
Please, don’t pin from images or thumbnails in this post. Click on the link and pin from the original source.
Creating a Cozy Christmas blog hop! Hosted by Katie Mansfield of Let’s Add Sprinkles ~ Thank you so much, Katie! *** If you are just coming over from Benita’s blog Chasing Quaintness and for everyone if this is your first visit to French Ethereal I appreciate you stopping by to visit!
Today we are recycling different things into a sweet little frosty snow family and here’s how to make them… 🙂
Making your French Snowmen
Supplies you’ll need
plastic bottles with caps for the size snowman/snowmen you wish to create
styrofoam balls to fit your plastic bottles to
use as a head
chalk paint ~ I like this type of paint for its coverage and your object doesn’t usually need any prep.
glue sticks ~ you can use regular glue sticks or Gorilla Glue which is what I used for this project. It holds really well.
felt ~ for snowman scarves in any color you like.
pompoms, buttons, laces and any trims for fashioning
clothing on your snow family.
my sewing box
Making your snowmen
First glue a styrofoam ball on each clean bottle. Press and hold for 30 seconds to make each ball snug on “its neck.”
Paint the snowmen next with any white chalk or craft paint and let dry. If time is of the essence then use a blow dryer set on low to speed up the drying time.
🙂
Pick out trims you’d like to use and cut a little extra… I had to cut twice to get the right length for the
snow woman’s head and neck scarves.
Cut the long edge of an 8 1/2″x 11″ length
of felt then cut in about 3/8″ on each end
across the whole end making fringe.
Tie on the scarves and glue in place.
I glued mine a bit rumpled for a bit of
wind-blown imagination.
😉
I decided not to use the pompoms after all and used some wood buttons I had from an old shirt and then cut these little leaves for the woman’s buttons.
{which looked a bit like Chinese frog closures on real clothing}
These faux lamb’s ear leaves were originally fashioned into a boutonniere for my husband to wear at our son’s wedding a couple of years ago.
The rose had dried out and fallen apart but I saved this part to recycle ~ another of today’s redos!
😀
Then because I now had a cute French peasant
man and woman I had to make a little French boy…
I literally walked out of our local Walmart yesterday and tripped over one of these giant acorn hats which had fallen off the obliging overhead oak tree and
voilá I had an idea for a cute hat.
So after painting and using the blow dryer this time then tying on his scarf {same size and length as the man’s} and making it look like this young man had been out throwing snowballs and sledding down hills with his school and neighborhood friends…
That’s how we ended up having three French Snowmen ~ a nice happy family to come and help celebrate our Lord and Savior’s birth!
*<;)
I want to thank you so muchfor coming over to
visit and if you like what you see, please won’t you sign up for future posts? I appreciate you and look forward to getting to know you!
Now next on the Creating a Cozy Christmas blog hop tour is my friend Eilis of My Heart Lives Here.
I hope you’ll take a little time throughout the day and week to visit all of the ladies on the tour ~ there are
so many fun posts for you to recreate!
The links are all listed below for everyone on the tour.
*In case you have any trouble finding anyone above, do stop back by and reconnect from here.
*BJ’s blog, Sweet Nothings, may take you to a page that says, “This page cannot be found.” If you encounter that, just go to her HOME button and that will take you there.
The Creative Christmas Link Party is hosted by Janet of Shabbyfufu and the the bloggers of Blogging 50. Please visit all of the talented bloggers below!
We ate our turkey with candied yams (my favorite!),
cranberry sauce,
our daughter’s wonderful mashed potatoes,
and some mixed vegetables.
While walking around with Yoda yesterday, I saw…
Campers deep-frying their turkeys
and
many families bicycling around,
others were watching football games
or movies
on televisions set outside
their trailers.
During the evening,
it seemed everyone had a blazing campfire to keep warm!
Thanksgiving was a cool one
this year!
It’s really fun seeing how everyone camps!
At nighttime,
families turn on their twinkle lights and party lights.
Some strings are multi-colored,
others are just orange, or red, or blue.
Some change colors.
Everyone is happy to be outside in the fresh air
enjoying just getting away from the
hustle and bustle
and
coming out to get back to Nature!
Today I thought I’d share
a fun craft with you!
Holiday Head Wreaths
Collect a bunch of pepper berries or any faux or real berries you may have in your yard or craft supplies. (These I collected right outside our front door courtesy the local trees!)
Take an old, wire coat hanger, unwind the hanger using a pair of pliers/wire cutters.
Bend this wire into the shape of the head you want to decorate. Either pre-measure your doll’s head/child’s head (definitely!), or just bend your wire and keep checking the wire frame you are creating against your intended “wearer.” I wrapped my wreaths only once for the big angel (should have done twice ~ was hard to glue only to one wire…), and twice around for our tall lady statue (will share her later).
Using hot glue, glue on berries and their stems to the frame layering berries to cover all the way around the wire edging. At first, I had a thin layer of berries, but then decided to make a thick wreath by adding berries to the “tops” and “bottoms” of each wreath.
Place your wreath on your wearer and Enjoy!!!
Our little trailer 😉
These wreaths
could easily translate over to large wreaths, too.
I thought about making
a large wreath out of these luscious berries
(maybe finding the mostly light pink and white berries!!! Ooooh!)
The white tree center-left is the one I made for my friend Julie. Turns out she collects miniature trees unbeknownst to me!
Last year I went crazy making miniature Christmas trees! I gave most of them away but I did manage to keep a few for our family.
They really are pretty simple to do. I ended up going to Michael’s craft store and buying up all the little trees they had on-hand, brought them home and bleached them in our laundry sink. There were some tutorials out on YouTube and that’s where I learned how to bleach them. How to Bleach Mini Christmas Trees *I used about one cup of bleach in enough water to cover the trees (there were 29 of them, and I did them in two batches). * Leave them overnight and pull them out and rinse them in the morning. *Let dry on paper towels. Then decorate!
Caution: I tried spray snow but that made my asthma go wild! Don’t try it ~ made me sick. ;( *Use Gesso instead! 🙂 The gesso worked wonderfully and that’s where I got the idea to decorate the pinecones, if you saw yesterday’s late Saturday/early Sunday posting. *Just dry-brush on the gesso and let dry. No mess, little smell, easy clean-up! 🙂
When the trees were dry again, which is soon because gesso dries really fast, then you can go wild decorating! I used a lot of old bits of wire jewelry things that I have had forever! I also bought some strings of mini pearls in different colors, other beads that come on strings (that I cut apart). These are over in the jewelry making section. Sooooo convenient!
I even cut intoa long, inexpensive necklace that I had purchased at Forever 21 because it had really large pearls! and I needed them! I also used silver, gold and red beads that I had lying around. *Beads, a glue gun and zillions of glue sticks, and you are done! Was a fun craft to do while watching t.v.
This was also a great craft to use up a bunch of leftover goodies I had used with my old Girl Scout troop back when my daughter was younger. 😉
Our Christmas tea for my tea group last year. I gave a tree to each of my friends, as well as coworkers at school. Was great fun!
Now, for the monster tree… That I didn’t bleach. I found it at Joann’s craft store this year. But I DID add the silver baubles off the necklace! 🙂
We bought the tree’s “base” when we went up north for Thanksgiving, where we stopped in Clovis, California on our way back down {as I wanted to visit this favorite antique shop}. Not that I needed anything, but I LOVE all of the unique hardware this place has! I’ve found old door knobs there, that ceiling fixture and other cool stuff. Some of it is waiting to be turned into other crafty ideas! 😉
Just a few of the trees I made this year.
Most I gave away as presents.
Well, there at this store I found this old
cover plate for a ceiling fixture from the early 1900’s
(my guess).
It was $5, so it came home with me.
As soon as I saw it I thought of making a
monster Christmas tree!!!
I went and found a big tree 60% off at
Joann’s,
brought it home and my hubby
*helped me cut down the base
to fit inside the hole of the fixture.
*Then, he used a heavy adhesive epoxy glue to stick it to the underside
of the fixture.
*Because the tree was so tall, he thought it needed more weight
so…
*He mixed up some concrete we had lying around so flipped it upside~down and clamped it in place,
put that cement over-top of the glued-in piece
and around the edges of the cut base-piece.
*He previously ran fishing line around the tree’s trunk four times,
creating four hanging lines,
and hung the whole tree, base and cemented light fixture upside-down
for two days.
Thankfully, the cement idea worked
and
didn’t leak through the fixture’s hole (hence the epoxy). 🙂
Update: The base is an upcycled ceiling light fixture base. I found it at that antiques/hardware store in Clovis, California the same city that my son won the state track and field championship in the pole vault two years prior! {Just thought you’d want to know.} Was a HUGE weekend for our family then!
So proud of Peter Chapman ~ 2012 CIF State Track and Field Champion!!!!!
p.s. Thanks for sharing!
And, you see the amazing results!
Great job, Charles!!! {he cemented in the tree to the base for me}
Happy tree making to you all!!!
Sharing with:
Sew It Cook It Craft It ~ Sew Historically Waste Not Wednesday ~ Raggedy Bits
Feathered Nest Friday ~ French Country Cottage #Bloggingfifty ~ Facebook Duct Tape and Denim ~ 12 Days of Upcycled Christmas Crafts http://ducttapeanddenim.com/
