Christmas Decoration Hand-Me-Downs: Fixing Up An Old Wreath

Of the decorations I have in our little blue house, I would say maybe two items I truly purchased. My pencil Christmas tree about five years ago on sale for $50.00 and my nativity set for $10.00. The rest has been bought for me as gifts or handed down to me. I love the free items but at the same time it can be a challenge to have a cohesive style.

With this being the first year I have truly had the energy at Christmas time, I am putting some of that energy into make a "style" and trying to make a few of my own decorations. More on the homemade (if I am lucky) in the next couple weeks.

I LOVE wreaths. Really I do. I want one of those all red berry ones to hang on my front door but it never ever fails that the price of any wreath is just more than I can stand to pay. Aren't they just gorgeous though?!?

I was given a lovely wreath a couple Christmas's ago by my mother. It had belonged to her mother and needed a new home. I gladly accepted because I love the idea of keeping stuff in the family, not letting things get thrown out, and I knew I was too cheap to buy my own. It worked great for a couple years and each year I just tossed it back up into the attic without much regard of how tired it looked. 

Not bad really. Pretty. Good bones but lacking a fresh factor. I love the flowers and the gold (which is a minor accent in my house after black) but it definitely needed something. It was raining cats and dogs here this afternoon (again!) and the baby is under the weather so Gary spent sometime with Wade and I got some long overdue craft time in. The finished product turned out pretty well and it sure looks fresh and new. I think my mother and my grandmother would be very pleased. 

I didn't buy anything for the make over. I simply cracked open my shoe box of acrylic paints and paint brushes and I had some left over Christmas gold and red glitter paint from some Christmas gift project long ago. The extra pine cones came from the pines behind my house near the chicken coop that I picked up earlier in the fall. Now I can move on to making wreaths for the front and back door and decorations for my fairly un-decorated kitchen. It felt amazing though to finally get to something fun on my to do list. How is your Christmas decorating coming? Care to share any old, re-purposed, salvaged Christmas items or ideas you have?

Also, I want to remind you to join us on our Two Blue Houses Facebook page. We share other pictures and bits of information there that doesn't make it to the blog AND we would love to see your Christmas handmade pictures on our wall! 

Happy decorating!