DIY Christmas card display stand
While I love all things digital, there’s one old-fashioned tradition I refuse to budge on. Without fail, our family mails out beautiful cardstock Christmas cards at the beginning of December.
Since our cards hit the mail nice and early, we receive a lot of cards back in return. At first, we tried hanging a long piece of ribbon across the doors that lead to our back deck and using red plastic clothespins to clip up the cards. It looked OK, except for the small detail that we couldn’t use the back door until January.
Last year’s solution was to hang the ribbon across the hutch in the dining room and display the cards that way, or just line them up along the top. But every time we’d open the back door to let the dog out, gusts of wind would send the cards flapping and usually falling to the floor.
This year, I was determined to come up with a better way to display our Christmas cards. I designed a wooden Christmas tree card stand that we could stand up on a table in our kitchen or on the floor in our living room — far away from doors and drafts.
If you’re looking for a way to display your Christmas cards without an avalanche of them slipping off the front of your fridge, tipping off your entryway table or taking up space on your kitchen counter, here’s a rundown on how we created a DIY Christmas card tree …
Continue reading in YULETIDE, a very special SaltWire custom publishing title …
Continue reading in YULETIDE, a very special SaltWire custom publishing title …
The Dutch concept of “niksen” is EXACTLY what I need in my life
You know when you read an article that’s compelling, you can’t wait to share the shit out of it?
Well, I couldn’t wait to tell you about this one. As in, as soon as I saw the headline, I was like YUP THIS IS WHAT I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR.
“The Dutch have a name for doing nothing. It’s called niksen, and we need more of it.” (Washington Post)
“Niksen” means to “actively engage in doing nothing.” Let me say that again: DOING NOTHING.
Actual examples include staring out the window or looking at your coffee machine while it brews (in my case, I could stare at my tea kettle which actually is really pretty because it’s clear and lights up).
It supposedly has the power to give your brain a rest, increase your creativity, lower your anxiety, and help you feel more relaxed.
The verb is to “niks,” like “I am totally going to niks while I wait for the vegetables to steam” (rather than reading a book or looking at my phone like I normally would.)
This concept is frigging fabulous and EXACTLY what I need right now. I keep trying and failing at mediation, so maybe this is a junior version (or a hidden backdoor version?) that I can actually do?
I am a person who ALWAYS has her phone. (Not just for social media, I should point out. I read a lot of blogs and articles on it, and sometimes even read books on it.)
I am a person who almost always carries a book.
I am a person who, if I don’t have access to the first two, will find a scrap of paper and pen and start manically scribbling lists, reminders, ideas, sketches of things I want to make, etc.
I am a person who thinks it’s “a waste” to just watch TV without also quilting or embroidering or doing something productive with my little handsies.
I am a person who is regularly told to relax, and can’t.
I am a person who lives with anxiety and, therefore, has a mind that races 24/7.
I am ONE HUNDO PER CENT the person who would benefit from niksen.
I have no idea if it’s going to work or not, but it sounds a hell of a lot easier than remembering to turn on a guided meditation that (ironically) seems to shoot my anxiety up.
So watch me niks, niks — watch me nae nae? I guess we’ll see!
The highs and lows of your child’s first big commitment
Earlier this fall, our seven-year-old daughter went to her first dance audition and won the part of a Ginger Snap in The Nutcracker.
While she’s been taking dance classes since she was three, this was the first time she’d be dancing in a big show.
We were both overjoyed since this is a beautiful, large-scale production that the kids and I attend every single December. I knew it would involve lots of practices each weekend and be a big commitment — for both of us — but what I wasn’t prepared for was something I started referring to as the Nutcracker Nasties.
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DIY fur pouf from a thrift store footstool
Remember when we chatted about reupholstering my sister’s living room ottoman in what I called “the tricky way” — sewing a new cover and then keeping it in place with upholstery tacks?
Well, today we’re going to try “the easy way” — wrapping one with new fabric and going wild with staples on the underside — to turn a zany old footstool into a fluffy fur pouf.
There are so many footstools and ottomans sitting in thrift stores, priced at just a few dollars each, just waiting to be taken home and redone. I think this is the fourth one I’ve remade for our house so far.
(Like this for our daughter’s room …)
(And this one for our basement …)
(And, most recently, this one for my sister’s living room.)
It’s such an easy, inexpensive project!
My mom picked me up a truly wacky one at one of her local thrift stores: leopard-print fabric, gold braid and dangling gold tassels.
The tassels were so tacky that they were kind of fun, but her kitty had clawed at them and they looked pretty messy.
But it had serious potential …
Continue reading in my weekly DIY column, My Handmade Home …
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Reupholstering an ottoman
My sister recently came to my house for a sewing date. The plan was for me to teach her how to sew a simple stretchy long-sleeved shirt, since she’d wanted to learn to sew clothes, like I do.
She showed up, however, with a different project in mind. She thought we could also recover the ottoman from her living room, which she was in the process of redecorating — swapping the old blue and tan palette for a new colour scheme of charcoal grey and mustard yellow.
She didn’t bring the ottoman, though. She just brought the thick fabric she’d removed from it — after yanking out the upholstery tacks that had once held it in place.
Could we work with that? Of course we could!
Continue reading in my weekly DIY column, My Handmade Home …
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Heather's Handmade Life 