Come and Knock on Our Door

Come on in and stay awhile! But before you do that, check out what’s been going on outside our front door. 🙂 The other day, I showed you our Christmas wreath that found it’s home on our door, but little did you know… if you pan a bit to the left, we’ve got a lot more going on out there!

Remember the sled from that sneak peek back around Thanksgiving? Well, she’s finally made her debut! Let’s break the look down a bit. I started with the sled as the foundation and decided to build off the winter-meets-Christmas theme. I knew I wanted a grouping of three things (in decorating, when in doubt, use odd numbered groupings) or vignettes that could come together to create one cohesive look.

I started with the sled as the foundation and decided to build off the winter-meets-Christmas theme. To the sled, I added a “bundle of Christmas joy”, as I’m calling it. To start, simply grab a few branches of tree (I was picking them up off the ground at the tree farm we got our tree from) and tie them together, all “stems” at one end and branches at another. I tied them at the “stem” end and chose to hang them facing downward.

After that, I stuck in a bundle of ivory faux berries and tied a red ribbon around the whole thing to hide the wire and bring in that hint of Christmas.

Originally, I had intended to use some chalkboard paint to create a sign to hang, but when I came across this one in Michaels for a few bucks, my simplifysimplifysimplify mantra kicked in and I couldn’t resist making life a little easier. All I did was hang the sign over the bundle of branches right before attaching the whole thing to the sled.

To attach the piece to the sled, I used more of the green wire that was used to bind the branches together.

Add a welcoming message or a few holiday song lyrics and you’re good to go!

The idea for the bucket came out of this year’s holiday edition of the Lowes Creative Ideas magazine. Here was my inspiration picture (specifically, those awesome filled buckets):

In my effort to use mostly things I already had, I decided to forgo purchasing a steel bucket in exchange for just using an old pot we had laying around in the backyard.

I gave it a galvanized look with a little spray paint, but decided to let it’s red color show on the inside by only spraying the exterior. Another bonus to that was that it saved time and spray paint!

From there, it was fun hunting for some logs and stuffing it with branches, pine cones, some shimmer, and fake snow to finish the look.

I rounded out the trio with this cute little red lantern from Ikea… I snagged it on the same trip that I bought our tree skirt and at the time, I couldn’t decide if we really needed it or not. I’m happy I ended up buying it though, because it ties in the red nicely and makes for a perfect third item for our set up.

And that finishes up the happenings on our front stoop. It feels merry, snowy, and festive and makes us smile every time we come home. So NOW that you’ve taken the grand tour, why don’t you come on inside? I’m sure you’re freezing from standing out there for so long taking in the view… can I make you some hot chocolate? 🙂

What’s going on outside your front door? Any wreaths, sleds, or fake snow?