A Lauer Christmas Home Tour - Cardinals, Candy canes & Burlap - Kitchen, Bath and Dinning Room - Part 2

Good morning readers!

I am thrilled to be adding the Part 2 to this series, A Lauer Christmas Home Tour. One fantastic thing about his is I get to share my new home with my family and friends who have not been able to see it since we now live so far away. 

Today I am honored to be a part of a second Parade of Christmas Home Tours! This home tour has been well organized and generously hosted by Up To Date Interiors. Thank you Kathryn for allowing me to be a part of your special on Bloggers Best homes. 

Click on the link for A Lauer Christmas Home Tour Part 1 - Oh Holy Night, Front Room and Inside Entry

Now let us get started, grab a cup of tea or coffee and take a few min to come on in, and let me show you around. Enjoy, and please subscribe or find me on my social media and follow, share, pin or comment your thoughts. Thank you for your support!

The Dinning Room

I just love the arches that cross between the dinning room and our back living room. We have two, one very large one with a 10' arch and a smaller one with a 3.5' wide arch. When we bought the house I knew I wanted to put our Christmas Tree there! It was perfect, we only had one tall tree but we had high ceilings in this new home of ours. So this would be a perfect spot to nestle the tree into and with the arch it makes the tree seem taller as it reaches up to the center of the arch.

The decor in the dinning room is a mix between the red and white in the kitchen and the red, gold and burlap in the back living room. 

The center piece is a Better Homes and Garden's candle holder filled with Dollar Tree Ornaments. 

I just love apothecary jars and this one full of sweet candy cane goodness is not exception. It gets decorated for every season or holiday.

Cardinals

Cardinals have a special place in my heart. Luckily they are found everywhere at Christmas time. My Grandfather used to sit in his bed, ill and unable to go outside, and watch the cardinals feed on the bird feeder outside his window. He has left this world now and is up in heaven with his maker. Though it's been over 5 years since his passing, the last days I was able to spend with him was during Christmas when he would tell me all the local cardinal's names as they came to feast outside his window. Cardinals were his favorite and this time of year seeing them everywhere brings him a little closer to me once again. 

In the image above there are also some handmade ornaments a glittered angel, a Christmas Mouse that I made as a child, and in the bottom right corner we have several book page ornaments my kids made this year at a workshop I taught at the local book store. Here are some more links to some other Book page art projects I have worked on this year. The second link is a great tutorial to this fun Kid Craft Ornament

If you want to see more of my Holiday Book Page art and ornaments please check out these links.

2014 Book Page Holiday Creations:

• Poinsettia Book Page Ornament for your Christmas Tree
• Child Book Page Ornament Tutorial  <== KID CRAFT ORNAMENT TUTORIAL
• Glass Book Page Square Shaker Ornament 
• Book Page Snowman
• Angel Wing Christmas Tree Ornament
• Table Top Christmas Trees
• Golden Star Book Page Christmas Tree Ornament

The Powder Room

I always love little surprises when people visit my home and they remember the details. Like decorating the powder room. It's a relatively small space so it doesn't need much to make an impact. 

Some extra flowers and ribbon, a few bows, a Santa hat and some wonderful paper snowflakes my nine year old daughter made for me.

Wrap the lid to the tank like a fancy present. 

The Kitchen

The kitchen is one of my favorite spots during the holidays! I love to bake and cook for entertaining friends and family. A few years ago I stumbled into a Dollar Tree to get something really quick and it happened to be the week they put out all their Christmas items. If you have never shopped there the seasonal items sell out very quickly. As I peeked at all the goodies (yes some on their own look very cheap) I started to see a theme. Something very easy to do, costing very little for an entire room decor and something very sweet (wink). 

I purchased all the rolls of white ribbon with red sequin stripes, red glittered bows, candy ornaments 2/$1.00, bags of 12 plastic candy canes and other tid bits that coordinated including the towel, the gift bags at the top of the cabinets and the white mesh.

The plastic Candy Canes were glued together with hot glue into the shape of a heart and decorated with a larger wrapped candy ornament.

Thank you so much for spending your precious time with me during this holiday season. I want to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Please leave your comments below, pin, share and follow if you like what you see.

To see Part 1 to this post check it out here:  A Lauer Christmas Home Tour - Oh, Holy Night - Entry way, Banister and Front Room - Part 1

Find me on..
Facebook: Uniquely Grace
Twitter: Grace Lauer Artist @gracelauer
Instagram: @gracelauer_henna_artist
Pinterest: L. Grace Lauer

Stunning Glass Book Page Shaker Ornaments made from "The Hobbit" and "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer"

Hello fellow book, art and craft lovers! Here I have our third new #Handcrafted design of my #bookpage #Ornaments for the #2014 #holiday #season.

#Cardinals are very special to me as they remind me of my Grandfather. I have one of these hanging on my #tree right now at home. Having them around on #Christmas reminds me he is always watching from up above. #Blessings to you all this #holiday #season. These #Ornaments can be found at  in  not far from   

Here I have our third new #Handcrafted design of my #bookpage #Ornaments for the #2014 #holiday #season. This #square #glass ornament is filled with pages from a Tom Sawyer and backed golden pages from the Hobbit, then adorned in #gold and #red embellishments and trim. There are 6 of these available in three different #designs. One has #Noel, the other has #Holly and the third has a #Cardinal on the front. Get them while they last! You can find these on #display in the front window at Books on Broad.

If you like what you see please like my page Uniquely Grace and check out Books on Broad for more info on #bookstore and #artist events in#CamdenSC.

Have a fantastic holiday season! Blessings to you!

Bookstore: Books on Broad
Artist's Page: Uniquely Grace

2014 Book Page Holiday Creations:

• Poinsettia Book Page Ornament for your Christmas Tree
• Child Book Page Ornament Tutorial 
• Glass Book Page Square Shaker Ornament 
• Book Page Snowman
• Angel Wing Christmas Tree Ornament
• Table Top Christmas Trees
• Golden Star Book Page Christmas Tree Ornament

Find me on...
Facebook: Uniquely Grace
Twitter: Grace Lauer Artist @gracelauer
Instagram: @gracelauer_henna_artist
Pinterest: L. Grace Lauer

Reuse, Recycle, & Ribbon Blog Hop! - "C is for..."

Welcome to the Reuse, Recycle, & Ribbon Blog Hop! All of us bloggers were brought together by www.creamcityribbon.com and their wonderful products.

So lets get hopping!!!! I am the third stop on the list and you should have come from here... Mandie at Mandie's Scrappin'. After you check out my Reuse, Recycle, and Ribbon project you will see the next blog at the bottom.

GIVE AWAY! - I will have one winner randomly chosen from the comments on my left on this post. You must comment anytime on Friday until 11:59 pm PST to be eligible to win and you must also fallow my blog so we can keep in touch! You will receive a Holiday Scrapbooking RAK from me including some of the wonderful unique Cream City Ribbon and some beautiful DCWV Holiday Collection Papers! Doesn't that sound great?

My hubby would say that is a bad thing... but then again he has the Beastie boys song "She's Craft" as my ring ton on his phone and he always does the shifty eyes when he talks with someone about my creativeness. LOL.

Here is an item I made for the Michales Holiday Magic Contest on their FB page. I love Michaels and all the wonderful things I find in there... so here is a bit of a tutorial also.

Supplies:
1 - book (preferably paper back and one you wont read again) with aged pages
2 - small branches from a tree
3 - yards (give or take depending on the size of the next item) of yarn
1 - large 12" letter, number or symbol... either chipboard, cardboard or foam core
1 - wire or straw wreath base (if using straw you will need a piece of fabric to wrap around it till it is covered)
1 - hot glue gun and glue
1 - sheet of printable transparency
3 - clear ornaments
3-4 - public domain images from the internet
3 - glittered wire floral curls
1 - yard of Cream City Ribbon
2 - yards or so of gold thread
Brown ink pad
Bronze and Gold Ritzy Ditzy Glitz

STEP 1 - Ink all outer edges of the book pages in brown.
STEP 2 – Rip pages gently from binding and ink remaining last side of pages

STEP 3- Roll all pages need into a cone shape with one corner being the point adhere closed with glue dots.

STEP 4 – If using a straw wreath, wrap it in a light colored fabric strips, securing fabric with hot glue.

STEP 5 - Use hot glue gun to adhere cones to wreath base. Start with back row first finishing with the front row.

STEP 6 – Mist edges of cones with a metallic misting spray and let dry.

STEP 7 – Wrap desired yarn around large chipboard letter and secure it with hot glue.

STEP 8 - Tie yarn into a series of knots to create berries. Hot glue the berries onto the twigs.

STEP 9 – Print desired images onto transparency paper in the correct size to fit into the plastic ornaments. Color if needed, cut out and roll to insert into plastic ornament.

STEP 10 – Glue the Cream City Ribbon under one page cone on the front layer of the wreath. Weave above and under pages all around the wreath, repeat with gold thread if desired. Here you can see the Natural Red Cream City Ribbon doing this.

STEP 11 - Find one blank page in your book, remove it and print your journaling onto the book page. Mist it with your metallic mist and let dry. (See pic for step 7)

STEP 12 – Assembly. Arrange all items to achieve desired look and hot glue into place.

STEP 13 – Cut a piece of yarn 1 1/2 “ft long. Fold in half and knot the two cut edges together. You now should have a loop of yarn. Tie it at the top of your wreath around the straw base. This is how you will hang the wreath, make sure it is not visible when it is on the wall.

If you give it a try you need to know you might need a good movie and some snacks that wont melt in your hands... hehe!

Are you enjoying the hopping so far? What kinda of off the page projects do you like to make?

Here's a list of blogs that you'll hop to with us today. Take a peek!

Nikki at