My Christmas House Tour 2013: The Front Porch Edition

Welcome to the second half of the My Awesome Christmas Home Tour!  We’ve already taken a look at the vintage inspired interior decorations – complete with a vintage aluminum tree, an old Santa cookie jar turned tree stand, and garlands galore.  Now, let’s see what I’ve done on the outside, shall we?  And welcome to those of you joining me from Dwellings by DeVore on the White Buffalo Styling Co Blogger Stylin’ Christmas Home Tour!

I had grand illusions of lights strung along our two story rooflines, wreaths on every window and garlands for miles.  But, because I had some professional painters come in to help me paint some 3o foot vaulted ceilings in our home, that was just a pipe dream.  I’ve spent the better part of this week with scaffolding and extension poles being staged on my front porch, so I’m glad that I kept my outdoor decor to simple and easily moveable pieces.

And it was completely worth it for the painting to be done by someone else.  I’ll go into more on that at a later date once I get my house put back together and some good photos shot.

But, I digress.  Back to the porch.

Since my interior was very 1960s inspired, I wanted to do the same outside.  My inspiration was a set of giant tinsel candy canes I found at Garden Ridge for $7 a piece.  There’s something about the old school tinsel that makes me go weak in the knees.  I put three small nails in the roof canopy and hung these two candy canes from wire.

We can see them inside through the window above the front door, and it makes me happy every time I glance that way.

To continue with the theme, I made a “wreath” out of another item I found a Garden Ridge – a green sequined and glittered deer head.  This was in the ornament section (which would make it a giant ornament!), but I’m glad I ran across it.

I cut a piece of foam core to wedge inside of a picture frame without the glass.  I wrapped the foam core in some of the blue foil wrapping paper that I had left from my foil pinwheel garland.  The deer head had two hanging holes on the back, so I stuck a piece of wire through them and poked it in the foam core, twisting it together on the back.  I made the mini bunting on his antlers from bakers twine and Christmas themed Duck Tape – it was super easy, so a tutorial on that is in progress.

It’s my only-Lindsay-would-think-of-that, weird holiday version of a skull and crossbones.  Ha!

To mimic my tinsel candy canes, I made a set of glittered candy canes out of cardstock.  I cut the red pieces with my Silhouette Cameo, sprayed them with adhesive, and used my favorite Martha Stewart glitter to give them a sparkle.  When that was dry, I glued them to some white cardstock and cut out the shape with scissors.

The whole shebang is hung with a ribbon attached at the top of my door.  Oh, and look.  We have a peeker!  Say hello to my three-year-old daughter, Emma, who has her nose pressed on the glass.

Next to the door, I moved an old Ikea Lack side table to elevate my exterior Christmas tree.  This year, I decorated it with some handmade ornaments my in-laws gave me last Christmas.  The tree is also joined on occasion by my newest addition to my Christmas blow mold collection – a small snowman (who still has no name).  I don’t leave him out there all the time because I might literally die if something happened to him.

The other little project I did for my front porch is the painted coir rug.  Y’all, this is the quickest project ever.  I literally painted it at the kitchen table while my kids were eating breakfast one morning.  I’ll do a tutorial on that for you in the next couple of weeks.  The paint that I used is leftover from the walls in my kids’ playroom!

That’s all for today, folks!  I hope you enjoyed both of my Christmas tours this year – inside and outside. Thanks for stopping by!  Now head on over to Dimples and Tangles, the next stop on the White Buffalo Styling Co Blogger Stylin’ Christmas Home Tour.