I've got the fever for decorating this Holiday Season...

I'm not running a real temperature. I do have my heat turned on today, and my favorite blanket over me.  

I tend to wait until Thanksgiving is over before I decorate for Christmas.  I'm in no rush to get through one holiday to get to the next.  It has become a tradition for us to put up our Christmas tree on the weekend after Thanksgiving. It's also a tradition for my children to make something special for each family member.  I try and find a cute but doable kids craft to celebrate the season, and to teach them that "giving" is more important than "getting".  I'm still searching for the perfect project that the 3 of them can work on together.  

Since the sun is shining today, I decided I needed to take advantage of this outdoor weather and get in some spray painting.  I am very excited to show you all what I made.  I purchased this punch bowl at an auction for a quarter....that's right 25 cents.  It's a thick, heavy glass, loved the shape, and the embossed fruit on it.  Now I knew I was never going to use it for it's intended purpose, it just didn't have a purpose when I first bought it, but leave it to me to figure something out.  I have been dying to use a product by Krylon called "looking glass".  It makes any glass look like it could be old mercury glass.  I'm still looking for actual mercury glass but I know it will be more than a quarter.  

Here's what it looks like after 3 coats.  I could have been done in 2 but felt that maybe giving it another quick coat would get all the spots I might have missed.  If you are looking for that "mottled" look then you will want to take a little water and spray that first, and then apply your Krylon spray.  

Once you use this, it is NOT recommended that you place food, beverages or plants in it.  However, I decided to wing it with a small pine tree that I left in it's original container.  I placed some small glass rocks on the bottom.  I had these left over from my daughter's "fairytopia".

 I planted a small pine tree that I picked up at Lowe's for $8.99.  After Christmas, I'm going to look for a small fake one to use every year.

This tree is receiving the feline sign of approval.  That's our "Dolce", one of the sweetest cats in the world.  

I should mention that I added some mulch to keep the tree in place and to make it look nice. I have a huge pile of it sitting in my drive way. 

And this is the first of many Holiday decorations to be put up.  Let me know what projects you plan on doing this Holiday Season?