Tis The Season For Painting Mirrors

I started painting my mirrors and windows last year and I'm doing it again for this Christmas. 

 It's an EASY, quick, and affordable way to bring in the Holiday cheer.

No artistic talent necessary, you just need some stencils, bought or homemade. 

This is the mirror outside in our front yard courtyard. 

 

This is what the mirror looks like the rest of the year.

It's an old mirror that I hot glued floral foam and moss to.  Then I wrapped chicken wire on top of it and stapled it to the wooden frame.  I grow Tillandsias on it because they don't require much water.

I made some homemade stencils out of computer paper for my template.  This is a one use stencil project.  Use stencil Mylar for repeated use.  I found the pictures on the Internet and I traced the picture of the deer right off my monitor because my printer is out of ink.

I used white and a little gray acrylic craft paint to block in the stencils.  I stuck in some pine cones around the moss frame and added some sticks to the front sides of the mirror to make it 3D. 

 I drug home the sticks from one of my walks.  The gardeners missed picking these up after trimming the trees. 

I still have leftovers for another project.

I freehand painted the mountains in the background, but it looked good without them too.  I shaded the bottom of the deer's belly and legs with a little gray paint to help define his body in the white snow.  Save the inside of the deer cutout and overlay it on top of the painted deer image to add the shading once the deer is dry. 

Here are some more stencil and paint mirror projects I did inside the house. 

The paint is easy to clean off the mirror after the Holidays.

Our family initial and snowflakes.

Last year I used these cardboard letters and faux snow to decorate the outside windows.

 



I used the same stencils this year for some indoor mirrors, but substituted the snow for acrylic paint.

It's snowing JOY

 

 Here are the outside windows for this year using the cardboard stencils and faux spray snow. 

These are EASY!

Wishing you and your family Hope, Peace, and Love this Christmas.

Thanks for checking it out.

Winterlicious Glass Bubbles

Volleyball got canceled this morning so I'm catching up on some blogging time.  It rained all day here yesterday so I finished up some projects and caught up on my taped shows.   

Most rooms in my house are getting a little Winterlicious makeover.

The mantel is complete. 
I made the stockings yesterday, but haven't had a chance to take pictures yet.   
To see how I did the mantel go here.

To further bring in some winter sparkle,
I moved my glass bubbles from outside to in and gave them a seasonal sprucing up.

I emptied out the sand, succulents, shells, and tillandsias and hung them on the curly willow branches next to my vertical pallet garden and my metal hanging basket light.  So far the experimental vertical garden is doing awesome and it's growing.  I added some Christmas balls to the light for some Holiday bling.

I filled the glass balls with faux snow, faux greenery, and a Christmas ornament. 

Gold birds, a snowman, and a Christmas tree. This was a free makeover, I used what I had.

The bubbles make me feel like it's winter here in San Diego, 

Sometimes it even looks like it's snowing inside.

Stay warm birdie.

I don't really use too many snowmen in my Christmas decor, but I like him contained in the bubble.

I tend to put things in glass containers and change them out for the season.

Here's one of my giant Winterlicious snow globes. 

To see more of my snow globes go here.

These glass containers sit on my kitchen counter.

More glass on my island. 

We don't get much snow in San Diego so I have to pretend with my vignettes. 

The glass contains the snow so we don't end up with "snow drifts" all over the house.

Still need to work on my picture taking and getting rid of the glare off the glass. 

Hope your Holidays are warm and cozy even though it's snowing at my house.

My Buffet

Here's how I decorated my buffet.
I started by adding a faux greenery garland across the top of the mirror and added a feather boa, silver/gold twigs, a string of glass beads, my embellished starfish, and some mercury balls. I had everything except the silver/gold twigs. I found them for .99 cents a piece at a floral supply and they were an additional 40 percent off.

 

At night.

Here is my buffet from last Christmas.  Since then I have painted over the stencil, flipped the mirror, and added the architectural detail .  I'm still wrestling with what to do with the buffet itself?  Buy a "new" piece on CL or re purpose?  It belonged to my great grandmother but it's to small, I don't like the craftsman style, or the color.  Even if I refinish it the style will remain the same.  So it stays until I figure what to do. 

I purchased this living Norfolk Pine last year at Home Depot for $16.99 and it's still thriving.  I moved it inside for the season.  I added Christmas balls to the base of the urn.  The urn is old. it's from Target when they still had a garden center.

Here is the tree from last year wrapped in burlap.

I flanked the buffet with my two faux columns from Target.  They were a great purchase years ago from the garden center at 70 percent off.  They are light weight and portable.  I move them inside and out depending on the season.  I added urns and faux poinsettias and greenery.  I had all this stuff already and I wonder why we can only fit one car in the garage?

I used a piece of burlap to cover the top of the buffet and added some more silver, gold, and green.

Candles in hurricanes.

I hot glue crystals and buttons on my starfish. 

I'm done with the inside, but I still keep tweaking things. 

I still have a lot of Christmas shopping to do.

Hope you and your family are enjoying the Holiday season.

Thanks for checking it out.

Spanish Chicken with Chorizo and Potatoes

I found this on Pinterest and made it last night.  One of the nice things about Pinterest is you get to see pictures and links of what your friends have found that you might not ever have been introduced to.  I repinned this from Leslie Simons.  We started following each other's Pins, so thanks Leslie for the introduction to this great recipe.

Spanish Chicken with Chorizo and Potatoes.

  Yummy comfort food that the whole family loved.  Another benefit is this one is very easy to make.  You pretty much throw it all together in a casserole dish and put it in the oven.  Very minimal prep, just a little chopping.   Life is Great originally posted this picture, but the recipe is from Nigella Lawson.

Life is Great

Nigella

I'm not sure what country the recipe is from because the measurements were in kg. and the oven heat was in Celsius?  I baked it at 375 degrees convection bake for an hour and broiled it for a couple minutes at the end to crisp up the chicken skin.  I used a pound of baby red potatoes because our grocery store didn't have baby goldens.  Next time I will use linguica sausage instead of chorizo.  The chorizo was delicious, but our brand crumbles apart into small pieces.  If you look at the picture, their chorizo stays in chunks. 

The combination of the orange peel, oregano, and spicy sausage made the whole house smell yummy!

This one's a keeper and I'll definitely make it again.

Tried any new recipes lately?

Thanks for checking it out.