The Shop, All Dressed Up For Christmas

And, as always, with free projects. Is there any other way?

A lot of the handmade decorations from last December were saved, making the job of holiday-fying the store a little easier this year. The cereal box cardboard / wrapping paper "merry" banner stored like a champ, as did the construction paper leaf wreath.

The paper bag stocking made it's encore as well, and only got two new friends, because I was a grinch and said no to making 11 more. Next year, perhaps?

Because of a certain TV gift wrap segment, there was an abundance of wrapped "presents" that needed to be adopted (after removing any embellishments that I wanted to keep).

Mixed in with some presents a few other employees brought in last year, they give our loft a "Christmas Morning" feel. Minus the hot cocoa.

After seeing this printable reindeer template, I knew we had to have one. But he looked a little plain the way they showed him, so my version got a pair of googly eyes, a coat of brown paint on his antlers, and a pom pom nose.

After hanging him up on the wall, my heart broke. He just blended in (!!), and I wasn't into the garland around the base idea. Solution? Another piece of cardboard, cut into a shield-ish shape, covered with leftover wood grain contact paper, and put in place like a basketball backboard. Swish.

Kraft wrapping paper is a great thing to have on hand, not only for gift giving, but also as an oversized canvas for painting four foot tall toy soldiers. You know - should the need ever arise.
 My beloved overhead projector got put to use again (best $25 I ever spent)
to gave me the outline I needed,

and then it was just paint by number.

Yes, those dirty socks on the floor are mine. 

Always time to make stuff, never time to clean.

Taped inside our glass cabinets, they look so handsome and majestic I just wanna give them a smooch. The shelves got the ol' wrapping paper treatment, and the pizza box poinsettia bedazzles the cleaning list that hangs on the wall. Nothing is off limits.

 A quick google search lead me to this photo tutorial on how to cut snowflakes and then
{after a bit of trial and error}, a monster was created and I couldn't stop.

Disclaimer: when you finish cutting and open up your creation, it will be creased from all the folding. Mine are perfectly flat because it's either spend time ironing paper snowflakes OR pick up dirty socks, and we all know how that decision ends.

And then the part I have the most fun with. The wall.
We've decorated eggs, seen stars, practiced pick up lines, gotten lucky and oodles more, but this time the theme is Santa's Village.

Which means we need Santa and his favorite reindeer,

and Frosty the Snowman {"Happy Birthday!"},

a Gingerbread Fran,

and a whole buncha elves busy in the workshop that's topped with paper bag shingles and chalked on snow. All the "snow" drifts along the bottom are smooshed up wax paper that we use to line cookie sheets, stapled to the wall.

That's gonna be fun to take down December 26th.