Hello my friends, it’s so nice to be back on my blog and posting a new post!  I very recently switched my hosting provider and I had to sit back quietly and let things settle in.  I’m very glad the switch has been made and I’m hopeful that things will be better here at my blog’s new ‘home’.

Today I have a fun and very easy little craft for you – something you can incorporate into your home decor, dress up a wreath, or top a package to add some bling!

  My friends from a Dose of DIY are joining in again and bringing you some awesome Christmas Wreath/Craft posts too so be sure to check out their links at the bottom of this post.

I’m just over-the-moon giddy about how this project turned out.

 It was so simple and was a last minute idea I had when I was at my sister’s house the week of Thanksgiving.  We had a crafting day and detailed and made all sorts of crafty, Christmas goodness.  A lot of it was ornaments I was planning to sell.  I took stuff and set up at a craft sale with my sister.  I bought a small lighted tree while I was shopping with my sister and set it up at the sale and loaded it full of ornaments.  The top looked a bit bare so the day of the sale I took along the star I’d made and we tucked it on top of the tree.  It looked great!  You can see it here on IG.  I brought the star home with me and then made another one just so I could share with you how I did it.  I also detailed it up a bit with some jingle bells and lace.

For this project you will need:

Red Chenille stems

White Chenille stems

Hot glue gun and glue

Jingle Bells

Lace or Ribbon of your choice

To make the candy-cane striped chenille stems take one red and one white stem, twist the ends together and then weave the two together, anchoring the bottom ends.  Make 5 of these candy-cane striped stems.

Hot glue the first two candy-cane striped stems together.

Add another stem to the bottom end of the first stem.

Keep adding stems till you  have your star shape!

At each spot a chenille stem crosses another stem, use a bit of hot glue to connect them together.  This gives it stability and makes it sturdy.

The chenille stem star is pretty cute in it’s plain state but if you want you can jazz it up a bit by hot gluing a jingle bell to each point.  Tying on a bit of lace or ribbon to the top jingle bell adds even more charm and personalizes it to your own taste.

You can use these for decor, tucked in wherever you desire.  I’ve used one to top a Christmas gift.

You could make them all red or all white, or any other color you wanted to but weaving two of the same color together instead of the white and red.  Weaving the two together makes it much sturdier than just a single chenille stem.  I think these would be cute to tuck a bunch of them all over a Christmas tree.

Hang it on a doorknob or the knob of a dresser or the drawer of a table.

Tuck it in for a fun detail in any decor!  This deer with the gold-dipped antlers liked having a start to share his shelf 🙂

The chenille stem star tucked neatly into my pom-pom wreath too.  (I may need to make a few more as I keep finding places to put it!)

You could totally detail ANY wreath with this star!  Grab a fresh greens wreath or a faux wreath and dress it up with a chenille stem star to dress it up in handmade style!

The last place I plopped the chenille stem star was on the shelf in my living room.  And there it has stayed.  I like it there and so does my artist daughter who sat in as a model in my photo shoot of my Christmas living room.  She wasn’t thrilled with me when I scattered her colored pencils on the floor for the photos!

I really like the way the chenille stem star looks against the old barn door I put on my living room shelf.

I bought this old barn door, and the barn door I used in this post, from an auction that was a fundraiser for some friends of ours who are in the middle of a foreign adoption. It’s fun to look at these barn doors in my home and know that by buying them, we helped raise funds to bring home one more orphan.  And having the reminder front and center is a great way to remember to pray for the paperwork to speed up.

I hope your holiday preparations are going well!  My husband and I shopped Friday night and all day Saturday, and got almost finished.  The weather was AWESOME!  We almost hit 70° – it’s been years since it’s been this warm in December, in Ohio.  I love it and wish we could just skip winter and go right on into Spring 😀  Hope your weather is great too!

Next month (gasp, next month is JANUARY!) we will be sharing something for Valentine’s day with you so make sure to come back – 3rd Monday of the month!

And now, go see what my friends have to share!

Jill

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