Spoonful of Imagination

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DIY Christmas Wreath

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DIY_christmas_trimming_wreathDecember is here! I am so excited for all the crafts, food, lights, and decorations that come with this month. It is truly a beautiful time of year. We have decked our halls and are ready for the season.

In all our preparation, I am aiming to keep the “stuff” simpler this year. It is easy to get stressed and overwhelmed, and I don’t want that to take over the joy and peace that should come with Christmas. I didn’t put out half of our decor, and the stuff is simpler and sweet. In this quest to stay rooted in being about less this year, I made a simple Christmas wreath for our front door.

One of my sisters lives in Arkansas and has horses, chickens, goats, and cows. It’s the real deal country living. She gave me a few old chicken feeders (when they were cleaning out their barn), and I have been waiting for a way to use them.

Old_chicken_feederI used a chicken feeder as the base of my wreath. I love the rustic, recycled simplicity that this wreath helped create. I bet you could use this same idea with a wire wreath frame.

christmas_trimmings_wreathI took a bunch of Christmas tree trimmings that I gathered when we cut down our tree, and broke off branches so there were smaller, thinner pieces ready to be easily bended in my chicken feeder.

I simply weaved the branches in and out of my frame. When one branch ended, I pushed that branch down towards the base of the chicken feeder and weaved another one on top. I didn’t use any twist-ties, glue, or pins to hold the branches in place. They simply stayed by tucking them behind the metal or previous branches.

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christmas_trimming_wreathOnce I had branches all the way to the top of my feeder, I checked to see if there were any bare spots that I needed to tuck in some smaller branches. I then used my clippers to trim my wreath to have a more uniform shape by cutting off some longer pieces.

christmas_trimming_wreath_tutorialI didn’t want my wreath to scratch up my front door from the rough metal prongs hitting the door, so I used duck tape to cover the ends on the back. My wreath was then done, and I hung it up!

DIY_christmas_wreathI love the simplicity of this wreath, but you could easily add some red twig berries or a bow to spice it up and add a bit of color.

DIY_easy_christmas_wreathI hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving (if you live in the states) with your family and friends!

We had a great “Thanksmas” with my family and I am excited to share with you more about it tomorrow.

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iBlog Sneak Peak: Simplicity

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The three winners of my iBlog giveaway are: Rachel R., Tara T., and Karen B.

I will be in touch with each of you! But wait, everyone is a winner today… Here is a very short excerpt from my chapter to give you a preview of the kinds of info shared in this e-book.

simplicity blogging

As you know the internet is quite large. There is a lot of content out there and more being produced every single day. The truth is, there is a lot of noise and a lot of content that is competing with yours.

Fortunately for you and for me the majority of content publishers out there don’t get the idea of simplicity. Rather than pulling back and creating something special, most sites just turn up the volume. Tons and tons of sites end up becoming hectic and busy billboards. You know the sites I’m talking about. You don’t know where to start and you just end up moving on because it hurts your eyes to stick around.

Remember we are talking about Curb Appeal. I am all for really fun, unique, and detailed posts. However, is your design simple? Intuitive? Easy to navigate? Is it easy to load?

Here are a few ideas on simplicity:

  • Navigation: I would encourage you to limit your site to have 4-6 tabs or pages when it comes to the navigation. Once you get beyond 6 tabs you can end up with lots of layers or nested navigation. This can be too much for someone to digest. It ends up looking busy.

navigation

  • Widgets and Gadgets: You can install a number of elements into your site that can assist with simplicity. WordPress calls them Widgets and Blogger calls them Gadgets. To put it simply these are plugins you can install into your site to help its functionality.
  • Mobile Responsiveness: Massive amounts of web content are being viewed on these tablets and smartphones every single day. Yet the majority of websites are not mobile responsive. Mobile Responsive is a design or a plugin that will adapt the layout of your site for a mobile device.
  • Load Times: If you are anything like me, if a page doesn’t load in about 5 seconds, I move on to the next site. I consider something to be wrong with it. I would suggest a Load Time plugin. There are a lot out there, find the one that suits you. The primary idea is that it will prioritize the order in which your content loads. Text first, pictures next, advertising last, etc.
  • Easy to Contact: As your blog grows people will want to contact you. It may simply be through a comment on your blog or the desire to send a personal message. Either way, make sure that your readers can easily contact you.

One of the primary elements of your design can be found in your consistency of creating new content. Think about your blog like a magazine. As you stand at the check out lines the new covers of a magazine draw your eye. Imagine if every week for several months the magazine covers never changed? Eventually you would lose interest because “I’ve seen that before.” But at the end of the day it’s about what is inside your home (aka blog) that makes it truly special. Be smart in your initial design, tweak as you go along and learn more, but keep the consistency of fresh new posts at the forefront of your work and your site will turn out just fine!

I wanted to share a few tips and encourage you that I think this e-book is a great read. If you didn’t win a copy, You can still buy one here.

Thanks so much for all your support!

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