Icemageddon 2013 and Christmas Spirit

Icemageddon. That is what the news and social media have taken to calling what the Dallas / Fort Worth area experienced on the 5th of December. Here in North Texas the temps rarely get cold enough for us to get any kind of decent snow, but every now and again a weather anomaly occurs. In the case of Icemageddon 2013, we were at 79 degrees on Wednesday the 4th, and by Friday, it looked like this:

Unfortunately, that is ice, not snow. Look what it did to our poor pomegranate bush! Trust me y’all… it’s never looks saggy like this.

Folks cleared the shelves at the grocery store in anticipation of the bad weather, which was pretty smart because the roads were incredibly dangerous all weekend. I was ok with that though, because being “iced in” gave me plenty of time to do Christmas-y stuff!

One of my favorite Christmas activities is baking and decorating sugar cookies!

I really need to work on my icing skills, but the cookies taste great, and that’s what matters most, right?

Of course the fella requested that I make him a couple of Christmas Ninjas. The fella has very simple wants.

I use this recipe from Bee in our Bonnet. The recipe makes about 140 cookies when I use my Wilton Christmas cutters, so I have plenty for our families and friends! And seriously, the royal icing is the best thing EVER. Any recipe that calls for 2 lbs of powdered sugar is A-OK with me (that would be the royal icing folks). Tip: I opted to roll my dough out between two pieces of saran wrap, and dipped my cookie cutters in powdered sugar instead of flour. The flour can dry out the dough and I’ve found that powdered sugar doesn’t have the same drying effect. If you ever feel like looking at something pretty, check out Bee in our Bonnet‘s website. Their cookies are so beautiful; they’re little works of art!

I also worked on some Christmas decorating to combat feelings of cabin fever. We already put up and decorated our tree right after Thanksgiving, details here.

But Icemageddon weekend, I worked on the mantel. First, I made this little garland with toilet paper and paper towel rolls. ‘Cause I’m classy like that, feel me?

I painted the rolls gold with my Martha Metallic Glaze in Medallion.

Then I cut the rolls into little rings and used some decorative baker’s twine to string the rings together. I love how simple and cute it is!

I used the same glaze on this frame that I scored for $4 at a thrift store ages ago. I put four coats on top of the white paint that was on the frame and it gives it a brushed brass look. I love it!

I primed the glass (Zinsser B-I-N of course) and then painted it with Rustoleum Chalkboard Paint in Moonstone. I used this same chalkboard paint on another project that I’ll be sharing here soon, so stay tuned for that! Meanwhile, here’s a progress pic of the chalkboard paint on the glass.

You have to wait three days to condition the chalkboard paint (basically, conditioning is giving it a light all-over coat of chalk by rubbing the side of a piece of chalk across the entire board and then wiping it off so you have a soft, chalky surface to write on). So once I was able to do that, I wrote this festive little message!

I have it sitting next to the portrait of Turkish that my dad drew and gave to me last Christmas. That picture has lived on the mantel all year and as of now I have no plans to change that. Not to brag but isn’t my Dad so talented?!

I also made what I’m calling a mantel cloth. It’s like a table cloth for your mantel. There is probably a really fancy name for it, but that word is not in my vernacular. And I’m busy writing this post, so I’m not gonna google it, k?

I’ll be honest, our mantel (and really our whole fireplace in general) is not my taste. At all… I dream of a day when I can have a natural stone or white brick fireplace… But since we rent, demo-ing ours and building a new one just isn’t in the cards. Enter the mantel cloth. Mantel out of sight, mantel out of mind, that’s what I always say. I said that once, just now, but anyway… I just cut up some burlap that I’ve had sitting around for~~ever~~ a while and lightly tacked it to the mantel.

I also painted a little gold line along the points, as you can see two photos up. It looked much prettier in my head. But you can hardly see it now so it was really an unnecessary step.

All of these little projects combined with my faux greenery and some battery operated lights made for a pretty cute little mantel, I think!

I also whipped up a quick wreath for our door. I just hung some tiny ornaments on it, tied a bow of red tulle to the bottom and called it a day. We have a storm door, and our door doesn’t face the street, so I opted to hang it inside instead of outside. We get more face time with it that way anyway. If its been made, someone should see it, right?!

I know that countless folks out there were affected by that nasty ol’ Icemageddon… How did you guys spend it? Or were you lucky enough to avoid it? Do tell…