A few months ago Vintage Holiday Magazine asked if they could do a feature on the way I decorate for Christmas, but I had no idea my living room made the cover until I opened the copy they sent me!
Pick up or download a copy to see the entire feature, and lots of other cute holiday home decorating ideas. Thank you to Vintage Holiday Magazine for the lovely article and cover. And thank all of you for your continued support and enthusiasm! Happy holidays!
Merry Christmas!
Ok you guys, I’ve always been obsessed with Christmas. Decorating Christmas trees is in my top 5 favorite hobbies of all time and I look forward to it every year. Normally we get a real tree, but this year we decided to go with a colorful artificial tree and skip the hassle of hunting one down and getting into the stand, etc etc. Turns out it was still a hassle because I went through 3 rotating stands, none of which worked, and ended up having to redecorate the tree a couple of times because of that. It still turned out cute in the end though!
Pink tree! Vintage ornaments! DIY tree skirt!
Every year I make a wreath for the front door. This year I made a cellophane wreath which was a popular mid-century craft.
I also made throw pillows inspired by my favorite vintage ornaments.
I have a serious addiction to bottle brush trees. And I couldn’t leave out my DIY Putz houses of course!
It’s a house rule that every room needs at least one tree in it.
I definitely cried a little when I decorated this tree. It’s the one we use to hold all of our special ornaments that we’ve collected on trips and for special occasions. We’ve experienced tremendous loss this year and we miss so many people, but these ornaments also remind us of the really, really good times and memories they hold. Sending all my love to everyone who has a hard time around this time of year. Be gentle on yourselves and hang in there. Try to continue making good memories even though it hurts right now. One day when it doesn’t hurt as bad you’ll be grateful you did
I also took advantage of the vintage inspired ceramic trees that Target had this year, for those rooms that couldn’t fit a full size tree. 
I hope you all have a splendid Christmas!
If you don’t know by now, I’m totally obsessed with vintage Christmas ornaments.
My favorites are the ones with the indented reflectors in the middle. I just love how unique each one is and how they sparkle and reflect colors when hanging on a lit up tree. It’s magical! You might remember that Ornament Tree Skirt I made a couple of years ago, but this year I wanted to bring that theme to life as a throw pillow.
What you’ll need:
-Fabric. (The amount depends on the size of pillow you want to make. I used fleece, but you can use any non-stretchy fabric you want. I got two 18″ pillows out of 2 yards of 45″ wide fleece.)
–Metal Christmas light reflector cups
-1” Silver buttons
-Snowfake shaped crafting buttons
–Metallic Braid Trim
-Ribbons, rickrack, and felt/fabric to decorate
-Embroidery thread and long needle
-Fabric glue
-Sewing Machine and thread (or you can glue the edges for a no-sew attempt)
What you do:
First draw a circle. The best way to do this is to use a tape measure or ruler and the compass method. Remember the way we learned in math class? HA I bet you thought you’d never need that. Then sketch out a little top piece (about 5″ wide), like an ornament would have. Then cut it out!
Sew the edges together leaving an opening at the top. Turn it right side out and iron. Stuff with polyfill through the top and then close the opening using a slipstitch. (You can try gluing all of these edges for a no-sew attempt, but the results won’t be as clean.)
In order to make the indented middle you need to tuft. Use a silver button and a light reflector to do this. Put the silver button in the middle of the reflector and use embroidery thread and a long needle to pull the button and reflector through the middle of the pillow. Pull it tight to make the indent, and use a triple knot to make it stay. Trim the excess thread. You can also use another button on the other side to keep it all in place if the triple knot isn’t enough. 
Now you can have fun decorating it! Glue the snowflake buttons around the indent for extra sparkle. Use the metallic trim around the top to make it look like the ornament cap. Use rickrack, ribbons, and fabric scraps to create lines and shapes.
And voila! A cute little ornament throw pillow!
It’s that time again! Christmas time! I love this time of year. No matter what is going on in life, good or bad, decorating my Christmas tree always cheers me up. This year we switched things up a bit and used our fake pink tree instead of trying to find a natural, flocked one here in the desert. We even got a rotating stand so the whole thing spins!
I badly needed a new tree skirt since my last DIY one got ruined during our move. Wahhh.
I used the same tutorial and materials as my previous no-sew felt Christmas tree skirt (pictured above), and put a different spin on it.
First you need a couple yards of 72″ felt. Then you make a circle in your desired size. I explain this in more detail here.
Then use pieces of felt in various colors to create curved rhombus shapes that were popular in the 50s and 60s.
Like so!
Then just simply use fabric glue to adhere them to the felt skirt in whatever pattern you desire.
And there you have it! A quick and easy DIY tree skirt for your retro tree.
Happy tree trimming!
Be sure to tag your Christmas photos with #Krysmasgram on Instagram!
Happy Halloween! I finally got motivated enough to doing a little last minute Halloween decorating with a little bit of spiderwebbing, a few DIY bats, and a ton of pumpkins. We’re staying in tonight and snuggling up at home tonight watching movies, carving pumpkins, and eating treats.
Here’s a few pics of a Melodrama Halloween!
We have an orange front door and I couldn’t let that go to waste! I used black construction paper cutouts and taped them to the door to create a Jack o’ lantern face. 
I added a few pumpkins and a few tombstones from the dollar store.
Inside I used spiders, pumpkins, paper bat cutouts, and a few gilded skulls to spook up the place. There are always plenty of spirits around the bar…get it? Spirits HAAA.
I put pumpkins in the fireplace with string lights, those will be sticking around all season long. 
And of course the DIY Pumpkin Planter that I made here.
That’s it for this year! I’m off to carve some pumpkins and bust open the bags of candy. Happy Halloween!
If you’re a plant lover, here’s a quick and easy way to incorporate succulents and cacti into your fall decor. Use a (faux is best) pumpkin as a planter! I used a cinderella pumpkin because I love the shapes and colors of them, and they’re usually wide enough to make a great shallow planter.
Update: I got a real one for really cheap at Trader Joe’s so I originally used that, but quickly transitioned to a faux pumpkin once the inevitable mush set in after about a week. Bummer.
Just cut off the top (and hallow it out if you want to try a real one) like you would when making a jack-o-lantern. Poke some small holes in the bottom for drainage. Then fill it with a variety of succulents and some extra soil or sand.
I layered cacti and different types of succulents in mine. Since the fuzzy cacti looks like a spider nest I added some plastic Halloween spiders. I can easily remove those to transition it into November. If the little guys lasts that long. Fingers crossed.
I love it as our dining table centerpiece.
So easy and cute! I hope it lasts at least another month. 
Accent pillows are one of the easiest things you can use to change the look of a sofa or chair in your home, and they’re also one of the easiest DIY projects to do. I wanted to bring a little color and fun to a bench I have in my living room so turned to my fabric scrap collection for something to make pillows with. I had some felt and pom poms and thought they would be perfect pillows for the holiday season. To be honest they might stay well after that.
To make a basic pillow you just need to cut a piece of fabric to the size and shape of the pillow you want to cover. Leave about an inch on each side for seam allowance. Sometimes I cut the fabric on a fold so I end up with one longer piece rather than two pieces. Either way works fine.
Sew the pieces together at the sides, leaving one side open.
Turn your pillow case inside out so the seams are inside. By the way you can do these steps with fabric glue like liquid stitch if you don’t have a sewing machine.
Insert your pillow stuffing and then use a slip stitch or fabric glue to close the open end.
Next figure out where you want to apply your pom pom trim and use fabric glue to adhere it! Easy!
I also cut some of the pom poms off and glued them on in a random pattern.
There you have it. Easy pom pom pillows!
Autumn is just around the corner and it’s time to start decorating! First up, Halloween! I absolutely love Halloween, but it’s not really my personal style to do a lot of gore or tons of orange and black in my home. One of the things I like to do with my Halloween decor is try to make it fit in with my home’s existing style. Here’s a really quick and easy way I updated a pre-lit, cheapy plastic pumpkin that I found for for $6. Isn’t he cute?
Spray paint. That’s all you need. I went with gold and white of course.
I painted the entire pumpkin with white satin paint (satin or gloss work best) and then sprayed the stem gold. I didn’t use tape or anything around the stem because I like the way the gold over-spray looks on the top of the pumpkin.
Cute, right?! I think I’m going to have to pick up a few more pumpkins and try different colors.
Anyway, easy peasy! Super cute and fits in perfectly with the rest of my decor.
This holiday season I have learned an important lesson. I have learned and accepted that I am not very good at decorating cookies. I’m swell at baking them and they taste amazing, but when it comes to the fancy piping and frosting I am challenged.
Growing up in older neighborhoods of Southern California, especially the time capsule known as Palm Springs, I didn’t really get to see any houses that looked like traditional homes depicted in wintery Christmas scenes. This Christmas I wanted to create something that felt a little more familiar and “me”. 
This was originally a concept I had for a gingerbread house but I thought they made perfectly fine gingerbread cookies and gave up on the other four walls. Can you blame me based on my questionable cookie decorating skills?
I still think the idea is cute and I bet you guys can do a really great job so here’s the template I used to create the cookies! Just use your favorite gingerbread and frosting recipes. Use a small knife to cut out the shapes and score the markings for the details. Throw some candies and sprinkes on if you want to get really fancy. Anyway, download templates here! Have fun and be sure to tag me on Instagram (@melodramablog) to show me what a great job you did.
I’m totally and completely obsessed with my Christmas tree this year. We do natural trees around here and always spend way too long trying to pick the right one, but this year it took 5 minutes and it’s the best one we’ve had in years. It’s the perfect size and shape and flocked to perfection. It’s chockerbock full of my vintage ornament collection which really makes it feel and look like a throwback to a mid-century Christmas.
The only problem I had was finding the right tree skirt to cover up the wooden planks that is holding it up. I found a couple that I liked but they weren’t quite right so I used them as inspiration and make my own using felt and pom-pom trim.
The first thing I did was cut my foundation felt into a circle. The easiest way to do this is to fold your felt into quarters (fold in half, and then fold in half again the other way). Starting at the folded corner, measure how big you want the skirt to be. I measured mine at 27 inches.
Keep marking your measurement until you get to the other side. You should have something that looks like this. Mark the corner to make the hole for the middle, too.
If done properly you should have a circle tree skirt.
The next thing is to decorate it!
You can use cookie cutters, templates, or free hand any decorations of your choice and cut them out of felt. I went with the vintage ornament theme and free-handed different ornament shapes. I used fabric glue to glue them on.
I glued on silver baby rick-rack and thin ribbon as the strings for my ornaments. 
The last thing I did was glued on pom-pom trim. Seriously so easy and adorable.
Now my tree feels complete!
I’m so happy with the way this turned out and even happier that I didn’t have to lug out my sewing machine. The total project cost me around $25 so that’s also a bonus!
Melodrama 