holiday DIY

Anthropologie Holiday Candle Dupe

| The Bee Life

It wouldn’t be the holiday season without another Anthropologie dupe! I did a dupe this year on the Frosted Bottle Brush Tree Candle. This honestly was super easy, with endless options to customize and create your own. Originally these candles are priced anywhere from $68 – $16, these candles I duped were about $14 each or less.

The candles I found were at Home Good’s and Marshall’s by a brand called Sand + Fog, they were $7.99 each but came with painted lids with holiday prints. I also made sure to find holiday scents since I’m gifting them for Christmas gifts! Luckily, I had a decent amount of mini bottle brush trees from previous years, so I only had to buy a few new to create this craft.

DIY Shopping List:
– Candle of your size or choice, ideally with a wooden lid
– Bottle brush trees: 6.5″ Assorted Set OR 6″ Set from Target OR 4″ Set from Target
– Hot glue
– Paint or spray paint as needed

Step-by-Step:
1. If your candle lids have a print on them, paint them white or color of your choice. You may need a few layers depending on the design. If you have a plain wooden top, skip to the next step!
2. Remove the base on your bottle brush trees, and trim off the excess wire with pliers. You’ll want the bottom of your tree as flat as possible.
3. If your bottle brush trees are all the same height, you can take pliers and cut a section off the bottom in order to have different heights.
4. Before gluing in place, play around with the heights and amount of trees you fit on the lid — I fit 3-4 trees depending on the size.
5. Once you have your placement figured out, generously apply hot glue to the center base of your trees and put into place – if your trees are taller, you may need to hold the tree in place.

So Many Brush Bottle Trees, So Little Time. As I mentioned, this can be tailored to your design and style and truly make it your own. I love a little more retro flair with my Christmas decor, so I found these cute retro bulbs and gold trees to mix into a few of my candle tops. On some of the plain green trees, I even added more white paint to make them look like snow-covered — you can also play around with spray painting the trees to whatever color you want. Finally, I do think adding in various heights can help add depth to the candle top, unless all the trees are different like the gold, silver, and white trio at the very top (which is one of my favorite ones!)


What do you think? My anthro dupe is definitely a different vibe than the inspiration, but replicating the originals would’ve been pretty easy to do by sourcing different bottle brush trees. It would be really fun to grab an extra-large candle to create a little bottle brush forest on top!


Check out my other high-end holiday dupes:
❄️ Pottery Barn Snow Globe Place Setting
🎄 Anthropologie Monogram Ornament
🔔 Christmas Village DIY
🎅 Nutcracker Napkin Rings

DIY – Nutcracker Napkin Rings

| The Bee Life

Oversized nutcrackers are definitely all the rage this holiday season if you follow any home DIYers on the gram. I’ve always loved nutcrackers since I was a little girl, and pulling out our nutcrackers each year to decorate was always something I looked forward to doing with my mom. So when I saw these little 2-packs of plain wooden nutcrackers in the Dollar Spot at Target over the fall, I snatched them up and brainstormed fun, easy, and affordable DIY, napkin rings!

The best part of this project is that it maybe cost me $17 to make — if you’re starting from scratch estimated $34 which comes to a little over $4 per table setting, as this makes enough napkin rings for 8 place settings. Which is well under the non-sale price of these similar Crate & Barrel nutrcracker napkin rings that start at $6.95 each.

I had old shower curtains that I utilized and then only ended up buying the blush chalk paint, utilizing other spray paint and colors I had, that would fit into my Christmas decor color scheme.

DIY Shopping List:
– Mini Wooden Nutcrackers | $3 ea.
— This 5 count at Michael’s is a good substitute | $4 ea.
– Metal Circular Shower Rings | $10 – $12
– Hot Glue or E6000 Glue
– Spray Paint – Color(s) of your choice
— Blush Pink Chalk Spray Paint | $8-10
— Metallic Gold Spray Paint | $10
— Olive Grove Chalk Paint | $36 (don’t recommend buying just for this project!)

Once you have everything from there, this DIY project can be pretty simple. You can paint your nutcrackers all the same color, get more intricate and paint faces and detail out their outfits, or you can do a color scheme like I did mixing in your holiday colors. Mine are green, blush, and gold! One thing to make sure you do is to paint the bottoms of your nutcrackers, as that will definitely be a focal point to guests at the table.

Once all your rings and nutcrackers are painted, you’ll want to glue your rings to the back, bottom of the nutcrackers. I utilized hot glue, but recommend E6000 for a better hold that is a bit more durable. Wah-la!

Now you’re hosting holiday ready! The best part about this project is that you can always repaint these in a few years to mix up or adapt to your changing holiday decor and style. I also like these, because they’re smaller to store in your decor.


Check out my snow globe Pottery Barn place setting dupe.

Anthropologie Monogram Ornament Dupe

| The Bee Life

As soon as I saw Anthropologie’s Monogram Ornaments, I was instantly in love, instantly inspired to create my own twist. So here is my easy Anthro ornament dupe. (I mean, I’m not saying mine are cuter than Anthro’s but they’re still cute!)

Since this was pretty similar to a Pottery Barn place setting dupe I did a few Christmas’ ago, I had a pretty good game plan of recreating these monogram ornaments.

DIY Shopping List:
– Plastic Large Ornaments
– Mini Trees (Gold or Silver)
– Wooden Letters
– White Paint
– Cotton Balls
– Ribbon
– Hot Glue

Step-by-Step:
1. First things first, you’ll need to cut an opening in the bottom of your plastic ornaments. This was a bit tricky to figure out, and should be done very carefully!  I used a sharp mini Philips head to poke a hole in the bottom. Once I had a hole, I used a Uline knife to cut a smaller circle for the opening, go slow and wear gloves to protect your hands. Repeat based on the number of ornaments you’re making – this is the least fun part of the whole project!

2. Before you get this started, you can start painting your letter. Make sure to paint both sides – pick fun colors that will coordinate with your metallic bottle brush trees. The bottle brush trees I recommend are also a bit too tall, so you’ll have to pull the bass off, cut about a half-inch off, and then reattach the base with some hot glue!

3. Using thicker paper, trace a circle using a drinking glass that is rounder than your ornament, trace, and repeat to cut the same number of circles as you have ornaments. These are your bases!

4. Once your letter is painted, and your tree is trimmed it’s time to hot glue your letter into your tree! You can try this out before committing with the glue, but just rest the letter in nicely. Then you can glue the tree to your base, pull apart a cotton ball and glue it down for your faux snow. Afterward, you can push this up into the ornament and glue it around the base at the seam.

5. With white paint, you can create a snow top, on your ornament – I needed to do about 3-4 coats of the white paint until it was thick and nice. You can then use pipe cleaner or ribbon to add a finishing touch around the base. Using ribbon and pom-poms you can dress your top however it works with your letter!

Gift to friends, family or trim your own tree with a fun keepsake ornament for the year! I may be making a few more of these – but for now, these are the finishing products.

Happy Holidaying!

DIY – Christmas Village Houses

| The Bee Life

Of course, I wanted to share this a week earlier – but I have been super behind on all things Christmas this year, we JUST got our tree and decorations up this past weekend. BUT – I have been crafting away and can’t wait to share my two latest Christmas crafts this week. The first one was inspired by social, and I just had to recreate my own – it’s using wooden birdhouses from Michaels and turning them into Christmas Village houses, the best part? Totally customizable to your Christmas decor and colors! Here is how I DIY’d a birdhouse in three different ways – because what started with a good normal idea, turned into some fun as the creative juices got flowing.

DIY Shopping List:
– Bird House of Your Choice:
– Brownstown from Michaels
– Corner Lot from Michaels
– Craft Paint & Paint Brushes
– Pipe Cleaners (I used Gold & Silver)
– Glitter (I used the colors ‘Sugar’ & ‘Gold’)
– Mini Trees (optional)
– Hot Glue & Modge Podge

Anything else that might be festive or ‘Christmas Village’ related could be used as a finishing touch to your Christmas birdhouse – I definitely got created and created my own pieces from what I had.

a Retro Christmas Birdhouse

I had the Corner Lot Birdhouse for some time, as I had big ambitions a few summers ago to do some birdhouse crafts – so when I was inspired to create, I was trying to work with the birdhouses I already had. I started somewhat bold with the color choice for my Corner Lot Birdhouse… and I quickly was regretting it and going to scrap it since I was able to secure two Brownstones. But, as I started to dig through my craft supplies, I found my silver pipe cleaners, had a mini silver bottle brush tree a silver, green and blue jingle bells. I was instantly inspired to create a retro Christmas birdhouse. And, oh my gosh I’m obsessed. The silver bottle brush tree also fit perfectly in the little corner behind the fence.

Painting Tip: For clean lines, I used tape to create a clear line between the fence and each house, the back houses as well. There are also a lot of nooks and crannies so take your time and be prepared to paint!

Glam Brownstone CHRISTMAS birdhouses

My original plan for the Brownstone Birdhouse was to go white and gold, which goes perfectly with all of my other Christmas decorations. Painting this white, was definitely tedious, but also relaxing – I did have to do multiple coats with the white colors, at least 3 or 4. Darker colors only took about 2-coats. As I worked through my Gold Brownstone, I still wanted to do something colorful, but not so bold as the retro house, and something that would still fit into our decor – that’s when I was inspired to create a pink and gold Barbie Brownstone to go with my Barbie tree (she is definitely my favorite!).

Creating garland and the wreath’s for finishing touches was also fun and used with pipe cleaners. I wrapped at least 3-4 pipe cleaners to create fuller wreaths to hang on each of the houses. The garland was created with at least 3 pipe cleaners woven together and then I added some clear beads along for added detail and to look like lights. To finish off the pipe cleaners also really added a pop along the base and roof lines to really give these a finished look – and the mini bottle brush trees were extra that I had, that were a perfect finishing touch.

The last detail is adding some sparkly snow to your rooflines, stairs and landing – with modge podge I just went glitter crazy and added as a fun pop!

Which birdhouse is your favorite? B loves the white and gold one… I’m a fan of the pink one but also really love the retro birdhouse, since I was about to give up on it early on.

DIY – Holiday Snow Globe Place Settings

| The Bee Life

Spoiler! I love decorating and hosting get togethers and I especially love transforming our house into a Christmas wonderland.  Included in that Christmas wonderland is playing around with our dining room decor and making a statement with our tablescape. I love shopping on Pottery Barn, we registered for our wedding there and I always find a few gems, especially seasonal ones that I grab when they’re on sale or occasionally splurge on. So long story short, I saw these Village Snow Globe Place Card Holders and was about to splurge — until I was like, wait it would be super fun to make those!
SnowGlobeDIY-beelife(6)
What You’ll Need:
– Plastic ornaments
– Mini wire brush trees, animals or houses – shop Christmas Village decor at Michaels. I bought (2) mini white trees and (2) green tree set
– 12×12 Glitter scrapbook paper/card stock, silver glitter and glue
– Craft sparkle pipe cleaners, same color as glitter/paper, I used silver
– Cotton balls
– Uline knife
– Hot glue and mod podge

Estimated total project cost: $25

Step-by-Step:
1. First things first, you’ll need to cut a opening in the bottom of your plastic ornaments. This was a bit tricky to figure out, and should be done very carefully!  I used a sharp mini philips head to poke a hole in the bottom. Once I had a hole, I used a Uline knife to cut a smaller circle for the opening, go slow and wear gloves to protect your hands. Repeat based on the number of place settings you’re making – this is the least fun part of the whole project!
SnowGlobeDIY-beelife(1)2. Woo! We have our openings, so now it’s time to cut our our bases and start planning our wintry scene. I used thicker card stock, that I ended up painting and putting glitter on — I would highly recommend buying scrapbook 12×12 glitter paper. This would’ve saved time and a mess. *smiles*  So using your thicker paper, trace a circle using a drinking glass that is rounder than your ornament, trace and repeat to cut the same number of circles as you have ornaments. These are your bases!

3. Working from the center of your circular base play around with your mini trees/houses or animals. Once you have your scene figured out it’s time to glue in place! I started with my larger wire brush tree in the center, and flanked either side with smaller ones. Pull a cotton ball apart and shape around the base of the trees and glue into place. Wah-la, snow! Repeat, or switch up to have different variations.

Pro-tip: Don’t go to far from the center, so that you’re ornament can fit around your wintry scene especially the cotton ball snow

4. Once you have your bases decorated, glued and secured — place ornaments overtop, making sure everything is fitting within the ornament.  Glue and secure the base of the ornament with hot glue!
SnowGlobeDIY-beelife(2)5. Now, depending on if you bought glitter paper or not, this step may not be needed.  Using mod podge glue I painted the top of the white paper bases and then covered in silver glitter over a paper plate to catch the excess. I had to touch up a few spots once the glue dried and I dumped the remaining glitter off to see emptier spots.  If you bought glitter paper, you are 10-steps ahead of me!

6. Time for finishing touches! Get that hot glue back out and glue the pipe cleaners around the base where your ornament meets the base. You’ll most likely need to trim for an even meet at the back.  I then used the left over scraps of the pipe cleaner to create a circle to loop into the top of the ornament to hold place cards for guests! I used old place cards that we didn’t use from our wedding, but you can cut and customize as you want or not include!

7. Once your mini snow globes are created, it’s time to set the table and get ready to host a delicious meal with close friends and family!

This was such a fun DIY and I love how they turned out. For $25 I created 8-mini place setting snow globes compared to spending nearly $60 at Pottery Barn — plus I made them! I must admit figuring out how I was going to cut and create this using ornaments had be puzzled for a while, and it took a few trial and errors before I figured out how to cut the hole in the bottom. And I really wanted to use ornaments vs. mason jars or other types of glass cylinders I saw online.  So once I figured it out and put it all together I was so excited! The best part is you can keep and use year after year or send home with guests as a little keepsake <3.

Happy Holiday Hosting!

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DIY – Give Thanks Door Tags

| The Bee Life

I initially shared some of my wood crafts (see here) that I hoped to do with all of our left over wood from our attic.  Well I’ve made some progress, and wanted to share one of the first ones finished, it’s an easy DIY for your outdoor decor.

IMG_8241
Just a reminder: all wood was reused from our house, so I worked with what we had.

After the cutting was complete I wanted to create a faded chevron pattern, so I free handed the pattern with white paint on the tags.  After that dried, I sanded down significantly so the pattern was faded, enough for the wood grain to show through. Next I carefully free-handed the ‘give thanks’ on the tags, with a permanent marker. For the finishing touches, I found some old rope that the previous owners so generously left at our house and eyeballed the length and cut! Tied a knot, and done. Please I was able to use supplies from around the house, this virtually cost me $0 to make, just a couples hours here and there after work!

Finished
I gained inspiration for this from ‘That’s My Letter‘ – although the tags she made are much larger, I might go back to the drawing board and see if I can make mine a bit larger (with more scrap wood). The best part about these, is they can be reversible for the next holiday, I plan to share the flip side in an upcoming post (hint: green and red).