However, in our home, the family hub is not the family room or living room but rather the dining room, specifically the dining room table.

My husband and I bought an 8-foot barn board table handmade just for us. We lived in an old house and wanted to fill it with the warm craftsmanship of wood from the past. Of course we also didn’t have kids so our home was our focus. At the time, the table felt huge in our dining room, stretching from the back door to the living room entrance, but we loved it.

We’re in a new home (still an old home) and with three more in our clan the larger table certainly has come in handy. For family dinners we’re never crowed. For holiday dinners we never have to pull out the dreaded children’s table. For parties, everyone gets to sit with the birthday child. Breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks, we gather around the table. But our dining table offers us more than a place to set our dishes. It’s a place to work on math problems, write letters to friends overseas, and colour pictures for nana. We put together puzzles and play board games. We build crafts out of paper and structures out of LEGO.

Our table always seems to be covered with things. It use to really bother me; I’d clear it off, get the kids to put their stuff away, and an hour later it would be covered with a new project. Our table is beautiful, bumpy and worn with nicks and groves from the wood’s previous life and I feel it should be on display.

But as I watch me kids working around the table I realize that this piece of furniture isn’t like grandma’s fine china we only pull out on special occasions or the living room that no one is allowed to use since it’s saved for entertaining only when company comes over. Our dining room table is part of our lives. It’s covered with things because we love it. Occassionally we dress it up, just like us putting on our Sunday best, when we’re having a special occasion and then we can see its warm, honey glow. Just like we tell our kids, it’s not how you look but your heart that counts, the same is true about our dining room table.

So bring out the dishes and LEGO and crayons. I’ve come to terms with my messy table and the chaos that surrounds it and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

If A Charlie Brown Christmas is a popular show in your family, we have just the DIY project for you.

A DIY Charlie Brown Christmas Tree

This project is perfect if your family has a real tree this year. The supplies you’ll need:

• small evergreen branch
• thin cut from the base of your tree
• drill with bit the size of your branch
• googles or eye protection when drilling

1. When you bring home a live Christmas tree, you’ll probably have to cut the end of the trunk before putting it in your water filled base (in order for it to draw the water up and keep the tree greener through your holiday season). Cut a thin medallion off  the base, about half and inch to an inch in thickness.
2. Find a small branch on your tree to remove. You want a single branch without a lot of shoots, as this will be your tree. If you grab a branch near the bottom it will have more curve to it, like the Charlie Brown tree. You might be removing some of these lower branches anyway as they’ll end up hanging too low around the base of your tree when it drops.
3. Using a drill bit about the size of your branches thickness, drill a single hole in the center of your base, about halfway through the base. It’s not a big deal if you do drill through the bottom, but if you don’t want to drill all the way through you can use a marker on your bit for the depth. We just wrap a piece of painter tape on the drill bit to the depth we want the drill to go down. When you hit this on the base, stop the drill and reverse it out.
4. With the hole drilled, push the branch into the base. If the bit is just the right size of the branch, it should fit snug and not fall out. If you are worried about the branch falling out, you can add a little glue in the hole to hold it.

My seven-year-old son came up with this idea himself when we were getting the tree. The project is simple enough that kids can do it too, with adult supervision of course. My son even drilled the hole himself. His Charlie Brown Christmas Tree now stands proudly in his room and the aroma of the evergreen is wonderful.

The tree on it’s own is great. But if you are looking for a tree to put some decorations on, perhaps some your kids made themselves, you’ll want to choose a branch that stands straighter and has slightly stronger shoots. We love the arched Charlie Brown Christmas Tree look, without decorations.

While most of us love decorating for the holiday season, not many of us look forward to packing it all away after such a busy time of year. Tossing a few items into the storage room and quickly closing the door may seem like an easy solution, but properly storing this year’s Christmas decor will make next year’s decorating a more joyous affair.

Manage the holiday décor and the clutter gift wrap supplies can create with some simple tips this year. Here are 10 ideas to help you get organized for the next holiday season:

1. Use clear storage bins that stack well and number them. (1 of 10)
2. Sort and store like with like…keeping items you normally display together in one box.
3. Use an empty coffee can to wrap light strings around. Store extra bulbs inside and slit the lid to put the receptacle end through.
4. Try empty egg cartons to store small, fragile ornaments.
5. Recycle segmented cardboard (liquor box inserts) and place in bins to separate delicate items. (don’t forget to wrap with tissue)
6. Make an “open first box” with items you typically need early in the season, such as cards and table settings.
7. Put together a “toolbox” to store holiday essentials, such as tape, scissors, ribbon, and ornament hooks.
8. Create a custom gift-wrap center using a long underbed box. Store wrapping paper, ribbon, and tags all in one handy bin.
9. If you like to keep a good supply of wrap rolls, try this inventive solution featured in apartmenttherapy.com which utilizes vertical space like magic!
10. This Holiday Supplies Storage Hamper provides an organized location for all of your wrapping needs, and it’s portable.

If you are a creature of habit, take a few photos once your home is decorated for the holidays to remind you how and where you displayed your treasures. Before you head out to purchase extra wrapping supplies, take inventory of what you have leftover from last year’s wrapping station. It’s no fun to dive into this holiday task with a few partial rolls of paper, and only a hand full of tags!

By taking some time to get organized this year, holiday decorating should be a breeze next time.

Photo: Some rights reserved by katerha

Since Canadian Thanksgiving is in October and Thanksgiving sort of marks the pinnacle of fall, Christmas decorating at our house officially begins on November 1st. Perhaps it's the years I spent growing up in Ontario snow country. Perhaps it's the days getting shorter and the sun going down earlier. But come November 1st I am ready and eager to pull out the Christmas totes, put on some Christmas music (Bing Crosby or Brian Setzer anyone?) and start stringing up little white lights.

Our decorating has changed over the last several years. Many years ago we used whatever we had, then we went all "primitive country" and last year was very much white and silver which was a complete change and actually a little cold and stark.

This year I wanted to bring back warmth and a bit of a vintage feel to our decorations. Some of that is coming in by using off-whites mixed with whiter-whites, some is coming from adding more texture with burlap garlands and fluffy throw blankets. And some is coming in the form of DIY projects made from using vintage sheet music from hymnals my mother-in-law gave us.

One super easy DIY project is to make a paper chain. Yup, you heard me; a paper chain! Pretty much like those colourful ones we used to make in grade school from construction paper. Only this one is so much more classy and grown up!

What you'll need:

• hymnal pages/sheet music/book pages
• scrapbook scissors
• scotch tape

Step 1.
Using scrapbook scissors cut your pages in four pieces lengthwise. I used scapbook scissors with a funky edge to add interest to my paper chain. Regular scissors will do if you do not have scrapbook scissors.

Step 2.
Make a circle with one piece and tape together with a small piece of scotch tape. Loop another piece through the circle and tape it together. Repeat until you have a "chain" in your desired length.

Then all you have to do is hang it up and enjoy. You could hang it on a mantle, over a window or looped around a Christmas tree. (Be sure your Christmas lights are safe!)

For other Sheet Music/Book Page ideas, see a few of our other DIY projects: Vintage Hymnal Stuffed Ornaments, Glitter Letters and Sheet Music Pinwheel Garland, and Book Page Art.

But maybe, just maybe, you’re like me and you don’t have one. Not because you don’t want one (‘cause frankly if someone gifted me one – hint hint – I’d for sure make good use of it), but perhaps it’s just not in the Mom budget right now.

While you’re waiting (or not!), you can use a super easy transfer method for creating just about anything your imagination can think up. You don’t even need a printer (we haven’t had one for two years; we send anything we need printed out to Staples). And you can use this method for just about any hard surface!

As a side note, I totally didn’t make this up. I just wrote a tutorial to help you do it! M’kay?

Anyhow, we first used it on our blanket box.

For this tutorial I wanted to create a script-y quote for fall on our big kitchen chalkboard.

Wanna know how I did it?

Step 1

Create your artwork on the computer. You can even use Microsoft Word if that’s all you’ve got. I chose a fall quote by Albert Camus that says, “Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower”. Love that! I used Freebooter Script for my font.

Step 2

Trace the script right off the computer screen! Really. Make sure you’ve eyeballed it to the right size for your project space but you can always scroll across for each word when tracing.

Step 3

Roughly cut around each of your words.

Step 4

Scribble on the back of each word. Use pencil for most surfaces. BUT for the chalkboard use chalk…I learned this the hard way. Pencil doesn’t show up so well on a chalkboard!

Step 5

Tape your words to your surface with painters tape. Step back to make sure it’s all level and even-like.

Step 6

Trace around each letter carefully with a pencil. This will cause the pencil on the back to leave an outline on your surface. Cool, huh?

Step 7

If necessary, fill in your letters.

And that’s a wrap! Didn’t I tell you it was easy-peasy?!

What do you think? Do you have a chalkboard you could dress up? Could you create some artwork? I bet it would make a beautiful canvas too!