This has nothing at all to do with shades, BUT when I’m not making shades, I have a passion for decorating, especially holiday decorating!! So, I thought I would share a fun project that I recently worked on, a Santa’s Workshop and Ice Pond for our front yard Christmas display! I used a few of my workroom supplies for this project!

First off, I was going to make the structure from scratch with wood, but since the price of wood is so high these days, and it was easier to buy already cut wood, I went in another direction. I purchased an unfinished playhouse on Amazon for $250. It came fully unassembled but it was fairly easy to construct and took me about 2-3 hours out on my deck, on a nice fall day. I didn’t mind the cost so much, since I figured my young kids can still play with it after the holiday, and I could possibly turn it into a firehouse, so it wouldn’t be just a once a year use. I was really impressed with the quality of the cedar wood. It smelt great too!

I picked up the “North Pole” sign at Home Depot. I randomly saw it and thought it would be perfect! Originally, I wanted to put a lit “Santa’s Workshop” sign on the house itself, but it was too small of an area so we put it on a post instead.

I then painted the house in “Real Red” by Sherwin Williams. I loved the color because it’s a true red and perfect for holiday decor! I used 2 coats of paint.

I then went to Michaels and bought some gingerbread men and floral pieces and foam and burlap and made some cute, festive arrangements for the flower pots on front.

Next, I made some candy cane poles for the front. I picked up some 2” PVC pipes at Home Depot. I spray painted them red. I then wrapped them with white Gorilla tape and we drilled them into the house.

At first, I was just going to paint the roof white, but decided to make it look more like snow, so I used some batting that I had leftover from some cornices I have made. Cornices are fabric upholstered wooden valances and are usually lightly padded with the batting. I got some warm white netting lights on Amazon and put them underneath the batting. Then I sprinkled some white crystal/glitter on it. I stapled the batting down to the roof so it wouldn’t blow off. If you want it to look a little more realistic, fluff up the batting (pull on it and tear apart a bit, before you lay it down)

I got the larger candy canes on Woodpeckers Crafts, unfinished wood, because it was cheaper than buying them already painted. I painted them white and red and used trimming nails to nail them the house.

I added a shelf and then got some scrap wood I had laying around the garage and made the 2 wooden tool panels inside the house. I ordered a kids tool play set kit off amazon and put them inside the house. Again, I didn’t feel too bad spending the money, since I figured my boys would play with them after the holiday :)

The cute yard stake elves I found at Lakeside Collection for $8. I had never heard of this website before. They have some cute stuff and very inexpensive!

My husband and I had a lot of fun creating this LED lit up Santa’s Workshop sign! We took a scrap piece of wood we had in the garage, It was about 1/2” thick and then we painted the sign loosely. I wish we used a stencil but we kinda liked the raw look. I used the drill bit to drill holes inside the lettering. We poked some small green and red fairy lights in the back. Be sure to count your letters before buying the lights, or vise versa. For instance, I purchased 2 sets of 100 lights and counted my marks for holds accordingly. So 100 holes for the Santa’s and 100 for the Workshop. We then put another board on the back and created a frame for the top and added more batting and glitter and drilled it into the PVC candycane.

The “Ice Rink Pond” was a last minute addition. I wanted to make it feel more like a winter wonderland, so late at night, I came up with the idea of the fake ice. I’m really glad I added this because it came out so cute.

I laid down some lattice that we had in the backyard and never installed. I put cool white and blue twinkling lights over it. I lucked out because I was looking for something that looked like fake ice. I went to Lowes and found exactly what I was looking for, right away! I used a few frosted window panels. They were about $15 a piece and I got 4 to make up my little “rink.” It’s cool because when it rains and it freezes, it really does turn into ice! I hope the weather gets colder next week so I can see it frozen more. I love my penguins (Wayfair and Amazon) and Polar Bears. It was a bit hard to find some polar bears at the last minute! I added some more batting around the ice. It’s been super windy here, so a bit hard to keep everything in place!