D.I.Why God?!

We had a bit of a mishap when we were trying to put our Christmas tree in the stand. We found out that our old stand was too small. About an inch in diameter too small. Crap. Hubby ran to Target and got us a new stand. Well, the bottom of the tree needed a nice thorough trim thanks to the new stand. No biggie. Hubby whipped out his hack saw and cut off some branches. More room for presents and then it hit me!
OH! I can put them in a vase like Nate Berkus did on his show the other day and use that as a centerpiece in the kitchen. Genius! Right?

I set out to be incredibly creative. Really. I did.

So the next day, I went to Michael's and picked up a few sparkly, spriggy, branchy things to give my arrangement a little pizazz. When the kid went down for a nap, I got to work.

Problem #1 - The branches were really bent and curvy, since they were from the bottom of the tree. After trimming until my hands bruised, I narrowed it down to the least bent branches...which wasn't much of an improvement.

About half way through, I should've thrown in the towel:

Look! It's a Christmas peacock!

After trying a few different scenarios and rearranging, it was only getting worse...

I decided to leave the mess in the vase as-is for the night. I'll go to bed and wake up with a fresh new idea on how to fix this .... um... centerpiece?

When I woke up, I walked right by the ugliness on the table and did my usual routine of breakfast and dishes. After breakfast, I walked right on by again, only this time shielding my eyes.

Obviously, creativity had not struck...

I'll give it one more day...

Well, today was a bit of a rough one on the toddler front. While delving my woes of the day to Hubby during dinner, I looked over and blurted out "That thing is SO ugly! Why is it still on the table?!"
Hubby, being the nice guy that he is, and knowing I already had a rough day, said "It's not ugly. It's um... Different. It's like a Christmas Peacock...?".

No. It's ugly. Plain and simple.

Yep, that's an empty apple juice container in the background. That's how much I care about this little project...I have let trash pile up on the table.

Add a random vase, Will's Halloween art project, and the mail to the mix, and the vignette is complete! Wow...I can cut the holiday cheer with a knife!

I guess the moral of the story is that just because Nate Berkus makes something look awesome doesn't mean you should attempt to do it with some random scraps of trash. I'm accepting my DIY failure in stride. It happens. Not everything turns out the way it looks in my head...

Yikes! Can you imagine if this was the picture I did have in my head of how I wanted this to look!? Ha Ha!

You can check out some successful Holiday Vignettes over at Southern Hospitality and her link up party!