Happy Monday! And this Monday starts an entire week of posts! Yay! This is what me-organized, looks like! It won't happen again until after Christmas... or New Years to be honest.
Last week I was busy decorating the house. It took all week, and not because our house is grand or because I did both the outside and the inside, I just wasn't feeling it. I had my husband get down the boxes from the rafters and they sat there and sat there and sat there. I figured I should clean the house first - because you should always clean the house before you destroy it? So that took a day (yes, a DAY). Then I decided the only way to decorate was to take everything down that I had up - fall décor, plates, cups, junk mail, random school projects - this makes sense, right? But for some reason, I liked it that way. It looked so clean and minimal that I didn't want to put anything else up. I'm sure I sound bah-hum-bug-ish, I don't feel that way, I feel more like the Grinch when he realized that Christmas came without boxes and bows. I decided that I didn't need to put out every piece of Christmas décor I owned for it to feel like Christmas. I also gave up on my idea to make every gift for every child on our list - my goal was to enjoy Christmas, not be so stressed about making it look "perfect" that I was miserable and made everyone around me miserable.
So, here's what I did. I left all of the boxes in the garage and went through them there. If I wasn't feeling a certain Santa or Reindeer, I didn't bring it in the house. I also changed my décor a little - I normally have a white, silver and red them with a little bit of turquoise mixed in but this year I wanted something a little... warmer? So I decided to add in more greenery, gold and wood. I LOVE it, my husband loves it and it just feels comfy.
My first inspiration was this wooden Marquee Ampersand I bought at my last Boutique. It's from Junk Art Gypsyz and I knew it was versatile enough for me to use all year long in different rooms and different ways. This piece was where the idea of using more nature inspired items, i.e. greenery, wood pieces, came into my head.
I love the way the mantle came out. I used non-traditional Christmas décor mixed with Christmas goodies. The wooden Metronome is an Antique that my parents found when I was young. Once I moved out and took my piano with me, the Metronome came too! I'd had the mercury candle pillars for years - they make an appearance with every holiday and just hang out and look pretty the rest of the year. I added a fun snow globe that Adam picked out from Target (Threshold) and one of my vintage cameras with lots of greenery. I stuck in some picks of bright red berries here and there to make the greenery pop a little more. Easy, warm and personal.
Once I had it in my head that I wanted to use the ampersand above the mantle, I started thinking of Christmas phrases with "and" in them... Merry and Bright seemed like the obvious choice since the ampersand lights up the room. I used the Silhouette Premium Vinyl in Gold for my phrase and mixed two different files for the wording, one for Merry and the other file for Bright - I did double check and measure the opening that I wanted my saying so that I'd have the dimensions correct for my words. Once everything was formatted with my Silhouette Studio Software, I cut it out with my Cameo, used the Silhouette Transfer Paper and stuck the wording down. I hung the ampersand with a nail and stood back with a huge smile on my face! I love it when a project exceeds my imagination!
The next area I wanted to share is the Dining Room Cocoa Station. I saw an idea for this on Pinterest and loved it - again, something about a cocoa station seemed cozy to me - so I grabbed a an old tin picnic basket and started from there...
I used a KPS Burlap Runner with metallic gold dots and then started layering from there. I put out the picnic basket, filled it with greenery and a Santa Plate and continued adding. I like the mix of fancy-pants mercury and my rustic picnic basket. I think they play nicely and give my vintage Santa's/Snowmen a good backdrop. I also used my Reindeer Subway Sign from last year on the buffet - it's one of my favorites and when I couldn't figure out where to put it in the living room, I knew I had to create a spot for it in the dining room.
And last, but not least, is our dining room table. Normally I strew Christmas items all down the center, but this results in me redecorating it almost nightly after dinner so I went with simple this year, put a glass apothecary in a wooden Coca Cola Crate (I've been "borrowing" it from my Parents for the last 3ish years) covered the bottom with greenery (seems to be the word on the street today), put some snow and a set of Santa & Mrs. Claus Salt and Pepper Shakers inside the glass and called it good... Sorry that Paddy Wagon the Elf is in the photo - he was naughty and was using the Christmas Bunting from the Playroom as a rope to scale the dining room table. Mischievous Elf.
We have two trees, Adams in the playroom that he decorated all on his own (while I sat on my hands and told myself that it was HIS tree and that it didn't matter if every. single. ornament was on the same 3 branches or not) and our family tree that sits atop our Christmas Train and watching over all the gifts... pretty because they display our memories so nicely. And, of course, there's a ton of Red Chevron and Turquoise Patterned Pillows covers our couches - courtesy of KPS.
It sure is nice having a store in your office!
I hope you enjoyed our partial Holiday Home Tour and that you decorate (or not decorate) exactly how you want and not by what you think you should do!
Have a good one!
Andrea
KPS
