Saturday, December 1, 2012

How to Decorate for Christmas 101 - The Details



Sometimes,
it can be overwhelming.

You want your house to look perfect.
But as you look through the YEARS
of holiday decor packratted away in your
garage/attic/closet
you wonder how to pull it all together.

As contrary as this may seem,
if you start with the details, it really can be tamed.

For me, it starts with three questions:

1. What color(s)?
2. What theme(s)?
3. How much?

My theme:
Last Year, it was Naturally Beautiful.
I wanted to incorporate nature, sparkle and I wanted it to be lovely.

My color(s):
Primarily red to play off all the green.
Also wanted the oppulence of gold.
And then I used different layers of green and brown to enhance the nature theme.
And bits of white here and there to make it all pop.

How Much:
Mid range. 
For me, that means multiple trees (three)
Some banister and tabletop decor.
But every surface doesn't have to ooze Christmas.
Matter of fact, I didn't decorate my mantels.

So let's see what I mean:

In these details, I used a homemade pinecone tree (tutorial here)
and placed it on my windowsill next to a sparkly Dollar Store tree find.

I love to use tall cylinder vases filled with randomness.
In this case, red and white bulbs,
some greenery
silver peace sign vase filler from @PotteryBarn.
I lucked up on all of the holiday colored dice at the Dollar Store.

A wider shot of the window sill
shows the faux kissing balls
and the supersized gold star that I picked up at the Dollar Store.

And of course, I like to sprinkle a bit of us throughout.
The white clay ornament is a paw print by Merry.


In this photo, even farther out from the sill,
you can see the mini trees in the glass hurricanes on the table.
It's okay that they overgrow the top.

I like to leave my tree with nothing but lights on it
when we first get it up.
The simplicity and sparkle is calming.

Keeping with our theme and colors,
the golden apple is geographically significant
(we live in WA state)

And one last unexpected detail on the dining room table
a pair of vintage white ice skates.

To dress up the chandelier
and keep with our theme
I just threaded some live greenery through the pendants.

Though I didn't decorate our mantel,
I did make sure that we had our white candles out
to keep with our color scheme.

On the banisters,
I used faux greenery, burlap garland, red wood bead garland and gold wired ribbon.
I also clustered a bunch of red bulbs midway up the stairs.

At the bottom of the stairs, on the posts,
I hung natural and faux greenery wreaths.
They were decorated pine cones and gold glittered birds.


Like with the first picture in this post and the last one,
if you think in details,
the rest will really start to come easily.

First photo: Domino | Scrabble tray purpetual December calendar
Last photo: Pottery Barn Advent Calendars, pine cones, glitter tree, greenery.

Happy decorating!

***

Loving b3HD?
Have a life and can't view the whole blog in one sitting?
Then stalk us already!

Promise not to stalk you back. Unless you want us to.

***

No comments:

Post a Comment

You KNOW you have an opinion about it, already. So spill it. Spark up a conversation...