Christmas Tour 2011

Welcome!! I am so happy you stopped by! We are knee high into the Holiday season so I want to show you our festive (but simple) home. A big thank you to Nester for hosting the tour, I know there will be tons of inspiration.

I will be highlighting areas and providing links to see even more.

Let's get started in the kitchen. The kitchen is where we spend a lot of time, not only to cook and eat, but the peninsula is where I do all my crafting, so you'll find me in here a lot.

Check out entire tour HERE. Also, a big thank you to Melissa at the Inspired Room for featuring my kitchen.

It's not a very big kitchen, so I just keep the decor simple and add in some whimsical touches. The dining room is actually just an eat-in kitchen but it's got visions of grandeur.:)

On the window sill are my waterless snow globes. These have been really fun and catch the light beautifully. See how you can make your own HERE.

A vintage looking Santa face nestled in a wreath and hung on our chalkboard door, this is probably my favorite aspect of the kitchen

Scratch that last statement, this is my favorite aspect of the kitchen, the Hot Chocolate Bar. Best thing I've done. We use it and love it, although I've had to put a 'cap' on the hot cocoa drinking...the kids would be drinking it all the time (can you say sugar high!:) if not.

Let's move into the living room which is another room we spend a lot of time in.

Over the bookcases, I hung my handcrafted Magnolia Leaf Wreath....I spent so much time on that wreath I definitely wanted to use it through Christmas. I had to stop myself from glittering it, I really wanted to but can you imagine trying to glitter it??? What a mess!
I think it has held up pretty well considering how many weeks ago I made it. It fits in perfectly with the colors in here.

If you'd like to see how to make a Magnolia Leaf wreath for yourself click HERE.

I added the Moravian star and a couple of candlesticks along with some driftwood (on the left)

Over on the TV wall, I hung a small collage featuring my winter tree prints, I've had those for a long time. I also found another vintage owl plate which helps brake up all the right angles. That poor chair, It's going to get reupholstered if it kills me...
soon.It'll be a good January project.

This is the collage on the sofa wall...I added some conifer botanical pictures for winter

This is what is on the coffee table now, I had to move the candlesticks (pictured below, not very kid friendly), to a chunkier candle and a poinsettia. I found a pine candle that I absolutely love and just so happens to fit on the mercury glass candle holder, surprisingly from Wal-mart called Fresh Pine. It has a pretty silver lid and really affordable (I highly dislike spending tons of money on candles). The cattail ball that my husband calls a green brain, is actually natural cattail fuzz (?) dyed a beautiful green. It works great for Christmas as well as everyday.

See more detail on the mantle HERE

See the full story on our Christmas Tree by clicking HERE

Learn how to make your own pine cone topiaries HERE

Let's move on to the Master Bedroom, I worked on it earlier this year and I added a tiny bit of Christmas.

I didn't get to show you yet that I found my parents oversize rosary in storage this summer when I was getting ready to open my booth. It is about 30 years old, Mom bought it when we were stationed in Italy. It always hung on a picture over the mantle when I was growing up, I'm glad that I found it.

For Christmas, I did some curly willow, mini pine cone stems and pine in one of the tea jars. I just took the lid off and used enough to fill the mouth of the vase, easy to take out after the season.