Christmas Tree

This year we have another small Christmas tree.  We have had one big tree in 6 years of living in this house.  I just don’t see the point really…it’s just the two of us and it is such a pain to put it up.  I really do love real trees better than the fake one and I found this little one at Lowe’s this year and snatched it up so I could have that real tree smell.  It’s about 3 ft tall and I have it sitting on one of my plant stands. 
This one is decorated with simple white lights, blue and silver ornaments.  Most of the ornaments are vintage ones from my Great Grandmother.  

Now I just gotta keep this little guy out of the tree!


This is my other small tree, decorated with crystal ornaments and mercury ornaments from Pottery Barn.  



I have a small ceramic tree that my Mom made in a ceramics class several years ago in our living room. 



I also have this tree that I have decorated with crystals that I collected when I was a kid from trips we took. It is a great way to showcase those. 


Linking to….

April

Christmas Wreath

My little weekend project was putting up a wreath at the new house.  A realtor suggested this since it is Christmas time and all.  Just to make it look more inviting for the season.  I decided to go very traditional and I needed it to be cheap, but didn’t want it to look cheap. 
So off to Walmart I went… 
I bought a wreath for $4.98, some fake greenery, 2 at $3.98 ea, and a bow at $5.98.  I wish I could make bows, but this one looked good and it was glittery which I love :)
I thought the greenery was pretty and added some texture and color with the berries and pine cones. 

I simply tied everything on with twist ties.  And Viola!
It really looks awesome against the green door.  Very festive.  


This was a quick and easy project and for less than $20  it looks great!  I like the traditional look since my decorations at home are very non-traditional in color.  Hopefully we will sell this house just in time for Christmas…Santa Baby, bring me a buyer just in time!  ;)

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April

Christmas Mantle

Are you noticing a theme yet??  I use the same two glass jars for all my seasonal mantles…what can I say, they just work!  We usually have a small Christmas Tree in the living room but the theme this year is keep it simple.
I added fake snow and ornaments to the apothecary jar and vase.  I used greenery from my yard to add some color.  

My little tree stocking hooks came from Target a few years ago.  

I continued with the same greenery around the room to tie it all together.  I have this vase and the bucket under the mantle.  
My Mom made this little lighted tree in a pottery class a few years ago.  

Well that’s it folks….simply, sweet, and easy to clean up :)  Holidays make me wish I didn’t have that big TV over the mantle…I could do so much more!
I’m linking to the following parties this week…be sure to check them out!

Dressed for Christmas

My Dining Room is one of the few rooms that was decorated for Christmas this year.  I struggle every year with wanting to decorate with lots of non-traditional bright Christmas colors and very natural materials. 
I combined both in the dining room this year.  I used burlap purchased from Home Depot and cut a runner for the table.  The burlap was also used to wrap around the bottom of my tree.  I picked up these mercury glass candle holders at TJ Maxx.  For that pop of color I bought a pink Poinsettia. 

I added some greenery from my yard on the napkin rings just to dress them up a bit.  The chargers were gold and I sprayed them with brush nickel spray paint.  It’s a nice soft silver and looks good nest to the mercury glass.
Here is the full view.  I could not resist this little Christmas tree!  I usually have a small fake one in our living room, but really miss the smell of the real deal.  Lowe’s had these little guys for only $14.  Bonus, from the outside it looks like a full size tree!
   
For the buffet I added color…I saw a similar cake pedestal decorated like this on Pinterest.  My advent calendar adds more silver, I bought this a few years ago after Christmas on sale at Target.  I hide dog treats in it for our Abbie and she gets one a day!

My new shelves are now full and I’ve added my bottle brush trees and some holly. 

So there you have it.  I’ll be linking to the party below.  Hope you will check out the other table designs and Christmas inspiration throughout December. 

April

Decorating Block

Lately I’ve been stumped when if comes to decorating.  I just can’t seem to in vision what I want things to look like.  My creativity is in a vacuum.  However, there are several possible  reasons.
1) I am limited to what I can currently decorate.  Having your house on the market is hard for someone that loves changing things up and decorating for holidays.  I’ve tried very hard to keep things very neat, clean and uncluttered.
2) I am pretty stressed out.  We have TWO houses on the market and with the current market things are slow.  This pretty much sums up most of my STRESS although I could throw in the constant flow of other stressors but that list is too long :)
3) Saving money is pretty important to me right now.  I am trying to stay away from TJ Maxx and HomeGoods as well the flea market.  I don’t want to buy new stuff for the house when we could be moving to a new place soon anyway.
BUT….I am going to blame it on being TOTALLY ADDICTED TO READING BLOGS!!! Don’t get me wrong I am completely inspired by most of what I see by reading my favorite blogs and I am amazed at all the talent and neat things that people think of.  I get a lot of ideas by reading blogs and magazines but I think seeing all the ideas floating around is preventing me from coming up with original ideas of my own.  I noticed this happening when I started decorating for Halloween, my favorite holiday, and I was at a loss on ideas and now I feel the same way with Christmas decor.  Do you guys feel this way too?? 
I  have been working on Christmas decorations this weekend and I finished today. Mainly I stuck to the dining room…a small Christmas tree, new table setting, some ornaments and I will add some fresh greenery and flowers later.  I spray painted some older things to reuse and save money (which was a little creative:).  Overall I  am happy with the results.  It’s not a  lot to get excited about, it’s much less than I normally do but I wanted to keep it simple and I am pretty bored of the Christmas decorations I have and I am not buying new things this year. 
With all that being said I am sorry I have been slow to blog this month…I am low on ideas!  It does make me look forward to moving a little more because I know that will bring a new palette to work from and I will probably purge a lot of things I no longer use. 
I did want to share with you an idea I had for Christmas this year.  I was putting away my Fall stuff and I had a lot of left over pumpkins so I decided to paint them and re-use for Christmas. 
 
The idea was that they would look like ornaments.  I broke out lots of paint colors and glitter.


Here is the final result.  I just added them back to the plate they were on for Halloween and put them on fake snow.

Umm, so they look like painted pumpkins….Project Fail! 

Not the worst idea I’ve ever had and I think they could be really cute.  Maybe I should have stuck to normal Christmas colors or painted the stems.  Spray paint would have also saved a lot of time but I was glad to have an idea to put into motion. 
I picked the colors that I did because I put them in the kitchen and the only other decor in the kitchen are these letters I painted last year that were a success in my book.


I will be sharing my other Christmas decorating later sometime in December. 
Have you started decorating for Christmas?  Do you feel stuck on ideas too and what do you blame it on?

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At: www.bowerpowerblog.com

April