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

Pie Safe

I’ve been working on another one of my estate sale finds that my Mom found a few months ago.  It appears to be a pie safe or the start to one.  Looks like it was never finished, however, it did look like it had doors at one time but it was still bare wood.  I thought it would be a nice shelf to use in my dining room to store extra dishes.  It got a coat of white paint to that matches the paint on my table and the back is painted with chalk paint to match my buffet.  You can see those post here and here.

Here are the before shots

Lots of nail holes and gaps to fill on this one.

I really did try to stage this better.  I just could not think of what to do!  I honestly thought about getting out some Christmas decorations, but I just couldn’t do it…not yet. 

For a little how to info…I sprayed the white on with my Wagner power sprayer and then painted the back in Paloma chalk paint. 

I distressed all of the edges and distressed the top bar on the back where you see the white poking through.  Not sure if I love that white popping through the chalk paint but I do like the distressing on the white.   

Here it is in it’s new home. 

Abbie says Hi!

April

Linking to:

New Home Construction Update

Hey Everyone!  Sorry I haven’t checked in this week.  Busy as usual around here.  I did take some time today to organize my pantry and my bathroom cabinets!  Made me feel productive.  I have also been slowly working on my latest piece of furniture, hopefully post to come this week. 
I stopped by the new house we’ve been building in the neighborhood we are developing and it is finished!  We are hoping to get some good showings over the next few weeks and hopefully an offer.  It is the cutest house!  I have lots of pictures here, sorry none of the upstairs…my camera battery died.

Love this Dutch door!

Breakfast Nook

Living Room

Living Room

Dining Room

Master Bedroom

Upstairs Stairway

The upstairs has two bedrooms and a large loft area just off the stairs that can be used as a playroom, bonus room, living area, or office.  There are also 3 bathrooms, 1 hall bath upstairs, master bath, and 1/2 bath downstairs. 

If you are in the Raleigh area and are looking for a new home please email me for more details!  This house is in Zebulon, NC and it is really beautiful. 

Hope everyone has a great Monday!

April

Christmas List

I know I know it’s way too early and I’m already sick of the commercials and ads for Christmas but…I’m trying to get my shopping list in order and someone asked me what I wanted.  I thought I would share my Christmas wish list with everyone.

Dremel 1.3-Amp Keyed Cordless Rotary Tool $99.00

 www.lowes.com

Drying Rack -$9.99

 www.containestore.com

Pyrex® Portables® 3-qt Oblong Bakeware Dish w/ Blue Carrier-$19.99

 www.pyrexware.com

Vintage Ticking Strip Duvet Cover & Shams-$29.99-$129.99

 

www.potterybarn.com

Gift Cards to Lowes and Pottery Barn are always great for me and cash would also be great because I’d like to save up for a really nice new camera!
What do you all want for Christmas?!?
April