7 Delightful Deer-Themed Christmas Decorating Ideas
21 Tips to Save Money on Christmas Décor – How to Have the Christmas Décor of Your Dreams On A Budget
2023 Magical Christmas Home Tour
Season’s Greetings Everyone!!! It’s that time of year again and I hope you enjoy my 2023 Christmas Home Tour. This year, my decor was inspired by the Swarovski Christmas Tree (seen below) located in Zurich, Switzerland some years ago and it was covered with clear crystals.
But…
I wanted a little color…
Winterberry & Pinecones In Ice Décor
When I saw that tree, I knew I wanted some color and a somewhat natural look. After researching images of winterberry covered in ice, I found my inspiration. I used my tried and true staple—pinecones (not to mention they’re either cheap or free) and to get that pop of color I bought a ton of berry branches, also 99% of the ornaments I used are clear glass/crystal, and vertically shaped. Again this year, I used magnolia leaves but added some lighter vivid greenery to create depth, dimension, and texture. I absolutely love how it turned out. I got just the right balance of nature, elegance, and color, not to mention…sparkle.
Decorating For Christmas With Winterberry, Pinecones & Crystal
Decorating The Living Room
Since I’ve lived in my current location, I’ve always put my tree next to the window but this year, I wanted to try something a little different so that someone entering the living room would see the tree as soon as they got to the top of the staircase landing. I also wanted to try a garland over our boxed window and I thought it would be too much to have the garland so close to the tree and that decision ended up balancing out the room nicely.
Our fireplace took center stage again this year with the addition of a pair of majestic deer and trees which I absolutely LOVE. Some love Santa, and some collect snowmen, but deer and trees are my thing which you will see just about everywhere. I tried changing out my starburst mirror with another piece of artwork but in the end, I liked it better and decided to keep it in addition to the pine branches. I added some berries to that as well to continue with the theme and put them in a clear glass vase filled with water beads.
I also have another tree in my stairwell, and I found that last year, it competed a bit too much with the ornate garland on the stair rail. So, this year, instead of installing garland on the stair rail, I lined it along the staircase stringer wall, included my pinecones and red berries, and added red candles in a matte and glitter finish to add that pop of color.
While the tree in the stairwell is similar—it includes icicles as well, I added other crystal ornaments that had sentimental value to my family that were not necessarily vertically shaped. Each ornament on the tree represents a movie we traditionally watch every Christmas, or others represent a Christmas memory from our childhood. It makes me smile every time I look at that tree because so many warm and cherished memories come flooding back. Can you guess what movies or TV shows these ornaments represent?
Adding Sparkle To The Dining Room
I continued with the same theme in the dining room, ensuring that I repeated the colors and elements from the living room in the table accessories and on the buffet and side tables. Instead of garland as I have always done, I created floral arrangements for each space.
On the table, I did a display with my collection of glass trees, and above, the chandelier is covered with garland, winterberry and pinecones, and dripping with icicle ornaments in various lengths. When the candles are all lit and the lights are down the atmosphere is stunning.
Creating In The Kitchen
I did a little more in my kitchen this year, I moved some furniture around and now my window view is not blocked. I set my round table with white linens, filled my glass apothecary jars with clear water beads to represent ice, and added a simple red rose, calla lily, and pinecone floral arrangement as my centerpiece.
In the alcove, I displayed some more of my glass trees and a small collection of glass houses and used some evergreen trees (they’re actually decorative swags) as the backdrop, and topped it with a wreath. Those wreaths are on every interior door in my house.
I hope you enjoyed my 2023 holiday tour. To see more of the photos taken this year, click here. Until next time, I wish you and yours a wonderful holiday season and a fantastic 2023 and beyond.
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Organize Christmas Decorations With These 8 Simple & Easy Tips
Organized – a word most of us strive to be but many find difficult to do. Below are some simple and easy tips to help Christmas 2023 and beyond get a little easier and faster. With these simple tips, you’ll be able to save lots of time when getting ready to decorate next holiday season.
Most, if not all of these tips can be applied to other areas in your life, e.g. Halloween décor, winter clothing, shoes, etc. So, here goes, feel free to share additional ideas you may have at the end.
Table of Contents
1. Use Clear Plastic Bins
Using clear plastic bins enables you to see what’s inside easily allowing you to access what you need without having to open or label the bins.
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2. Use Large Clear Plastic Bags
To conserve space within clear plastic containers, or, if you have space available in a bin, or, if you have a limited number of bins, use large clear plastic bags to separate like items within the bin and to use up valuable space.
3. Money Saver Tip – Recycle
I’ve never purchased clear plastic bags or bubble wrap. I just save large clear plastic bags that I get when ordering items online. Or, keep the bubble wrap you might get from your orders online, you can even make bags out of them to keep your fragile ornaments or decorations. Recycle! Recycle! Recycle!
How do you make the bag? Just fold a rectangular sheet of bubble wrap to the desired depth and use clear tape to secure the opposite lengths and leave the opening at the top. If you wish, you can leave a few extra inches of overlap at the top to close by folding over and taping it in place. See the diagram below for clarification.
4. Organize by Color
If you’re like me and you have a large number of ornaments, organizing by color can help you save lots of time, especially the next year when you’re starting to decorate. You won’t have to go through the trouble of separating colors, instead, you’d just be picking the bins or bags with the colors you’d like to use.
5. Keep Like Items Together
This is another time saver. Instead of searching and separating things, pulling the bin with your picks or ribbons is a much faster process. Here are some categories for bins you may find helpful below.
- Lights, Extension Cords, Adaptors & Timers
- Ornaments
- Ribbon
- Picks & Sprays
- Candles
- Candleholders
- Tree Skirts, Santa Hats, Stockings & Christmas Table Runners
The above are just suggestions. Find solutions and categories suited to your needs that work for you.
6. Keep Boxes For Breakable Items After Purchase
Most breakable Christmas decorations arrive in boxes with molded Styrofoam especially when they’ve been ordered online. Keeping those boxes allows your decorations to be safely stored for later use.
7. Use Colored Dot Stickers
You can go one more step to keep your decorations in boxes organized by adding colored dot stickers to the cardboard box indicating the color of what’s inside, that way, you’ll save time because you won’t have to open them to check.
8. How To Keep It Organized
Wherever you keep your Christmas decorations, whether it’s in the attic, the basement, a closet or a room keep all the decorations organized within that space by following a few simple tips:
- Keep all the Christmas decorations in one section of the room instead of putting them where you can find space. By doing this, the next year you’ll be able to find everything you need for the festivities quickly in one location.
- Some may disagree with me on this tip and there is no right way or wrong way it’s just a personal preference but I prefer keeping organized with boxes and containers as opposed to bags. They’re stackable and help save space rather than bags which are bulky and irregular in shape.
- With this in mind, if you recently purchased an artificial Christmas tree, or, if you intend to in the future, do not throw your Christmas tree box away. Store the tree in the same box you purchased it and secure it closed with bungee cords. The boxes tend to be sleek and narrow in design and take up a very small footprint as opposed to Christmas tree bags which are bulky and consume a lot of space.
- Also, here’s another tip, some have problems keeping the tree’s branches together (which is the reason they can’t get it back into the box), secure them to the center of the tree using bungee cords as well. Just be careful when using them, remember your physics: with every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. So, if you don’t secure the bungee cord properly, the opposite end can come back to hit you in the face. Remember always – safety first.
Thanks for reading. If you need help taking your Christmas decorations down now that the holiday season is over be sure to take a look at the takedown services we offer in Montgomery County, Maryland, or, if you have other awesome Christmas decoration, storage, or organization ideas, I’d love to hear them, feel free to comment below.
2022 Christmas Home Tour
Happy Holidays everyone. It’s that time of year again—my favorite time of year, and I hope you enjoy my 2022 Christmas Home Tour in a color scheme of shades of green this time around.
Shades Of Green Christmas Décor
I usually start getting ideas for what my theme will be in the previous year (Usually while decorating for Christmas), and I refine them by exploring home décor magazines and Pinterest. I generally start shopping in July. This year, I knew I wanted to go with green, but when I couldn’t decide what shade, I thought, why not go with all or various shades? What I ended up with is a beautiful monochromatic palette, and I’m really happy with how it turned out.
The Living Room
Our fireplace along with the Christmas tree is the major focal point at Christmas. I love this garland, but I wanted it to have a different look and feel from what I designed last year. This year, I used magnolias, greenery, ornaments, and jumbo along with smaller gemstones to create the prime focus. When I started, I did not have a plan per se, I worked with pieces that I owned and bought because I love them, and I’m thrilled with how they all came together.
A starburst mirror along with my collection of glass trees in complementary colors and angels creates the backdrop and brings the entire focal point together.
In addition to the fireplace, every horizontal, diagonal, and vertical surface is decorated with garland or wreaths, and I tied them into the fireplace by using the same ornaments, gemstones, magnolias, ribbon, and one of my favorite things to use at Christmas—pinecones.
On every stair rail post, I designed beautiful swags that matched the décor on the fireplace mantle. And this year, I decided to put my second tree at the base of the stairwell. What I ended up with is a cohesive space where all the different features in the room complement each other despite the fact that some are slightly different in style. For example, the tree in the living room and the tree in the stairwell are decorated completely differently, but they work within the same space and I tied the two together by using the same treetop.
The Dining Room
In the dining room, I continued with the same theme, ensuring that I repeated the colors from the living room in the table accessories, on the garland, and on the buffet and side tables.
Other Spaces
Entry
The entry to our house is tiny (Approximately 4 x 4 Feet), but I still managed to give it its share of Christmas cheer by using an extremely narrow table in the space. Lanterns are used throughout and again, I decorated the garland on the stair rail to match the one on the fireplace and the other railings throughout the house. Tabletop trees and deer are my weakness and I got the opportunity to use the golden pair here along with a flocked downswept tree.
Kitchen
I didn’t go crazy in my kitchen, but I did want to find a way to use my wooden houses and my collection of mercury glass items. I chose to use the cubbies on the shelf for the mercury glass and staggered the wooden houses on the shelf top to create a little village of sorts. I love the rustic feel. On the table in front, I added a green tablecloth with a small vignette of mercury glass, greenery, and candles to complete the space.
I hope you enjoyed this year’s holiday tour. You can see all the photos taken this year here. Until next time, I wish you and yours a happy holiday season and a wonderful 2023 and beyond.
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My First Christmas Home Tour ~ 2021
Happy Holidays everyone. As promised, here it is. I hope you will enjoy my very first home tour for Christmas 2021.
When I decided that I would do my first home tour to share with you, I could have never imagined what this venture would snowball into. I started out just wanting to share, but as I post this, it’s looking like come next year I’ll be turning this into a business doing holiday decorating, but, I digress.
Navy Christmas Décor
No two years are alike at my house when it comes to Christmas decorating and this year, I chose to go with an elegant theme and color palette of navy, gold, copper, silver, and brown.
I usually start getting ideas for what my theme will be in the previous year and I refine them by exploring home décor magazines and Pinterest. I usually start shopping in July. I’ve never seen this exact color palette anywhere (I’ve seen similar) but I decided to add the brown to pull in the color of the featured wall in our living room and I loved how it turned out.
The Living Room
We purchased a new fireplace this year, so along with our Christmas tree, I decided to make it a major focal point and I love the garland that I got. It was easy to put together, I managed to get the entire fireplace done in an afternoon.
In addition to the fireplace, just about every horizontal, diagonal, and vertical surface is dressed with garland or wreaths.
I tied the space together by using the same ribbon, mesh, ornaments, and pinecones that I used on the tree repeatedly throughout the house, especially on prominent areas like the banisters and stair rails.
The Dining Room
In the dining room, I continued the same theme with a second but smaller tree, ensuring that I repeated the colors from the living room in the table accessories and on the garland on the buffet and side tables.
The Master Bedroom
In our house, the only room with a non-neutral color on the walls is our master bedroom, so the color palette in this room is completely different from the main floor downstairs. I continued with the normal year-round color scheme in this room which is various shades of greens and browns with a pop of vermillion. I pulled all the colors from the rug.
I didn’t go crazy in this room, but I loved the simplicity of just a bit of garland and decorative vignettes and I’m happy with how it all turned out.
At night, the lights above the bed, create the most wonderful shadows creating a very romantic mood within the space.
Again, every horizontal space has some garland with something festive.
Just in case you couldn’t tell, I have an addiction to trees, reindeer, and glass—especially mercury glass. Most of those I’ve collected over the years, but every year, I add pieces to my collection that I either purchase or make. This year’s craft project included all the cone trees in the vignettes throughout the space.
I hope you enjoyed this holiday tour of our humble abode. Until next time, I wish you and yours a safe and happy holiday season and a wonderful 2022 and beyond.
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