I'm decorating!

 Brace yourself, folks, I have started decorating. Can you believe it?  It has finally happened!  I have never been so seriously behind in my life.  I blame Thanksgiving.  It just came too late and threw me off by at least a week.  First, there was the whole massive turkey-dinner-and-cleanup aftershock, and then, all of a sudden, it was mid-December.

So as not to overwhelm, I’ve started small.  The guest bath is one of the first rooms upon entering the house, and gets its fair share of use, so I started here. 

I like the cool calmness of this bathroom, so largely leave things pretty much the same.  I just add a bit of greenery and a cardinal bird or two, and swap out the white candles for red.  Done!

I love to shop the after Christmas sales, so got these red and white postal-theme towels from Pottery Barn.  They aren’t the best for drying, but are perfect for layering.

Cute, no?

This post is linked to: 

Be Inspired Friday

Feathered Nest Friday

Seasonal Sundays

HOLIDAY PROJECT # 2 - Pretty Packages



A wrapped gift employing the use of florals, a glue gun, and a recycled bow.



I made quite a score at Michael's the other day when they put their florals on sale for half off and THEN had a coupon to get an additional 15% off of an entire order including sale items.  Can you say, giddy with excitement?

Just a  fraction of the items I got ON SALE at Michael's.

Looking at all of the beautiful winter flowers and greenery gave me an idea (helped, no doubt, by being stuck in a long and slow-moving line next to a rack of glue guns).  Why not skip the ribbons and bows on wrapped packages this year in favor of flowers and greenery? And wouldn't using a glue gun be so much faster?

Do you know what? It is!  And not only faster, but the packages are prettier and it looks like you've spent hours on them when essentially you've just spent minutes (plus the time it takes to you  heat up the glue gun and try to remember where you put the wire cutters).

In order to expedite things, it helps to snip all of the leaves and flowers from their stems using wire cutters, or a sharp and powerful pair of kitchen shears (The kind that cuts through a chicken carcass with ease works particularly well.).  Discard the stems, and divide into "leaf" piles and "flower" piles, then sort by color.

Warm up your glue gun while wrapping gifts so you'll be ready.  Then, assembly-line style, hot glue flowers securely in place with dabs of glue in the center and on about half of the outside petals.  Then put a dot of glue underneath the base of the leaves and place them where desired beneath the flower, pressing down until the glue takes hold. Voila!  A beautifully-wrapped, professional-looking package in no time and on a budget.

I used a bit of sparkly gold curling ribbon on this package to bring out the gold on the flower.

After a while you'll develop both a rhythm and a real eye for design.  If you need some inspiration, I recommend Carolyne Roehm's book, Presentations: A Passion for Gift Wrapping.

This is linked to Metamorphosis Monday.

Ornamentally, my dear Watson!

That is the answer to the question I posed to myself today when wondering aloud how I was going to decorate the mantle.  It's an annual adventure since I seldom remember what I do from year to year.

I had no clue what I was doing, just started digging around in the basement looking for BIG things to put on it and ended up using the giant ornaments that I ran down the center of the dining room table last year. I like to do something different with table every year, so the ornaments are now classified as free-range decorating items.  I also made a big score at Michael's over the weekend by nabbing a lot of their floral and greenery items at 50% off.  Largely I bought them with package decorating in mind (more about that later in the week), but ended up using about a third of it on the mantle.  I plan on decorating BOLDLY, but sparingly this year; with the house on the market, this is a must.  I don't have time for extensive set-up or tear-down or dusting so many small things, so by using fewer, but larger ones, I'll get a big punch of holiday cheer without having to knock myself out.  Is it possible that I'll enjoy them this year?  Here's hoping!

These big ornaments are from Sam's and were purchased last year by my husband!  I knew what I wanted to use to decorate the dining room table, so just told him to find me some BIG cranberry and gold ornaments.  He did!  I was gobsmacked.  And I liked them!  (Ditto.)  They're actually for outdoor use and are shatterproof, so both pretty and durable.  And who knows, since I do something different every year, one day they may end up outside.

The two large poinsettias were purchased with the intention of using them to decorate large holiday packages, but I really liked the way they looked here.

The small poinsettias, cranberry, and gold berries (also from Michael's and purchased with package-wrapping intent) added some life to the lighted greenery (and yes, it is lighted and was illuminated when this picture was taken).

Apparently I collect brass candlesticks.  I didn't realize it until I counted up nine of them.  Most of them are by Virginia Metalcrafters.  I love them all.

 
 

After decorating the mantle I whipped up a batch of DELICIOUS mocha fudge sauce.  We had it over generous scoops of peppermint ice cream for dessert after dinner (and when I say dinner I mean sloppy joes consumed during the Rams game).  It was so good I could have eaten it as a side dish.  Watch for the recipe later this week.

This is linked to Metamorphosis Monday, Seasonal Sundays and The Holiday Home Linky Party at The Lettered Cottage.