Christmas Home Tour 2018

Thanks so much for coming by for a tour of my Christmas 

decorating for 2018. We will start in the dining room since that is

the first room that you see when you come in the front door. 

This year I used a lot of my collection of silver ornaments to 

decorate in the dining room in kind of unconventional ways

since I am not using them on the tree but I want to enjoy them.

If you would like to see the steps I took to try to make an inexpensive
chandelier hopefully look like an Italian one, click here. 

On the sideboard I made a Christmas tree shape out of a paper

mache' cone and some differing sizes of silver ball ornaments.

To give the tree some height I placed it on a large cylinder

vase that had been sprayed from the inside with a silver

mirror spray paint (Krylon and Rustoleum both make one).

One thing that I learned about using ornaments on flat surfaces

 is that they tend to roll around a lot (duh). To keep them

where you want them it is a good idea to bind them together.

In making the centerpiece for the dining room table I used a 

silver tray with a raised edge to keep the balls in place for the

central part of the arrangement. For the sides of the arrangement

of ornaments I would tie 5-6 ornaments together and then join

the groupings together using silver wire. 

If you would like to learn more details on how the ornament centerpiece was 

made click here. 

To add ornaments to the chandelier I used a thin ribbon to hang

the ornaments at differing places and heights.

I bought these large mirrored stars on clearance years ago but

have never used them until this year. I took the shelves out of

the hutch and suspended the stars with fishing line.

The living room is through an opening on the left side

of the dining room. 

To the left is a repainted thrift store find console.

We display Christmas cards on frames lined with

chicken wire. Tiny clothes pins hold the cards on the wire.

I sprinkled some epsom salt on the moss to in the candleholder

to show what a white Christmas looks like in Alabama. Even

if we (rarely) get snow it is usually just a dusting. 

Across from the Christmas card display is the coffee table and

sofa. 

This little metal and wood block sign is from JoAnn's. It is one of
two things I bought for Christmas decorating this year. I needed

 a little something else on the coffee table with the candle and basket of candy jars.

At this time of year I like to use red pillows on the green sofa
 to play up those traditional Christmas colors. 

 The fireplace and bookcases are the focal point of the room.

By now the greenery arrangement on the mantel is pretty big.

That's because I got on a "disguise the old greens with new"
kick this year at home and at my church. When you decorate with
real greenery at the first part of December, most of it does not
look good by Christmas. Instead of totally replacing all of the 
greenery, I tried pulling out the most obvious dried out pieces
and just put fresh greenery on top of most of the old. 

(Here's an example...an early December arrangement on the

 mantle looked dried out by mid-December. I pulled out the

 dried out holly near the picture and piled on fresh greenery.

 To me, the fresh greenery keeps "the eye" from noticing

 the dried out greenery.

By the time Christmas had actually come, it needed even more
fresh greenery to hide the second layer of dried-out greenery.

For the third layer, I also added some artificial red berries. To 
help spread the berries through the arrangement, I dismantled
a large multi-stem pick of berries (from Hobby Lobby) and used
brown floral tape to attach each stem to a wooden skewer. 

When we bought the house the mantel was not very wide. We had
a carpenter add a piece of wood about a foot wide on top of the
original mantel and add molding to make it chunkier.

With bigger mantel I can put lots of greenery (and bigger vases
when needed) for decorating. Last year I did use oasis foam for greenery on the mantel but this year I did not...it is just piled on.)

This angel art print is another item I have had for years but never
used. I attached the print to foam core with spray adhesive and
then gave it a coat of artist gel medium in a brush stroke-type of
motion. This gives the print the look of being a painting. 

For more directions on how to make an art print look like a painting click here and here.

Sometimes I spend a lot of time decorating the bookshelves but
this year is not one of those times. For the most part I removed
the succulent pumpkins from the Fall decorating and replaced 
them with pine cones and greenery. 

This little slipper chair got the other decoration I bought this year...
a hooked pillow from JoAnn's.

On the other side of the mantle is a double bookcase.

Off of the living room is the only bedroom area that got
decorations beyond Christmas pillows on the beds.
This is a guest room since the sofa is a sleeper sofa that
can be pulled out. Also this room serves as my office. We
fitted the closet to function as a desk area (not shown). 

I also used these "Put A Tree On It" vehicles last year in here on 
the bookcase. If you want to see how the  vehicles' colors were 
changed to fit in with the turquoise/red color scheme click here. 

Now we'll to back through the living room on to the kitchen area...

I like this spot for the Christmas tree because it can be seen
from the two rooms and is out of a traffic path. 

I like the tree "collars" that I have seen in recent years so I 
got a French market basket out of the attic to use as a 
disguise for the tree holder. 

This year I used my collection of bottle-brush type critters
as the main ornaments on the tree. I wanted to keep the colors
of balls on the tree in the brown tones (but I did not want to
buy new ones) so I spray painted ones I had in a copper color.

To see how the critters have been used in the past click here .

Only a small number of bottle brush trees got to come out this
year. They decorate the kitchen table. I put them in baskets to continue the basket look under the tree.

The bottle brush trees are set on buffalo snow sprinkled with 
the artificial plastic snow flakes for a little shimmer.

For directions on how to bleach bottle brush trees click here. 

Now we are going outside to see the front yard decorations.
Let's go out the back door and pass by my toy trucks and cars
decorated for Christmas on a baker's rack in the carport. 

Some of the trucks/cars are actually old but some were painted
to look old. Click here to see how they were painted.

Although these big candy decorations are not new they have
held up very well (even living most of the year in the attic and
December in the weather) so I'm using them again. 

For directions on how to make a deco mesh mailbox topper click here.

For directions on how to make the big candy decorations click here. 

Another good decoration that you can make from deco mesh
is a garland. It holds up well if it is stored without any weight
on it. Different decorations can be added to it. 

For directions on how to make a deco mesh garland click here.

I have found that the "big candy" I made with acrylic paints or 
with foil wrapping paper holds up better over time than regular 
wrapping paper. See how the color has faded on the striped candy?

I decided to not use a wreath on the door since I already had
six of them on the windows across the front of the house. 

For directions on how to make this deco mesh Christmas wreath click here. 

Here's a closer look at the painted burlap Christmas tree.

For directions on how to make a painted burlap door hanging click here. 

Thanks again for taking the tour of my house decorated for 
Christmas! I hope you have a blessed holiday season.