Christmas Decor 2013

This is my last year to decorate this house for Christmas, which makes me sad, but at the same time, I love this house at Christmastime, so it's really a fun, creative thing for me.  I pretty much stick with similar holiday decor but add something new each year.  So, here's what I cam up with (I'm DREADING taking it down because I love it!).

This was just a little centerpiece in the large living room.

This photo really doesn't do our tree justice.  It is an amazing tree.  It's about 8 feet tall, very full, and smells divine (I can't get enough of that pine smell during the holidays).  My friend's family owns a local tree farm and we got this tree from them and are extremely happy with it.  We had such a good time picking it out too.  We were originally going to cut it down, but ended up picking up a pre-cut one in the evening shortly after Thanksgiving.  We were afraid all the "good" trees would be gone, but there ended up being a lot of great choices.  Ruby had fun running through the tree lot and picking out her favorites.  Here's a dark photo from that night.  The pole was used to measure the trees.  

Anyway, back to the decorations….

This shelving unit had a few new things added, like the letters spelling out JOY and the chalkboard printable in the frame.

We refer to this little tree as our "4 Calling Birds" tree.  The mercury glass vases were used to hold Christmas cards and candy canes until I finally figured out a new way to display the cards:

 This photo was taken mid-late December, so the wall is actually fuller now, but I love having the Christmas cards like this.  It's right by our table, so it's fun to look at all the faces of our friends and family and think about them while we are eating or working at the table.  I'm planning on leaving them up through January and then transferring them to the inside of our kitchen cabinets.  Ruby loves to point out people she recognizes, which is really cute!

The mantle this year had live greenery on it (a must!), new letters that spell "merry," red and silver accents and of course, white lights.  I put simple glittery letters on the stockings this year, but I hope to find something a little more permanent since they kept falling off.  Oh, and if you are wondering about that 4th stocking with two letters….it's the dogs' stocking, of course.  

I put together a couple of these peppermint-cranberry candles in the large living room for some color.

This was a quick afterthought and again, the photo doesn't really do it justice, but we strung up Ruby's holiday artwork above the sofa since it was so cute.  I actually really like this display and might take down the holiday artwork and replace it with other pieces she's completed.  Most of these are made while she's in daycare.  Oh, and she likes to show it off to visitors.

The entryway remained the same as year's past with the woodland display.  For some reason I didn't get a good photo of it, but here's a portion of the display.

I think I was just playing around with my camera and happened to just take it randomly.

I made a really simple display on my new end table in the large living room, but I ended up really liking the simplicity of it all.  Ruby pretty much left the glass vases alone, so it has stayed up the entire month without issue. 

Our outdoor light display has stayed the same for a few years now, but it remains one of my favorite parts of our Christmas decor.  Noa puts it all up every year and does a fantastic job.  I know that colored lights are fun, but the white lights are so warm and inviting.  It really makes the cold, dark winter just a bit more inviting.

The Secret Room

Did you know we have a secret room in our house?  

Technically speaking, it's not a secret room so much as a room I don't talk about very much.  It's our third bedroom: the guest room.  It's gone through some major changes since moving in a year and a half ago.  Next to the nursery, it's one of my favorite rooms in the house.

Here's what it looked like when we moved here in November of 2010:

Blah and boring, right?  It's a small room and when we moved in we designated it as the guest room right away.  But I didn't want to just throw a bed in there and call it a day.  I wanted it to be a little retreat - a place where our guests could relax and feel like the space was theirs while staying with us.  I decided to paint it a darker color.  I've fallen in love with "Rainstorm"by Behr.  Seriously, this color is amazing.  Not too dark, but very rich.

Since the color is dark and the room is small, I decided to accent the room with lots of white to open up the space.  I used mostly white bedding, a white dresser, and white curtains (on the outside of the windows to make the window look bigger).  Then I added splashes of bright color to give personality to the space - artwork from Okinawa and fun pillows from Jess.  The wall lamps we had in Florida and I spray painted them with a brushed gold paint.

  Here's the result: a sophisticated, but comfy, guest room.  I'm pleased with how it turned out and it's definitely not boring.

See that artwork?  Got it at Target for $6 on clearance!  And the dresser is from Ikea.  We classed it up by adding a glass top to it.  We had the lamp already.  It's from Crate and Barrel.  The red bench (lower portion of the photo) is something we picked up in Okinawa.

Here's a close-up of the koi artwork above the bed.  The artist is Rachel Dutton of Shade Tree Gallery.  The colors are really vibrant! 

Now, the secret's out...come and visit anytime!

Photo Tour: The Nursery

I have finally finished the nursery.  Well, mostly finished the nursery.  There are still a few finishing touches, but it's basically done.  I'm really proud of how it turned out and I definitely couldn't have done it without Noa's help and advice from friends and family.  I really hope that Ruby is happy in there when she moves out of our room.

I began the design process by looking at photos of nurseries online.  I saved the photos I liked and then looked for common themes among them.  The common traits seemed to be gray walls, white trim, and punches of color.  Using those elements, I began creating a room for Ruby that was clean, crisp, but still childlike, but didn't break the budget.  It's hard to say what I like the best about the space.  I think the best part is how it all came together so well and fulfilled my original vision.  

Without further ado, welcome to your photo tour of Ruby's room!

I think she likes it!

Sources:

Book Slings: made by Grandma

Book Shelves, Dresser, Fur, Round Mirror, small lamp, frames: Ikea

Chair: yard sale

Ottoman, Crib Skirt, Blanket, Artwork: Etsy

Number Flash Cards & Changing Pad Cover: Land of Nod

Floating Shelf & Capiz Chandelier: West Elm

Jenny Lind Crib: Amazon

Flag Bunting: made by a friend

"R" monogram: Anthropologie

Christmas Decor Tour

Our house is in full Christmas mode!  Anoli and Dad will be arriving this week, our Care Group's annual Christmas gathering is in a couple of days, and we are preparing Christmas cookies and cards for distribution. There was no way I'd be able to decorate the house without my mom, who has been staying with us.  I love how everything turned out.  Let's start with the tree - I went with a woodland theme this year, but included splashes of red in honor of Ruby's first Christmas.

Here's a close up of one of my new ornaments for the woodland theme.  This squirrel is the perfect addition to our tree since this year Gunnar has decided that it's his mission in life to chase the squirrels in our backyard.  I'll always think of Gunnar bounding through the yard in pursuit of his prey when I look at it.  And, no, Gunnar has not caught a single squirrel yet.

Here's another view of the tree next to the couch.  On the wall is the wreath I used last year on the front door.  This year I added a "ruby bird" to the wreath and I also placed a festive throw pillow on the couch.  After looking at this photo, I realize I could use some solid red pillows.  Maybe next year....

The mantle is one of my favorites.  I've had the garland for years and it looks perfect here!  I'm also partial to all the sparkle up top.  The picture does not quite capture it.

The stockings ended up in the dining room since we didn't want to crowd the mantle.  I picked up the glittery letters at Target and love them!

I'm using the same display as last year for Christmas cards, except this year it's in the big living room with the addition of some Santas I had collected over the years.

The Willow Tree Nativity scene is also in the big living room.  We set up a table nearby with a Christmas puzzle, which has been a fun project at night and allows us to use that room a lot more than usual.

My woodland theme was carried over into the entryway.  We combined all the trees I had accumulated through the years, some random pine cones, and some deer to create this little scene on the black dresser.  

And we took a cue from the Washington baby shower and created a Christmas candy bar on the counter!  Unfortunately I didn't take a picture of this as soon as we made it, when it contained a lot more candy.

Noa did our outdoor light display this year.  He did a fabulous job and even worked late into the night one night to complete it.  Each year we hope to add more lights, especially since we live in a neighborhood that has a lot of light displays.  Sorry for the blurry photo - I'm still learning how to take a decent picture of Christmas lights at night.

Finally, we placed wreaths around the house in order to make some of the empty areas feel a little more festive.

Wreath Surprise

Remember the winter wreath I created for my front door a few months back?

It's about time to replace it with something a little more springy.  Recently, I noticed that nature was already moving in that direction.  I saw that the wreath had acquired a lot of roughage...leaves, twigs, and the like...especially near the top....hmmmm...

I checked it out and found a bird's nest with three eggs in it!  How sweet!

As adorable as that is, both the nest and the wreath need to go.  The wreath is getting replaced for the spring and a bird cannot claim my front door as home.  I don't think my friends would appreciate getting assailed by an angry momma bird whenever they come over.  Hopefully, the bird relocates to the tree in front of my house so I can watch all the action of baby birds from my window.

Sleek Shelves

We recieved our Florida shipment (all the rest of our stuff that was in storage for the past 4+ years) recently and as the packers left our home, we realized something right away.  Our home was being taken over by BOOKS!  We had piles and piles of them everywhere.  Initially, we went through the piles and weeded out what we could, but we just couldn't part with most of them.  We were still left with huge piles along the long wall of our living room.  I couldn't live like this.  It's hard enough not having furniture to fill a room, but now we had piles of books lining the walls.  Not cool.  I knew we needed shelves that could hold all of them, but wouldn't break the bank and still be somewhat stylish.  Our solution was to take a drive over to Ikea and snag a couple of these:

Originally we were thinking of getting the larger version of this shelf to place on against a large wall, but then Noa suggested getting two of these smaller versions and putting them along the half-walls in our large (and pretty empty) living room.  This is idea worked perfectly!  They almost look like built-ins.    

As you can see, I'm a big fan of arranging all those books in rainbow order.  I've always loved this trend.  It makes a shelf look so happy.

The other shelf has the books with brown, gray, black, and white spines.  I got to use some of my Okinawa and China treasures on this shelf (well, at least have them decorating a space instead of sitting on the floor).  Please excuse the empty frame and the stuff next to the shelf.  It's a work in progress.  I'm sure I'll be changing the decor over and over again.

I'm happy that all our books now have a place to call home!  And, now our living room finally has a couple of pieces of furniture.  Yeah!