5 tips for Holiday Bright

5 tips for Holiday Bright

antlers christmas decorating Holiday Decorating nature inspired seasonal decorating sheepskin

What kind of holiday decorator are you?

Walking through stores this time of year certainly sends the message that there are many people who love  a holiday  glam look with glitter, shine, and layers of finery.   If you've read this blog for awhile you know this won't be that kind of post.  I like my seasonal decor as simple as possible.  When visitors come to my home I  want them to feel in the mood for the season without being burdened by sensory overload.

In honour of the upcoming  holiday season I created a style board to illustrate some of my top tips for for decorating without going over the top.  I started with this stunning chair from Chairish, a US based online marketplace for vintage furniture.  There are so many beautiful accent chairs to choose from, in addition to other great finds for your home.

Mid century accent chair 

I would love to own this chair! It references warm and cosy, but still has a quiet elegance.  It can be yours for a great price.  Check out the link above.

Now for a little creative play, let's give it a new home using 5 simple decorating moves.

Tip #1

Add a fur throw to furniture for instant warmth 

But if  a purchase isn't in the cards for you, don't fret.  You can satisfy  your urge by creating the same look using a faux fur throw or  natural sheepskin.   While you can use fur on any chair,  a framed chair in  black can't be beaten when it comes to impact.  Remember the power of spray paint!  Of course this one with its gold tips is extra special.  Hint, hint,  tape off and spray  the tips  of your stand -in piece gold.

Tip #2

Reference nature 

A quick look around this style board shows nature repeated throughout the space with birds, trees, deer, as well as twigs and berries. They are all easily added and removed for another creative use next year.  What I like about this more minimal approach is it's longevity.  Many of the additions can be left up all winter so you don't have that bare look after the holiday season is over.

Tip #3

Integrate seasonal objects among every day arrangements 

Take down a piece of art and hang a wreath in its place, add seasonal objects to your window ledge and bookcase or tabletop.  Berries can often be added to simple arrangements. 

Tip #4 

Add candles 

Such a simple addition and so much ambiance when lit.  If you are concerned about safety,  purchase a set of battery operated candles.  They are so realistic now with some even having a subtle scent and flickering light.  I especially like  the  remote control function on the ones I have. One flick and instant mood is created. 

Tip # 5

Use pillows for pattern and comfort

Not everyone likes to have a pile of extra pillows around; I get that!  I admit pillows are my weakness and  I have a shelf full so I can make changes through the year.  I think they are a small price for a refreshed  look.   One budget idea for seasonal pillows is to find ones that work well on one side with your every day decor and flip them for seasonal decoration. 

How does this  advice play out in my own home?  

Here's my dining room from last year.  Candles, real twigs and fake berries, white  reindeer, sprayed pinecones, an evergreen and birds. It will all be used somewhere again this year but it won't look the same. 

For something different this season, I've separated my two buffets and changed the art.

artist Mike Gough, The Island 2014

 I've been looking for the perfect place for my new piece of art by local artist Mike Gough.  It seems to be comfortable in the dining room. This painting has a  fall feel that made me think of my moose antler at my summer place.  Let's see if it can be integrated into a more sophisticated environment.  My candles are in place and ....   It needs more than that.  I'm thinking a conversation will happen between what's on the buffets and the table.  Stay tuned.

Room Tour: Gypsy Soul Interiors Holiday Home

Room Tour: Gypsy Soul Interiors Holiday Home

Holiday Decorating Room Tours

We're in full Christmas mode today! If you celebrate Christmas too, I hope it's a lovely day for you and your family! 

My friend Kristen Dowd from Gypsy Soul Interiors in Dallas (who shared projects with us here, here and here) has decorated her home so beautifully for the holidays and I thought you'd like to see it too before the big day has come and gone. So much inspiration everywhere! Also, in addition to doing online interior design consultations, Kristen is a talented artist. She is offering 15% off custom paintings for LGN readers (just email her for details). This is one of her paintings below.

 

Your home is lovely! What a transformation! Will you tell me about how much of the work was DIY and how much was contracted out? 

We bought the home in 2009 and absolutely loved the layout. The area of town we live in is filled with amazing sprawling ranches that were built in the early seventies. Lucky for us, a builder had recently completely renovated the home and had taken out nearly every wall in the living area. Our kitchen is open to the dining room, entry, living area, breakfast area and bar. At the time we had a 1 year old, and open living is so easy with little ones. We now have a 5 year old and a 7 month old and I am still loving the floor plan. 

Here's the before-we-moved-in shot:

The flip side of the coin was that said builder had a completely opposite aesthetic taste than I did. I've always said that I think the theme before we started putting our mark on the home was "Cracker Barrel meets Olive Garden" (no offense to either restaurant). So it was rustic and Tuscan at the same time, two of my least favorite design styles. 

Check out the vine on the hood. Nice!

The changes weve made really look extensive, but the beauty is, they really were not extensive at all. Literally, all we did was paint, change out tile and take some doors off the kitchen cabinets! It is really amazing what paint can do. I'd love to say that we did the work, but alas, I know my strengths and weaknesses and painting falls in the "weakness" category. I also know that you have to be patient when painting kitchen cabinets, and anyone who knows me knows patience is not one of my virtues. 

As far as the paint colors, I literally painted every square inch of the living area, including trim and kitchen cabinets, "Simply White" by Benjamin Moore. I love the way white modernizes a room. I narrowed the initial choices of white down to 3 colors, White Dove (too grey), Mascarpone (too yellow) and Simply White. Simply White worked best for us, but I love White Dove and Mascarpone too, it all depends on the lighting in your home. The center island and center island cabinets are "Porpoise" from Sherwin Williams. The hardware is from Horton Brasses. 

The tile is bevelled subway tile from Floor and Decor laid in a herringbone pattern. The tile is so so so reasonable! My total for tile was less than $60. The herringbone pattern is what really gives it impact. We kept the granite because frankly, it was not in the budget to replace. Check out the vent hood. Hooray! No more carved vine.

I am crazy about the breakfast nook right off your kitchen. Tell me a little bit about the pieces you have in here and the projects you've done.

Sure! The chandelier is Horchow, the table was found on Craigslist, the chairs are also from Craigslist, the rug is Ikea and the Christmas trees are Homegoods. A huge score in this room and actually throughout the back of my house are the curtain panels. They are lined faux dupioni silk panels from JCPenneys, found on clearance for $8 a panel!

The pantry in the breakfast room is an situated awkwardly on the wall. I could have painted it Simply White, like the walls, but when I saw Caitlin Wilsons chalkboard wall I knew I was going to copy her! And I love how it turned out!

If you look closely, you will notice the hardware pulls are actually pewter longhorns! A playful ode to the great state of Texas :) 

I am using the pantry wall as a gallery wall of sorts. I am a folk art collector, and being from Montgomery, Alabama, love Mose T's work. The pink man is by Mose T and the Santa is by his daughter Annie T. The lady in turquoise is just a fabulous portrait I picked up at the White Elephant in Dallas. 

I love that your Christmas decorations are colorful and modern. Where do you shop for holiday decor? 

I joke that many of our Christmas decorations are actually stolen goods. I probably shouldn't joke, because it may be true. When we were first married and lived in Atlanta, we lived in a "transitional" neighborhood. One day, I was heading to the thrift store in a sort of sketchy shopping center and there was a large unmarked 18 wheeler with a handwritten sign "Christmas Decorations" on the side. Naturally, I was curious, and ended up spending maybe $75 on enough decorations to fill two car loads. Something was odd, but I was still thrilled at my haul. I brought my husband back later that evening, and Ben was hysterically laughing and explained that this "pop up shop" was actually a stolen shipping crate. Oh well, lesson learned, but I did score some great decorations. Everything else in our home is from Homegoods or Target.

We do not stick to a certain color scheme for holiday decorating but stick to a high "sparkle" factor which makes the decor look more cohesive.  I am also a fan of grouping like items for more of an impact, like out nutcrackers, metallic Christmas trees and reindeer. I started a collection of snow globes as a child, and Cici, my daughter is also collecting them. We display all of the globes together each Christmas. 

I adore the tree above. See what I mean, we love "Sparkly!"Tree is from Dillards, Peace Sign on top is from Homegoods, Cabinet is from Montgomery Antiques in Montgomery, Alabama , Mirror is from Horchow Finale, wreath is part of my "Stolen Goods" Christmas decor. 

Where are you favorite places to shop? What's been your favorite find so far? 

My favorite place to shop is Scout Design Studio, at 155 Howell Street in the Dallas' Design District. Scout is a 15,000 square foot warehouse of affordable vintage finds. My business partner Grace and I also sell our pieces from Scouts warehouse. Other faves include Salvation Army, Horchow Finale and Antiques Moderne in Dallas. My best find ever has to be the giant faux bois armoire that hides my husbands monstrosity of a television. You can see the armoire in this picture (this was before we painted).

Tell me a little bit about your floors.

That is a loaded question. I love these floors so much. They are a beautiful 2 inch handscraped oak with a tiger finish. I had no idea what a "tiger" finish was until we had a contractor come quote laying these floors in the bedroom area of the home. It is a fantastic look, as the stain almost resembles a tigers stripes. We currently have carpet (yuck) in the bedrooms and wanted the wood to continue in each room. Well apparently, handscraped wood floors with a tiger finish are $16/square foot at minimum! Gulp... Big Gulp... cant afford that :( We are brainstorming plan B. Plan B may just be to wait until we can afford so the home will be cohesive. The thought of a mismatched floor tortures me to no end. 

Let's walk through the rest of your living spaces. Your home is such a fun mix of vintage and new. I love hearing about where you source your finds.

Here above, I framed Cici's artwork in a couple IKEA frames. The rug is from Montgomery Antiques in Montgomery, Alabama.

Here's a before shot of our bar area.

I think the white paint really helps to hightlight the bar. To decorate the bar area for Christmas, I displayed our snow globes in with our decanter collection and wrapped a table runner from Walmart around the ikat pillow.  The "Texas" print is from Homegoods, the lucite stool is from White Elephant, the blue bench is from Homegoods and so is the pillow. The large canvas of my daughter Cici was printed at Canvas on Demand and the light fixture was purchased at Shopten25.com.

Here are more of those JC Penney faux silk curtains hanging in our living room.

And in our entry I hung a mirror from Craigslist over my Great grandfather's painting desk (how awesome, right?!) The lamps were also found on Craigslist. The lucite chair is from Amazon and the pillow is from Fabricadabra. The silver wreath is Target. 

Kristen, I'm loving your dining room, especially the interior color of the hutch. It's a vintage piece, right?

I found the vintage hutch at Salvation Army and painted it! The dining and two accent chairs are from Again and Again. The table is from Rooms To Go (yes, you read that correctly!). 

The brass chandelier is from Bienvenue Antiques in Miramar Beach, FL. And pretty much all the holiday decorations in here are from Homegoods (can you tell I like HG?)

A HUGE thanks to Carrie Smith for the pretty photos and to Kristen. of course, for the lovely home tour! What a gorgeous home, right? 

DIY Holiday Gifts

DIY Holiday Gifts

DIY etc. Holiday Decorating Reader DIY

Christmas is a week from today! Are you ready? I have a few little projects left to finish before the shipping deadline on Thursday. I know - right under the wire! I was determined to be totally prepared for the holiday season this year, but it snuck up on me again. If you're scrambling for some last minute gift ideas that have a little personality, here are some easy (and usually inexpensive) DIY ideas from LGN days of yore.

1. Channel your inner artist and color a canvas notebook (or have your kids make them for grandparents).

2. Cover a lampshade in pretty fabric to top off a thrift store lamp. Your little sister will be in heaven.

3. Spray paint plastic animals to make custom bookends for your best girlfriend.

4. Make dozen of these leather tassel keychains in an hour for your favorite co-workers. The tassels are so easy to do and they look like a million bucks!

5. Find a vintage bench on craigslist and cover it in a fun new fabric. A super simple project that requires only a few hours and not a ton of money, but comes with a big pay-off. (I'd probably go with something a little on the smaller side, and then you can go really crazy with the fabric!)

6. Make a little match cup with the strike paper glued to the bottom.

7. Spend $4 blowing up the image of your choice in black and white (maybe your parent's wedding photo? Or a portrait of a special relative?). I mounted my print on foam core board and painted the sides bright orange.

8. I call these my ten-minute pillows. If you know how to sew a straight line, you can make a pair of pillows for your friend.

9. Decoupage a dollar-store trash bin with a pretty marbleized paper. It's too late to order the paper online now, but stationary stores carry these a lot of times (I know Paper Source has tons). If you're in a pinch, look for scrapbook or wrapping paper in a special pattern.

10. Paint an ombre effect on a pretty basket and fill it with a new throw for your mother-in-law.

11. Whip up a couple of these quick, easy-sew dolls for your kids. My girls are still sleeping with theirs and they've held up really well after all these years.

12. Monogram a coin purse using freezer paper and add a tassel (from above) while you're at it.

13. I inherited a bunch of buttons from my grandmothers so I sewed them onto a piece of linen and framed the fabric. Something like this would be great to give to moms. If you only have a few buttons, try something like this look. 

Here's hoping we all get done in time! :)

Dinner Party at My Place!

Dinner Party at My Place!

Dining Holiday Decorating

   
The holidays are in full swing around here! The tree is up and the house is mostly decorated. But I have some work to do because we're having a little dinner party tonight! The timing is perfect because I am participating in the Mark and Graham challenge with a few other bloggers.

Mark and Graham is the newest line from Williams-Sonoma and they focus mostly on personalized home decor. I was asked to style a table with these blue napkins that just happen to work with some of my vintage china perfectly! And I will always and forever love the green squiggle pattern on the salad plates.

Since my new dining room has lots of blues and periwinkle, I decided to run with those colors for the party decor. Even though pink/purple/blue is not usually what you'd think of for a holiday party! The blue tumblers are also from Mark and Graham. The opalescent goblets are vintage (my girls call them the rainbow glasses).  :)

This is the first dinner party we'll have at our new table, so I wasn't sure how to approach the table cloth/place mat situation. So I tried something a little different. I bought six black poster boards and cut and glued them together to fit just right. I like how it accentuates the unique shape of the table instead of covering it all up.

Then I used some neon pink washi tape to trim out the top and bottom.

For the center, I gathered up a bunch of crystal and glass candle holders. I had a few on hand, but I did buy some of these. (The shapes!)

Since there was no place to put a floral arrangement in the center of the table, I decided to make little ones for each place setting. ABC Kitchen does something similar in mismatched, tiny little bottles. So I stopped by the thrift store and bought six (very dirty?) glass bottles.

I used teeny tiny flowers like wild roses, small parrot tulips and even a little baby's breath (I know, shocking!).

I cut down these chalkboard tags from Mark and Graham into little waving flag shapes for the place cards. As a side note, have you tried chalk pens? AMAZING.

I put the beverages on the skirted console. The monogrammed carafe is holding my favorite - sparkling grapefruit juice. Yum.

Trader Joe's was selling these great boxwood wreaths last week for $10 each. I hung them up using some vintage trim I bought at SAS last time we were in Arizona.

So excited for this dinner now! 

Have you seen my fellow blogger-lady's tables? I love how each of us went in completely different directions. Check them all out here - Coco+Kelley, Emily Henderson, Camille Styles, Sacramento Street.

Now for the important part (you know, the part where you can win stuff). Mark and Graham is giving away a $500 gift certificate if you stop by their FB page and vote on which table setting you like the most. Think of all the goodies you could get for $500! Think of all the future dinner parties!