Dining room Christmas vignette

I’m late to the party! Ack! We’ve been busy with a choo choo tree, hubby’s birthday and my impromptu decision to finally paint the office. I am crayyyzay!

Anyway, I finished up our dining room vignette today, and I’m so excited to link up to Rhoda’s Holiday Home linky party!:

You may remember last summer when I removed the top of our dining room hutch:

It had bugged me for YEARS, and I was so excited to find a perfectly lovely buffet hiding underneath:

LOVE when that happens. :)

I was so giddy at the thought of having another space to decorate! That is what it’s all about folks.

I ran into Walmart the other night to get a bag of cat food, which was mistake number one – you never, ever, EVER “run into” Walmart for anything. Mistake number two was making a quick swing by the Christmas stuff. Have you seen their ornaments this year?:

Maybe I’m behind – I hear they had them last year? Oh my goodness, they are so pretty! There is an amazing selection! And they’re only a buck each!

It’s a dangerous, dangerous aisle. I’m warning you. When I saw these, I didn’t want to use them on the tree -- I had a different idea in mind. ;) I knew they’d be perfect for our dining room vignette.

I grabbed all of the glass pieces I could find from our basement and around the house – cloches, apothecary jars, whatever. I added some faux snow I’ve used for years, and nestled some of the ornaments in:

Those trees are one of my favorites!

The silver stars are large and intricate:

Love the little church too. I held back from buying one in every. single. color:

I couldn’t pass up the presents:

And the reindeer was a keeper for sure:

It was SO HARD to not spend $50 on $1 ornaments. Seriously – they are too cute!

I held it together, and then I saw these in the next aisle:

And I broke down again. They were a perfect combo of that chocolate brown and beautiful green! They were only $2 each, and I only grabbed a couple. I wanted to grab 45. Or so.

I use mostly red and gold to decorate for the holidays around our house, but I was so taken with that green color for our chocolate dining room! I saw some $2 beads at Target in the exact same color and added them to my Goodwill wine decanter:

Years ago I spray painted some simple twiggy cone trees from Hob Lob and I added a couple to the buffet for some height:

I grabbed a package of $5 green ornaments from Walmart and mixed them with some of the sparkly chocolate ones:

And I big fat LOVE how it turned out!:

Of course, I added some sprigs of greenery here and there, just to give it more fullness. I don’t think it’s physically possible for me to do anything Christmas decor-related without greenery. :)

It’s a combo of green, brown, silver and a little gold, and I LOVE IT:

I was going to just put everything out here and there, but the hives started, and my need for symmetry won out. :) I made it kind of even, but since everything’s not exactly the same, it’s not too matchy-matchy:

Ignore my after-8 p.m.-hair in the reflection. :)

I’ve been using the same spray painted pine cones and jingle bells in this space for six years, so I was so excited to do something a little different:

And all of the little stuff under the glass was well under $20. Not too shabby for a whole new look!

Don’t you just LOVE that green color with the chocolate? Walmart also has the ornaments in a beautiful blue color that would look fantastic with brown as well!

I am getting there with the Christmas decor…I have some fun plans with the Silhouette and I’ll show you that next week! :)

**Linking this to Julia’s holiday party!

Thank you to my sponsor!:

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Santa hat craft

Hey there! Have you checked out the Holiday Home Mantel Party at Layla’s yet? Some serious inspiration going on!! (You can see ours here.) Even if you don’t have a mantel, you’ll be sure to find some great ideas for your holiday decorating. :)

Late in the season last year I did a Christmas craft that I absolutely LOVE – I wanted to show it to you again in case you wanted to try it out yourself.

I had seen some Santa hats at Stein Mart one day, and just thought they were adorable!:

Killing me. So fun! But I knew I could recreate them myself for less cash, so that I did.
Now I think mine are actually cuter, if I do say so myself:

And making them was way cheaper than buying them – score!!

Since I made them so close to Christmas last year, I just threw them in a tray I had laying around. But this week I found the most adorable tray at Hob Lob and it is just perfect for my cutie hats:

It was only $5 on sale! SCORE again. :)
I filled in around them with some extra Dollar Tree ornaments:

Well hello there!:

HA!

My Santa hats are one of my very favorite Christmas decorations. Partly because I made them myself. Partly because they are stinkin’ cauute!:

I’ve heard that some of you have made them with your kids, students and with friends – I LOVE that!! Makes me so happy. :)

For all of the details of how I made these (they were SO simple), check out last year’s post here. If you’ve made them, I’d love to see pictures!

So are you done decorating? It takes me a few days…or maybe a week. :) But I’m trying to take my time and enjoy it, especially since the Bub loves Christmas decor as much as me this year. I have a partner in crime and I love it!

P.S. I can’t believe how much our family room has changed since the pictures in that Santa hat post last year – all because of a $100 Craigslist dresser. ;) Love.

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Let the magic begin! (The mantels.)

Well hello there!! I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving week! We had such a fantastic time, but there wasn’t much resting, shopping or decorating going on.

Just a lot of this:

And this:

And this!

And watching our sweet Bub experience many firsts – first subway ride, first musical, first trip on an airplane:

That’s him watching our plane pull up to the gate. Giddy. Adorable. :)

Since we’ve returned, I’ve finally done a bit of resting (cause NYC kicks my booty!), way too much shopping and some Christmas decorating. I started with the mantels to kick off our Holiday Home linky parties!:

The first one goes up Tuesday at noon over at Layla’s place. :)

I’ve discovered the perfect recipe for Christmas decor that I luuuurve. It’s so simple – greenery, red stuff and a few touches of nature. That’s it. I mix up those three and I’m one happy chick.

I’ve also discovered I love fluffy greenery so much it’s just sick. I need someone to stop me from adding and adding and fluffing and fluffing…big fat greenery makes me HAPPY. :)

My mantels haven’t changed much since last year, I just added a little more greenery (shocking) and some HomeGoods finds. The base started with some basic greenery I’ve had used for years. But it needed some poofing, so last year I found some fantastic greenery at Big Lots of all places, and I’m kind of obsessed with it. I got a few more this week:

I just snip it apart and stick it in here and there in the basic, cheap greenery. It works GREAT and makes it look so much more expensive! In my opinion full and fluffy equals expensive looking.

After that, it’s just more fluffing and adding – sticks:

Beady stuff, dollar store ornaments and pinecones:

And there. you. go. I would stuff a cat in there if it would stay, seriously. I just can’t stop. :)

A few weeks ago while shopping for my Mom Cave, I found an adorable (big! lighted!) reindeer for $20, so I paired him with my little red adorable reindeer I found at HomeGoods last year:

   

By the way, I saw that exact same large reindeer at Pier 1 for I think $60? It’s identical! Whoohoo!

My dollar store stars (from last year) hang from the ironwork, and it’s done:

Ugh, that fluffy garland just rocks my world. I love it!

Upstairs, I did almost exactly what I have in years past, but couldn’t resist a bit more fluff, of course.

Because I try to use what I have as much as possible in Christmas decor, I wanted to keep the current stuff up there, but the garland kept falling off around it. I picked up some Command Strips at True Value and laid a couple right on the top of the mantel:

I just hooked the greenery to it and it worked perfectly!

Here’s a shot of the difference some fluffing can do – on the left, I’ve started stuffing my Big Lots good stuff in. On the right, it’s just the basic garland:

Here it is again, with a bunch o’ stuff thrown in:

Again, I just add till it looks right – ornaments, pinecones, the cat, whatever!

A few years ago, I got some cheap wood letters from the craft store, painted them red and then hung them from ribbon. I hang them from my wallpaper art every year and it’s such a big impact for so cheap!

Instead of hot gluing them like usual, I picked up some tacks from True Value and used those to secure the ribbon to the backs of the canvases:

And that’s it!

I just love the bright red against the black!:

RED makes me SMILE. :)

Our bedroom mantel, transformed with some greenery and a few changes to what we already have:

YES, I know…the cord. It’s giving me hives. But I have two more trees to get up and ten more bins to empty, umkay? Priorities people. But OH YES, it will be covered…

The candles are fake, no worries. :)

And of course, I love them best at night:

Ahhhh…that’s the magic!! :) LOVE. Be sure to link up tomorrow at Layla’s. I can’t wait to see what you’ve created!

P.S. I think I said “fluff” 89 times. Or so.

 

*I was one of the bloggers selected by True Value to work on the DIY Squad. I have been compensated for my time commitment to the program as well as my writing about my experience. I have also been compensated for the materials needed for my DIY project. However, my opinions are entirely my own and I have not been paid to publish positive comments.*

Thank you to my sponsor!:

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