Good morning friends! I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday and a relaxing break! Mine was filled with family, eating, shopping and more eating : ) How about you?
Since the Christmas season is officially upon us, I spent the weekend decking the halls and trimming the tree in our little apartment. It's so exciting to have our first Christmas together and I went
all out with the decor. Needless to say, I have lots to show you over the next few weeks, so stay tuned!
For this year's Christmas theme I wanted to go with sort of a casual farmhouse look mixed with vintage sparkle. Luckily I already had a lot of decor that fit that bill, so I only had to buy a few additional items. It was so fun to open the Christmas box and unwrap everything, because I hadn't seen any of it since December 2009. It was like a big surprise with beautiful treasures I had forgotten about. Here's how it all came together...
Christmas 2011
Casual Farmhouse Meets Vintage Sparkle
I tried to mix casual textures like linen, burlap and twine with natural elements like evergreen boughs and pinecones.
I'm going to use the branches in the galvanized bucket to display Christmas cards as they come in. I absolutely love the little wire and twig sleigh that I found in the Target $2.50 bin! (
PS- if you want to see where I got many of my ideas and inspiration for this year's decor, check out my Christmas pinterest board. I spent months pinning and planning : )
The vintage door all decked out.
So I was dying to have fresh pine wreaths all over the house this year, but the cost was just too much. But I think these $2.50 faux wreaths from Walmart worked out just fine. I tied a big burlap bow on this one and added a $1 sparkly Christmas ornament (also from Walmart).
Budget was the name of the game this season!
Mmmm...vintage books and mercury glass.
Can you tell that white ball is broken? Half of it shattered because I didn't store it properly, but I couldn't bear to throw it out. Works great in a bowl like this! More on the vintage paper bundle coming soon...
I have to say I'm really happy with how the room turned out! The pictures are not my favorite as I picked a bad time of day to photograph and there were annoying patches of light streaming in, but oh well. By the end of the photoshoot, poor Matt was standing on that chair with a piece of cardboard trying to cover the light patches for me. He gets
lots of husband points for that! : )
The Christmas mantel. Are you so impressed that I managed to totally redo my
arch nemesis shelves for the season? I am. Only took me about two hours : )
I've had these numbered plates from Target forever, but never had something to do with them. I think they add a touch of whimsy to the Chrstimas decor. Plus there's always room for typography!
I am so in love with our new stockings! My mom made them for me, which makes them even more special. I fell head over heels for
these stockings on etsy, but just couldn't bring myself to buy 4 at $25 each (though that was one of the better prices I found). So I bought the material myself and my mom sewed them up. I think I spent $20 total...much more reasonable.
The stockings are made of a painter's drop cloth from Walmart, which really is "poor man's linen" as I've heard it called. The white fabric and crochet trim are from JoAnn's.
This basket of poinsettias turned out to be one of my favorite things in the room. They are faux poinsettias by Better Homes and Gardens from Walmart, and were $3 per bunch. I debated and debated about getting them because, again, I was trying not to spend much, but in the end I'm so glad I did. I think they look great in my antique wire basket with burlap and fresh pine.
I love the little details like the vintage books for texture, pine boughs, and bottle brush trees. All the silver glass ornaments are from the Dollar Tree. They are sooo much cheaper than you will find glass ornaments anywhere else, so be sure to go pick some up!
Thank you so much for taking time to tour our little holiday living room. I had a blast bargain hunting, crafting and decorating, so I truly hope you enjoyed seeing it as much as I loved creating it! I'll be back soon with details on our Christmas tree and DIY vintage ornaments. Thanks for stopping by!
{live beautifully}
Courtney
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