Christmas Inside

I don't do alot of Christmas decorating. I'll be honest I'm just not a fan of decorating the inside of my house for Christmas, I mean its just alot of stuff to store for 11 months out of the year! I tend to keep things simple and to use things that have meaning or a story behind it.

The first Christmas tradition is that my daughter and I always buy a Christmas ornament for the tree each year. This year we actually got 4.

Sloan picked out this wooden bird from Silver in the City. A cool little shop on Mass Avenue near downtown Indy.


Go figure I picked out a handmade owl from Silver in the City. Cute eh!


Then the next 2 were my daughter's idea, its an H and N for our baby girls we lost this summer, who are obviously still very much in our hearts.



Our tree is a collection of our yearly ornament tradition, handmade ornaments my daughter made at school and 11 ornaments with Sloan's photo in it for each year to reflect her age! We always get a real tree every year even though each year I think we should buy an artificial one when Christmas is over but by then I'm done with Christmas!


The kitchen is pretty simple, I hang my Williams Sonoma red and green towels on the stove. Here's a secret, I've been using WS towels when I was young and broke and the only thing I could afford in the store were the towels. I decorated the table with our Williams Sonoma hot chocolate mugs and I bring out my Granny Kaye's salad bowl and fill it with my Christmas cookie cutters, then on the window I put pinecones in my pots and glued some berries on them.




In my dining room I put my Christmas dishes in the hutch and line the back of the hutch with some Christmas fabric, change out the chandelier candles to red and set the table with my dishes and some sparkly pinecones Sloan made for me more then 5 years ago.





The last room I did was the living room, of course that's where the tree is but I also decorated the mantle with fresh evergreen and our stockings and some candles, a side table with our advent Calendar that is my daughter's favorite part of Christmas and a snowman I painted last year at the local pottery place and a Santa key that my daughter thought Santa used in a previous house when we had no fireplace.



I really think its the personal stuff that makes the holidays mean something and the very reason I started this blog, its about making your house into a home!

Oh wait, I have to show off my husband's handy work outside with his lights! Great job honey!!

Tuesday's Inspiration

I love both of these photos today! I am a sucker for any and all things pretty and I'm one of those people who enjoys wrapping presents! Just ask my daughter, we spent almost an hour at the craft store picking out just the right paper for my gifts this year!



(photos Nice Package)

Which makes me wonder, do you spend time making your presents look pretty or do you think, why bother they are just going to rip it off and throw it away anyways???

Monday's Inspiration

This weekend we finished up decorating the inside of the house and Drew put the lights up outside. I'm glad Drew got the lights up yesterday because we woke up to a blanket of snow this morning!

This table was done by Eddie Ross! I love him! He can set a table like no one's business!

So let me ask you do you decorate your table for Christmas?

Outdoor Christmas Decorating

I finished my part of the Christmas decorating today, on Saturday Drew will put up our lights and we'll be officially done. I'm also hoping the rest of inside of the house will be done too.

The first photo are 2 wreaths made of plain live wreaths, grapevine wreaths and then Christmas ornaments that I attached.



Then is a basket I put on my table on my side patio. I just used garland and I got out my handy glue gun and glued red ornaments and placed it in the basket.



This is the finished side patio.



At the front of the house besides the swag on the door I put together an urn and dressed up my favorite owl (a gift from my daughter and Drew).



A close up of the urn. It turned out to be a pain, it kept falling over so I had to re do it and place bricks inside of it so it will stay in place. There is just a mixture of Christmas greenery, pinecones, ornaments, twigs and berries in it.



The finished front door.





Bring on the lights!

Thursday's Inspiration

I have been searching for a nativity scene for years and they are either too cheesy or too expensive. I finally find one and I love it but..



go figure it's sold out! Isn't it only December 3rd? Oh well hopefully next year Pottery Barn will have it again! Of course I probably should still go to Pottery Barn this weekend just to make sure!

Wednesday's Inspiration

The meaning of a picture is worth a thousand words!


(Photo Southern Living)

How beautiful is this?

Tuesday's Inspiration

I'm finishing up on the outside decorating today so my inspiration is all things outside that are sparkly and pretty. I'm also doing a project similar to the one in my inspiration photo today. (Ok not really but there is an urn involved.) I can only hope mine turns out half as good as Martha's! (Ok, Martha's assistants!)


(Photo by Martha Stewart)

Small Start to My Outdoor Christmas Decorating

I feel like I'm already behind, because everywhere I look (our neighborhood) and everywhere I read (facebook and my favorite design blogs and twitter) everyone has all their Christmas decorations up. I don't even have my Thanksgiving stuff put away yet. I did however get a few things done outside these last few days.

The first is my swag on the front door. I just bought a plain swag and dressed it with ornaments, and berries and some various winter foliage. You can save money if you put it together yourself and I think the end result is always better then buying one already done from a store.



The next one is a close up of one of my window boxes. Again, I basically threw a little of this and a lot of that into the containers. There is winter foliage, eucalyptus, berries, ornaments and some yard art that I bought from the Enchanted Garden.



The last photo is both of my window boxes.



Hopefully I can finish up with the other projects in the next few days and then convince my husband to get the lights up. I have 2 more wreaths, garland to string and a container to put together for in front of the front door, so come back!

Monday's Inspiration

(Photo from Southern Living)

This photo is from Southern Living. I chose it because I'm decorating the outside of my house this week. If only my house looked like this one!

My plan is to finish decorating the outside of our house this week, and the inside of the house next week, but honestly my brain is all over the place. I went shopping this weekend for supplies for the outside and I kept putting decorations for inside the house in my basket. Twice I pulled everything from my basket back onto the shelves and told myself to stop and focus on the outside and the list!

Time to go untangle the lights! Which brings me to the age old question, white lights or colored lights?

Getting Ready for Christmas?!

I know! I know! We haven't even eaten our Thanksgiving turkey yet but here I am posting about Christmas! To be honest I'm not a big lover of Christmas decorating and I keep it pretty minimal in our house. I put up a tree, decorate the mantel and maybe put a centerpiece on the table. I do however like to decorate the outside of our house.

I went home this weekend to visit with my mother-in-law/best friend (yep you read it right, I'm one of the lucky one's who has an amazing mother-in-law!) She asked me if I wanted to go to The Artful Gardens with her on Saturday morning for a class they were having on outdoor Christmas decorating. Well count me in! The store's website is still under construction but the store is located at 611 Indiana Avenue in Crown Point, IN. If you're ever in the area you have to stop in. The store is actually a small house but they still have alot to chose from.

We paid $5.00 for the class and learned how to design a urn for the front door, window boxes, a wreath for the front door, and a centerpiece for the table. The instructor was hilarious and his eye for design was incredible. He was one of those types who can throw things together in 5 seconds and it looked like something Martha Stewart put together herself, ok maybe I should compare him to Eddie Ross instead since I'm talking about a man!





After the demonstration we were able to shop around on the back patio and what do you know they had everything we needed to complete all the projects we just saw! Imagine that! You should of seen those women buying that store up, cha ching!!

This photo below is the back of the house where they have various lawn art for sale. I have always loved those bottle sculptures!



When you were done shopping they brought you into the house to pay and what do you know, there were about a million cute things in the store to buy! A few of the rooms were already decorated for Christmas but the others had great gift ideas for any occasion.




I'm glad I went to the demonstration, although my pocket book took a punch, but its the first time in years that I'm looking forward to decorating for Christmas!