Vintage Christmas circa 2005, we look like such lil pups. Hope you all had a Merry one!

Love,

Rebecca, Mike, Macky, Mowie & Darwin (& Sunny via heaven!)

Before we actually decorated inside this week, we decorated the outside of our house on Saturday. We actually planned out something simple for the porch a while ago, but never had the chance to put it out. We waited until it was brutally cold Saturday afternoon.

First I finally hung the outdoor wreath I made a few weeks back.

We also picked up two artificial trees for either side of the door.

We actually planned to use those trees at the bottom of our porch staircase, but I completely forgot that we had two pointy evergreen type trees there already.  So we strung those with white lights and put these artificial ones on either side of the door. Thankfully, my Christmas color scheme matched my spring/summer doormat so I just pulled that back out for the time being. The mess of wires was inevitable, we got the smallest sized extension cords they had. It was so cold out there that we tucked them in as best we could and ran back in! We added some pre-lit garland to the porch rails and wa-la!

There’s our simple little porch. I would have snapped more pictures and played with the camera settings a bit, but the neighbors came out and I got all embarrassed that I was standing on the lawn, taking pictures of my own house, with a giant camera.

And now our house is finally all set for Christmas! 😀

This is my second turn at this tablescape game, since my first attempt was Thanksgiving. After my last run, I was inspired with so many new ideas.  I felt like there were a million things I could do, to the point where Mike told me to make up several options.  But I didn’t get a chance to finish up all of the crafts I had planned and when I set out to do this, I was stumped.  I had already put together our mantel, which was rather effortless, and I guess my creative juices were running dry.  It took a lot of rounds of changes, but I finally came up with something I was pleased with.

First, I bought this star shaped basket from Pier 1 a few weeks back.  I love using stars in my Christmas decorations, but I didn’t love the light color of the basket.

So I decided to spray paint it a darker brown.

I only did one coat so that some of the natural variation was still seen, then I put some ornaments in it.

I built my table area around this, using mostly candle type things to not take away from the pretty ornaments. Plus I didn’t want it to be too tall or too busy so that it can stay on the table as people eat, like our Thanksgiving tablescape did.

On each end, I used some star dishes I got from the dollar store and put a large green ornament in them to add some more green, since my Target runner is blue. I later saw these dishes at Pier 1 for $3. I’m not going to lie, I was hoping they were $10 so I could tell you I saved $9 on them, but I only saved $2.

Then I have the silver candle holders I used on my mantel (I replaced the mantel ones with wooden ones, Target was out of silver) and some in the same style that are blue.

One of those white candles on top is new and one is a few years old.  They are totally different colors of white when next to each other, but I think it’s interesting (and that’s what happens when you try to buy them 4 days before Christmas…)

Over on the buffet, I put my crooked coffee filer tree and some vases filled with ornaments and topped with sticks.

I’ve filled those vases with ornaments every year I’ve decorated for Christmas, but this year I wasn’t sure if I should put them on the mantel, table or buffet.  I tried them on the table, but I felt like with the star basket, I needed some shiny ornaments on this piece of furniture too!

All in all, I’m happy with how it turned out.  I gravitate towards the simple and clean and I think this conveys that better than my previous tablescape.

I’m thankful I have a large stash of neutral type candles that I can mix in when needed.  The round class tealight holders and the silver ornament candles definitely came in handy during my constant swapping!

Oh and there are some other new editions to the dining room this holiday season, but I will have to let Mike explain those to you. If I can get him to blog again.. 🙂

ps- I just noticed that I didn’t actually put plates on the table this time.  I will be sure to snap some pictures when it’s all set for Christmas dinner!

Yesterday we finally assembled our first fake tree, our house’s first tree and our first tree as a married couple.  We decided to get a 9 foot tree and put it in our entryway.  I had my fears but so far, everything has worked out beyond wonderfully.

Once again, I’ll try to let the pictures (and Macky) tell the story of our new tree 🙂

The first smack

“OooH pretty lights!”

How gorgeous is he??

Not even decorated and already a preferred nap spot. +1 for fake tree!

My 4 year old beloved Target ornaments…

…Mixed with new Walmart aqua & green ornaments= new color scheme

Darwin modeling the tree while it’s in progress

Macky’s turn

Ornament tying assistant

My old tree topper, which is secured with a stick and a rubberband, since apparently fake trees have flimsy tops. -1 for fake tree!

Tada! I couldn’t fit the whole tree in a picture without opening the front door. It was cold.

A little staircase decoration

Simple, but I like it

View from the formal living room

View from above

View from below!

Tug of war

The tree won despite the fact that Macky’s nail got stuck in the ornament.  Says a lot for how I curled up each branch tip so the ornament wouldn’t come off!

Trying again.

Trying a new angle

Admiring momma’s hard work?

Surrendering.  For now.

I think I ended up putting nearly 200 ornaments on this big guy. I would have liked a wooden garland, since I love the star one I used on my fireplace. But since we decided to go with a large tree just this week, I couldn’t find any on the fly. I would love some dark wooden beads to make it a little more rustic.  For now, it’s simple, as my trees normally are, and we love it.  Cats included 🙂

Some tips for having a tree with cats around:

1. Make sure your tree is sturdy. We did a shake test before buying ours and the base may actually be heavier than that of a real tree.  Because of that, we didn’t feel like we had to tie it to the railing like we originally mentioned doing. We did put a rubber, no-slip mat under the base because we thought a towel would make the tree slide if they played under it.

2. Don’t buy an expensive tree skirt. I actually don’t like mine very much, but the cats think it’s a blanket. Anything you don’t want anyone sleeping on? Don’t buy it.

3. Watch out for dangers for little paws. I use the ornament ties instead of hooks and shatterproof ornaments.  I actually would have liked plastic ornaments just to be safe.  I want to make sure I don’t get any cut paws around here!

4. Don’t hang ornaments too low.  I’ve said this before and people automatically assume I have a half naked tree.  Scroll up for clarification. I don’t put any ornaments below the line of the first branches.  This is so that when the cats walk under it, they’re not walking into dangley things that they are going to be tempted to smack.

5. Secure your ornaments! This is perhaps the most important. With our real trees, I used to push the ornaments a few inches back on the branches, so they weren’t easily knocked off.  This year with our fake tree, the branches are bendable so after I put an ornament on, I curled up the tip of the branch so that the ornament couldn’t slide off.  This is why Macky couldn’t pull of that one ornament in the above picture 🙂

6. Use common sense.  This is like baby proofing. A tree that tips when something small walks into it? Bad.  Sharp objects? Bad. Tinsel? Bad on so many levels.

And see that? I think you can have a beautiful tree while having animals around. I followed all of my own rules and my tree doesn’t look so awful now does it? 😉

ps- if you have a real tree, make sure the kitties can’t drink the water or you don’t use any chemicals in the water if they can access it!

We did most of our Christmas decorating today (Sunday, I know it’s after midnight so it’s technically Monday). But better late than never, right? On all accounts. So most of my posts this week will be Christmas related, which is quite appropriate, given that Christmas is indeed this week. I’m a blogging rebel 🙂

I put this mantel together about an hour ago.  I’ll let the pictures do most of the talking.

You see what I did there?? I moved my coffee filter wreath from the dining room to over the fireplace using my handy dandy command hook.  We planned on hanging some frames over the fireplace by Christmas but yeah, that didn’t happen.  So I whipped up this solution and I actually like the wreath better here!

Some detail shots…

Yeah, I hot glued that star to the center of the mantel.  Mike told me to do it…no really, he did.

I was going to post a list of where everything is from, when I realized that the majority of things here are from Target.  And very few things here are new.

From Target:

Stockings

Initial pins on stockings

Stocking holders

Twine trees (which I totally could have made with a hanger and some twine)

All but 2 ornaments

Star garland

Silver candle holders

The fancy glittery twig things (I think they’re technically tree picks)

The only things on that list that were purchased this year were the trees and the candle holders.  Everything else is possibly 4 years old… including the garland.  I put it on the mantel because I didn’t have enough for our new 9 foot tree 🙁

Also included on the mantle are:

Sticks from my backyard

A “wish” sign from Kohl’s about 3 years ago

Silver ornament candles from Ikea

Round glass candle holders from the Crate and Barrel outlet

2 ornaments from Walmart

This was my first time putting together a mantel quite like this, since our tv used to be over our fireplace in our old place and I generally just stuck the round ornament candles under it.  But this was a lot of fun and I liked pulling things from around the house to make it complete.  And I got to use a lot of my old decorations that I couldn’t use on my giant tree this year 🙂

Oh and incase you were wondering what Macky was doing as I put this together…

He had a rough weekend, he had a seizure last night.  So you’ll be seeing a lot of pictures of him the next few days since I am being a completely overbearing momma and just looking at him makes me emotional. Plus he’s super cute when he’s mushy.

Just wait until you see him with the tree…:)