Decorating my house for Christmas ... part two

Step 1: read here.
Step 2: add greens ... inside and out

Then add lights and a just a few favorite ornaments ...

Step 3: need presents.
Seriously, how did it get to be December 13th already?

Ready for next year

I sent a little email to a few of my very talented family members (my sisters and my daughters) showing them a calendar I saw in the latest issue of Lonny ...

It is from Linda & Harriet. I was too cheap to buy it and thought maybe one of them could hack it for me ... it is such a great idea and 'looks' simple enough ...

But instead my very talented illustrator sister who is frantically finishing up a huge book deal right now who said it is way more complex than it looks (she loved it as well) ...  bought it for me!

Wow, wish I had time to  make one for you.....did the next best thing. I ordered one. You should get it hopefully in the next week or two.

Merry Christmas sis! :)

How excited am I? You can get your own here.

I am all ready for the new year!

One thing

{tumbler}

Are you ready to recharge and move forward?

Pantone has announced the color of the year for 2012. Want to take a guess?

It's Tangerine!

Here is what they said:

“The 2011 color of the year, PANTONE 18-2120 Honeysuckle, encouraged us to face everyday troubles with verve and vigor. Tangerine Tango, a spirited reddish orange, continues to provide the energy boost we need to recharge and move forward.“Sophisticated but at the same time dramatic and seductive, Tangerine Tango is an orange with a lot of depth to it,” said Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute®. “Reminiscent of the radiant shadings of a sunset, Tangerine Tango marries the vivaciousness and adrenaline rush of red with the friendliness and warmth of yellow, to form a high-visibility, magnetic hue that emanates heat and energy.” 

Ahhh... what to paint first??!!

Images: Update Dallas, CB2, Highland Court Fabrics, Tumbler, Pinterest

Christmas sparkle for a young family

I spent the last couple of days visiting my daughter and her new baby. Oh, there is nothing like baby love! Before I left I put a little Christmas sparkle on a client's house ...

I like to give my clients a new look each year - which can be challenging using the same decorations. This year, I have decided to go a bit more minimal in my own house (I'm only using one box of nine and really questioning why I have nine boxes of Christmas decorations anyway ...), so I thought I would share a little of my Christmas decor with one of my clients.

 

I thought my white reindeers would look stunning on their dining table ... and I was right.

And because I had pink and red on my mind, that is where I started. It helped that they had the right color of ornaments!

On Christmas morning the runner will be replaced with a white Hotel tablecloth; their Christmas dishes will look perfect with the decorations.

For their entry piece, I changed out the Thanksgiving frame with a Christmas scripture, added some sparkly candles and sprinkled more color balls around. The tree is new this year (from HomeGoods) and the beautiful angel is theirs. We also added a few more ball ornaments (well, we had to because I used so many) - I really like the ones with the white stripes.

Here are some photos of what I did last year ...

And again, this year:

I love that it is elegant but still reflects the fun, young family that they are.

What this season is all about

 

LOVE. 

I ordered it from Made by Girl and it came today ... Love!

Decorating my house for Christmas ... part one

Getting ready for Christmas at my house always means moving things around a bit and bringing out a little more decor than I might be comfortable having around the rest of the year. I like things on the minimal side. So it always scares me a little to start the Christmas decorating because adding more sometimes feels like clutter to me. Remember my tree fiasco last year?

This year I started by bringing out an old lamp that I bought at my local vintage store last summer. I loved it and the price was right and I figured it would probably end up in a client's house but it hasn't yet so it seemed like the perfect starting point for adding a little more glam for Christmas. And I was right. 

I grabbed a dwarf olive tree from my courtyard as a stand in for some Christmas greens ...

added my new reindeer from Homegoods, a silver tray that was in storage (well, not really storage but a closet where I keep accessories that I rotate) and some pretty roses from the grocery store to bring in some pink ...

sprinkled a few Christmas balls around ...

and with minimal effort it is starting to look a bit like Christmas round here.