Friday, January 3, 2014

A Peek at our Christmas Decor!

With all the craziness that's been going on, I've been remiss in photographing and showing all the decorating we've done!  Ben and I have both been working non-stop in the studio for months...with the exception of a couple of days here and there, two of which we spent decorating the house for the holidays!  And before we take it all down, I wanted to show you what this year's display looks like!

The front hall mantel always gets a holiday treatment.  Fresh Norway boughs harvested from in front of the house made the base for a small village of red houses.

A lead sledder that belonged to my step father in law says, "who needs snow when I have pine needles to slide down!"

 I found these Santa mugs, all with different expressions, for a buck a piece at Brimfield this summer.  I have more, but 4 fit nicely here.

The reading room got the biggest holiday treatment with white lights all around the windows, my big antique church on the piano, a village above the fireplace and of course...the Christmas tree!

A pair of antique bottle brush wreaths fit perfectly in these carved depressions on the piano.

Ben and I loaded the tree with almost every ornament I own....including this toilet paper clown...which was an early prelude to my spun cotton pieces.

The tree is drier than heck right down and the boughs have bent into a permanent downwards position from the weight of all the ornaments, but it's still beautiful!!

I didn't realize how many boots I had!  It's rather ironic that Santa in the middle there is missing one of his boots.

My prized feather tree decorated with my most prized ornaments...

Even Mr. Squirrel helped to decorate...


I usually put my German feather tree in the space above the fireplace...but this year I decided to change it up and display my village there instead...

The brown backdrop bugs me a little...but other than that I think it looks amazing!  The church in the middle had it's steeple come unglued (it's...ahem...Cody Foster after all), but it wound up working in my favor, since the whole church didn't fit on the shelf...I put the steeple on the shelf above...perfect!

The lead townspeople were happy to be out and about this holiday season!

I love gnomes!!  And cotton bells too...

I used to use these two trees for shows...but now that they're retired, I can enjoy them all December long as they flank the fireplace!

The kitchen got some white Christmas love.  Fabric scrap garlands and antique tin can snowflakes (very sharp and dangerous!) decorate the windows....

And I kept the kitchen mantel all white and silver too.

And hung a branch from outside above....we have high ceilings and it really draws your eye up!  I wanted to hanging paper snowflakes from it...but....maybe next year.

A herd of white reindeer prance across the slate.

I put all my prettiest silver and white ornaments under glass.  And I don't know why, but that handmade bird...clearly made by a child who is probably an old man or woman by now, is one of my very favorite pieces.  It has wonderfully aged silver glitter blobs and a barely there feather sprig tail.  Love it!  And the wax Santa head is covered with cinnamon and smells AMAZING!

The dining room didn't get a ton of holiday infusion this year...just some vintage foil wreaths on the china cabinet...

And of course some felt mistletoe given to us by Ben's aunt Martha that elicited many smooches this year!  :)

Hope you enjoyed the tour!  Now...sniff sniff...time to take it all down...until next year!  :)

6 comments:

Musings from Kim K. said...

Your home is just gorgeous. So many beautiful touches. The family owned treasures are just wonderful. Definitely magazine worthy pictures of your special vignettes.

laurie -magpie ethel said...

Glad you shared before you tucked it all away. You are soooo lucky to have so many mantles as they lend themselves so well to displays. So fun to see your magical holiday world..and the Santa missing the boot with the boot..HA! Hope you you are adjusting to life with the little Miss. xo

vivian said...

loved seeing all of your decorations Crystal! you have a lovely home! and that new baby is just tooo beautiful!
happy new year!
xoxo
vivian

Dawn said...

I enjoyed the tour very much! Wondering how you did the branch from the ceiling. Just curious! Our LR has a higher ceiling.

Happy New Year!
Blessings on you and yours,
D

Barbara said...

Just spectacular. I love your village scene - and those trees! Amazing.

Anonymous said...

Your home is gorgeous! You've decorated in keeping with its character, and it all looks so lovely. An idea for the back of the corner cupboard which you weren't too happy with (although I can't imagine how you could improve it) would be to cut pieces of corrugated cardboard to fit and cover them with fabric. Then just wedge them in. Easily removed or changed.