like many of you, i begin pulling out christmas decor mid-novemberish. by the time mid to late december rolls around, i’m ready to change things up a little. as much as i love the christmas pieces i’ve collected over the years ( ya’ll i have an entire snow village that hasn’t on display for years…but maybe next year i’ll pull it & all its glory out!) , i can feel the tug for using less & less each year. so i give a few things their time out on display & then i change ’em out and bring in round two. or something like that.
we don’t have a basement so i need to be a proficient with storage. i have a crafting/staging ( haha) area out in the garage where i keep art things & such that i bring in & out, and that’s where i’ll keep some of the christmas ‘up to bat’ pieces.
for example, the bottle brush trees were taking over my life. so i moved a load of them out. these images were all taken at various times so you’ll see how groupings & focal points were changed these last few weeks.
layer a grouping of texture & design elements
one of my favorite little changes i made was hanging a fresh wreath infant of my O Holy Night sign. my girl, lindsay of lindsayletters, posted a super fun craft on her instagram account & i had a lightbulb moment. allowing the words of the hymn to be a design element & then layering with a fresh greenery wreath topped with a bottle brush wreath makes a great impact.
2. group like objects together to create an “as one” effect
one of the elements as a clutter-makes-me-nervous kinda girl that i try to incorporate is grouping objects together so they display as one. the sign, the wreath, & the fresh greenery would obviously look pretty standing solo in three different places in our home, but all together makes a great marriage. that’s the same thing i do with grouping the bottle brush trees (& even the mercury glass candlesticks shown below). sure they’d be mighty cute tucked here & there all around the house but they make a great impact hanging out together.
3. never underestimate the beauty of using texture in your home
i’m all about comfy cozy. we may not have a spacious home full of all the latest & greatest gadgets & upgrades, but i desire what i do have to be comfortable and welcoming. for example, add fur thingies ( mine are just inexpensive ones from ikea, but you can invest in wonderful mohair/sheepskin as well) to our chilly metal chairs.
in the studio i’ve added a soft linen lamp shade, comfy chair filled with a ginormous heavenly mohair pillow and leather pouf to offset the metal letters and huge chalkboard.
in the family room, i’ve added olive branch garland & boxwood wreaths, along with birch wood on the shelves to soften the brick fireplace. fur pillow covers soften the sofa and in a room that can be bright & stark otherwise.
shown below i traded out the bottle brush little trees & brought in some vintage fragile ornaments & lined those little babies up in a rusty metal trough for some texture juxtaposition.
4. fresh greens adds an element of, well… fresh to your space
i purchased a small inexpensive poinsettia & love how it adds an element of real-greenery to my little vignette of bottle brush trees & art. the boxwood wreaths add this same element which pulls in the freshness of a live tree to other spaces.
and finally..this isn’t really a design tip but….i decorated the tree weeks ago. and well….i’ve always loved how magical the tree looks filled with white lights. period. i also love these beautiful His Royal Names from Ever Thine. for several days the tree was filled with white lights & the gorgeous large glittered ornaments.
and then because it did look a little too simple i added back in some vintage ornaments. in years past i’ve used all white boxes for our christmas gifts but this year i love the color explosion. most of the packaging is from target.
i hope some of these little tips help you if teeter totter between displaying all your goodness & keeping things clean and uncluttered.
and finally, in the immortal words of my friend myquillyn, it doesn’t have to be perfect to be beautiful!