Friday, December 16, 2011

41 Happy Holidays: Our Holiday Display

Although many go straight to the fireplace mantel when it comes to decorating for the holidays, this last two years I have been turning to our dining room shelving instead.

Our mantle is in our lower level family room, which for over a year has been the holding room for all of the remaining reno projects such as new stairs and remaining trim work.  It's not the coziest place to be setting up for the holidays, so the dining room has made much more sense for us and our family.

{yes, that is totally a Nerf bullet under the buffet...}
Last year, I challenged myself to use what I had and to get crafty with my decorating.  Here is what I had come up with:


In the spirit of using what I had, this year's display was slightly inspired by last years.  However, I wanted to inject even MORE color!

Surprised?  Me either...

Here is where I found the color inspiration....


Simply magical.  Blues, teals, greens, reds, pinks, purples and a side of silver.

Ready to see what that inspiration got me this year?


Definitely some similarities.  But also some switcharoos... Here is a quick run down of what I did to achieve this look.

The pretty box sitting there on the end of the buffet is our Holiday Countdown project.  You can read more about that here.


The poinsettias were placed in a couple of cheapo white lace planters I had gotten at IKEA awhile back. 



I used my Silhouette to cut some vinyl deer to adhere to the front of the planters.  Just to give them a little something extra...


I also used my Silhouette to cut the AWESOME sparkle letters!


Which I just hot glued to a piece of sparkle twine....


I love that scalloped looking ornament....


Fifty cents at the dollar store.  I know I could have made it... but it probably would have cost me more and taken me forever.

For the main focal point of it all, I framed our family's 2011 holiday card {sneak peek for those who haven't gotten it in the mail yet, which is everyone since I haven't sent them yet...}


And just to the right, more splashes of color.


I found that sparkle flower thingy at Target.  I didn't know what to do with it, I just loved it.  So into some Epsom salt it went {the salt sparkles kind of like snow}.


The upper shelf of the entire display is exactly like last years.  With the exception of the cones.  The colors didn't match this years theme, so I wrapped them all in boatloads of colorful yarn.


They are not wrapped perfectly.  I tried.  REALLY really tried.  If you are going to attempt to wrap paper cones in yarn, aim for imperfection right off the bat and you will be much happier working on the project.  I learned this after the first one....  And when it was all said and done, I liked that they weren't perfect, it added a little extra texture!

At this point, Parker was asking me why I was standing on the buffet taking photos.... try explaining that to a five year old who is always being asked not to climb.... I quickly hopped over to the table to snap one more and got down before I got into any more trouble....


And a final look at the after:


We love it.  It really makes the main living area feel all bright and cheery!  Mission accomplished!

Where did you find your holiday decor inspiration this year?  Did anyone switch things up, or have you been sticking with the same decorating tradition year after year?


41 comments:

  1. I love it! So bright and cheery. My fave is your reindeer vinyl cut outs. Those look awesome! And, funny side note, my mantel has the same subway art printable that you used last year. I also have a similar dove but mines silver, not white (http://visualmeringue.blogspot.com/2011/12/merry-mantel.html). Needless to say, I LOVE your taste. Fantastic as always - job well done :)

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  2. I love it! I decorate in the teals, pinks and purples as well, and I just love it. I've also found those cone trees to be useful because you can easily change them (mine got wrapped in leftover wrapping paper this year).

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  3. Looks great! I love that you don't use the traditional colors; it makes it easy to change it up each year which is fantastic!

    - Kimberly
    {www.studioblonde.blogspot.com}

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  4. I love your creativity! It really gets mine going. I think that the little deer on the planters are adorable and I am in love with that pretty little bird.

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  5. Where did you get the wine rack for the shelves?

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  6. Love the simplicity of this! Perfectly festive! Favorite part is the dressed up planters, what a difference that makes.

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  7. Looks awesome! Do you make all your cute backgrounds in photoshop or do you get them from somwhere else? (like the polkadot background on the Christmas card

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  8. I did the shelves in my dining room too! I absolutely love how yours turned out too! In our house, the shelves are the main thing you see when you walk in so it seemed appropriate! Its neat cause I also did a hanging banner and framed some prints and used ornaments and paper trees! I will try and send you a picture of mine! Thanks for sharing, I looked everywhere for inspiration on shelves but didn't hardly find anything!

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  9. I love how festive your home looks! Every one of your posts is so motivating , now I totally want to go home & try a few DIY projects for a more festive looking home.



    The Urban Umbrella
    xoxo

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  10. I like the cones and the vase with the baubles, too. As we've only lived in this house for a little bit more than a year, this is only our second christmas here... we don't have a mantle and I also use a sideboard in the living/dining room to decorate. I use a lot of candles and was confused that I did not see any in your home ... My daughter is used to being around candles and she never touched any, even when she was smaller ... she is 6 now.
    Jule

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  11. Love all your decor! So very festive! : )

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  12. It looks FANTASTIC! The colors remind of one the Christmas trees at Target several years back. The tree was white and it bright green, pink, red, purple and turquoise ornaments everywhere. Instead of a star at the top it had these brightly colored sticks sticking out and it turned out pretty cool. No, I'm not a crazy lady who remembers all the decorated trees at Target, I used to work at Target and was part if the team that changed all the aisles around, including Halloween and my favorite, the Christmas trees!! I LOVED putting those trees together and decorating them. Anyway, I didn't mean to get off topic but those colors reminded me so much of that tree, you could added that tree in and it would have gone perfectly with your decorations. And I love your cones. I think they look fantastic!!!!

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  13. I love how it's so simple and clean! Sometimes during the holidays it looks like some people threw up red and green and silver and gold all over their house but I love this! And the colors flow well and not your traditional green and red:) Love it!

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  14. Pure perfection! I bet you want it to be Christmas all year long now!

    I love the way your "holiday countdown" box really pops in the space....and love the reindeer vinyl cut-outs you added to the white vases. Great job on all your projects.

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  15. So cute! Love the bright colors! We have the same Christmas cards from mpix.com! :)

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  16. Beautiful Jen!

    Anna
    www.askannamoseley.com

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  17. Hi Jen! It is really suprising how well these colours look so good together. Very inspirational. Love your work! Michelle

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  18. I've been looking for a buffet for a few months & I absolutely love yours!! Can you give me the details on where you purchased it? Thanks!!

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  19. Jen, where did you get that super cute lamp!? I love it!!

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  20. I love everything about it. Your Christmas card is darling and I love the yarn trees. But what is killing me are the sweet green deer. Why didn't I think of that? Beautiful display.

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  21. I love the colors! So festive! I cannot wait until my daughter is a little older so I can a little more decorating during the holidays! At this point (she's 2 1/2) I would rather not put anything out than having to say "don't touch that" a million time between Thanksgiving and Christmas!

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  22. It looks wonderful! I am very new to the cricut/silhouette life and a friend of mine just GAVE me a cricut expression 2! I know gave... I feel so blessed! Anyways I love your little reindeer and was wondering the best place to buy vinyl to make cute little projects like that? Thanks!
    ~Tara
    Caracciolofam@blogspot.com~ caracciolofam@yahoo.com

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  23. Very happy and colorful, great job and Merry Christmas,
    Kathysue

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  24. I love that you framed your Christmas card! I'm going to hunt through my frames and scrapbook paper so I can frame ours! What a good idea!

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  25. I love everything you've done...the trees look adorable, even better imperfect I say!

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  26. GREAT idea to frame the family holiday card. This is my first year to send one out, and I knew I wanted to keep one. But totally didn't think about putting it on display. Guess I know what I'll be doing today.

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  27. Gorgeous!! I spend more time decorating our dining room hutch too. I want to make those trees next year. They look simple enough for me to do.

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  28. Thanks for inspiring me to paint my new white Ikea rug! I love it already! I didn't paint the whole thing after I read that you find your painted rug difficult to clean. I left the ends of my rug white so that hopefully if it gets dirty I can Clorox it. We'll see. But I love it right now. Here it is:
    http://cottagebluedesigns.blogspot.com/2011/12/paint-rug-why-not.html

    Happy decorating & living,
    Megan

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  29. This looks great!! I love the colors. Sadly my to-do list is experiencing drastic cuts so I can maintain a semblance of peaceful joyfulness with the kids and husband instead of becoming The Abominable Snowman Who Wants To Get Everything Done RIGHT NOW. :) I'm pinning these ideas for next year!

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  30. Hi! I saw your blog and I have been loving it since day 1!!! I was hoping If you could also drop by my blog and take a look. I am just starting and I'll be posting more on food and travel in the next few months...My mom really loves to organize and design things for our little home and I found that your blog is amazing... I hope you can read my opinions on things as well... I hope you could follow it as well, its www.allthingsmeyan.blogspot.com

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  32. Super cute! Not too cluttered.

    tictaczo.blogspot.com

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  33. Your display is beautiful, there are lots of good ideas here. Thank you for photographing them for us.

    I have random nerf bullets around the house too, I can totally sympathize!

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  34. Where did you get the wreath from? It reminds me of one I made as a kid out of a hanger and strips of plastic, but I don't remember the details of that project.

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  35. @Shanandcan, I actually made it from coffee filters: http://iheartorganizing.blogspot.com/2010/12/unwreathably-easy-and-cheapo-christmas.html

    Happy holidays!

    xoxo,
    Jen

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  36. Did you make or buy the wine rack shelves? Love, love, Love them!

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  37. The wine glass racks were from Amazon and we attached them to the floating shelves that were from IKEA.

    http://iheartorganizing.blogspot.com/2010/10/october-featured-space-kitchen_07.html

    xoxo!
    Jen

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