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Friday, December 21, 2012

I'm dreaming of a White Christmas. White Christmas decor that is.


Can you believe that Christmas is almost here? 

Where did the month go?   Heck, where did the year go? 

Are you ready for Christmas?   I'm not. 

I finally got my Christmas tree up.  But I haven't had the chance to get decent photos of it yet.  So you will have to wait on seeing my tree. 

But I thought I better share the rest of my Christmas decor. 

I decided to go with a "White Christmas" theme this year. 

I live in southern California and it never snows where I live.  So there isn't a snowballs chance in Hades that we will ever have a White Christmas.  I guess I should never say never.  It did snow once a few years back.  But not enough to stick.  But enough to get everyone excited that it was snowing. 

If we want a white Christmas, we either have to drive up to the mountains, go on a trip out of state to where it does snow, or make our own.  So here is my version of a white Christmas:



We will start with my china hutch.  And don't look at the snowflakes that are not sticking to the plates.  Geez!  You'd think that they could cooperate while I'm taking photos.  I guess it is just to warm here in SoCal for the snowflakes to stick.  Ha  ha!



I used a lot of snowflakes and trees in my Christmas decorating this year.  I love these snowflakes from Dollar Tree.  I have like a gazillion of them.  But only used a few.  I was planning on putting them everywhere, just got too lazy.  


I love anything under glass.  I found the mercury glass tree cloche at an antique store in Arizona a few years back.  The small ornament cloche with the snowman came from TJ Maxx a few years back as well.  I love the bottle brush tree in the urn.  That was an accidental pleasure.  I thought the tree would look better higher up, so I plopped it in the urn.  And ta dah! Perfect match.  Plus I didn't want to have to find a spot to store the urn during Christmas.  


More trees and snowflakes.  


I am obsessed with little bottle brush trees under glass this year.  


The silver ball ornaments were a thrift store find last week for 50 cents.  They look fabulous in my ironstone dish (another thrift store find).  

Did you notice the snowflakes in the back?  Another Dollar Tree find.  I just added some sparkly iridescent glitter to them.  

The snowball & ice garland came from Tai Pan Trading a couple of years ago.  


Some more thrift store finds.  The wooden tree was bare when I found it at the thrift store for a quarter.  I painted it white and added some iridescent glitter.  The rhinestone necklace at the beaded wire necklace around the bottom of the cloche came from the thrift store as well.   

Thrift stores are another obsession of mine. I seem to have a lot of them.  Obsessions, not thrift stores.  But then again. 

I still can't buy clothes from the thrift store. At least not for me.  It's a I hate "hand me down" clothing phobia I've had since childhood.  But I love to buy decor stuff and dishes from the thrift store.  


Hubby made the candle holder for me out of a glass light cover we picked up at the thrift store.  He made about 4 of them for me.  

The felt snowflake on the plate came from Tai Pan Trading some time ago.  I added the iridescent glitter to make it sparkly.  

The small mercury glass votive holder came from a cool store in Temecula called the Western Eagle Bargain Store.  You never know what you will find at that store.  


I have an obsession for glitter houses, Putz houses, cardboard houses, or whatever you want to call them.  Surprised that I have another obsession?  

I only used two of them this year.  My white ones.


The bottle brush trees are falling off of my house and church.  Every year I tell myself I need to hot glue them back on.  And every year I don't do it.  As long as no one bumps them, they are fine for another year.  


I have a couple of tiny feather trees under glass.  I picked them up a an antique store a few years ago.  I just need one that is about 1-2 feet tall and I would be happy.  But I'm too cheap to buy a bigger one.  Remember, I'm a dollar store type of girl.   


If you look in the first picture of my hutch you will see I originally had ivory colored domino's in the middle apothecary jar.  I changed them out for these ivory bottle brush trees.  I bleached these ones myself.  I am so proud that I finally did something I have been wanting to do for the last 3 years.  

Anyone that really knows me, knows what an accomplishment that really is.  I tend to not complete projects.  

The snowballs in the other two apothecary jars came from Hobby Lobby this year.  

The glittery snowflakes hanging from the jars are a thrift store find.  


Now we will move on to the shelf in my family room.  


The goldish mercury glass tree in the middle came from Target years ago.  The gold and silver trees on either side are Dollar Tree finds over the past few years. 

Did you notice the gold bead garland?  I found it at the thrift store for a quarter.  I knew I wanted to use more gold in my decor this year.  I guess I am drifting away from my White Christmas theme.  


Here is something white.  I hung more Dollar Tree snowflakes from the willow tree branches that I've had in a bottle on this shelf for a few years now.  

The spiders in my house love these branches.  Great for hanging their webs on.  I kicked the spiders out and opted for hanging snowflakes instead.  



I just love this wire snowflake tree.  I think I found it at TJ Maxx a few years back.  It would be really easy to knock off.  I know I originally had planned on doing so, but the lazy girl in me said "It ain't never going to happen.  So go ahead & buy the darn thing".  So I did.  


I made this paper lollie a couple of years ago.  I just change out the middle part for each season.  


Below the shelf I have an old trunk full of who knows what.  I found an old wood tray last year at the thrift store to sit on top.  It was so hard before to place anything on the trunk because it was so uneven.  The tray makes it easier to decorate.  

I added some mercury glass candle holders, a mercury glass candle that I picked up at Kohls this year and a Christmas cloche under a cloche.  The candles on the holders are FAKE!  I LOVE real candles, just have a greater fear of burning down my house.  So I use fake.  I found this set at the Western Eagle Bargain Store for $3.50 for the set of 3.  It was on one of their half price days.  Fabulous!  And they smell like real vanilla candles.  Even better!

The tin sign in the background says: Wisemen still seek him.  I guess I really should have put it with my nativity, but there wasn't room.  


And speaking of my nativity.  I put it behind my couch this year.  


I did have a bit of green in this display.  I purchased the biggest 3 green bottle brush trees from Grandin Road on clearance about 4-5 years ago.  The smaller two green trees are from this year.  As I was bleaching my bottle brush trees, I loved when a couple of them got this lighter green.  So I took them out of the bleach mixture before they were completely bleached & added them to my forest of green trees. 

The smaller cloche in the front was made from turning over a small glass candle holder I found at the thrift store.  You can find these exact same ones at Dollar Tree.  A dollar is a good price, but when you can get the same thing for 50 cents.  Even better.  Just like Christmas to a cheapskate savvy bargain shopper like me.   


My nativity holds a special place in my heart.  My mom painted & antiqued this set for my Grandma when I was a teenager back in the 70's.  It was all the rage back then to paint ceramic pieces and antique them.  Actually it was the rage to paint everything and antique everything back then.  I think my mom painted and antiqued every piece of furniture we had in our house at the time.  And then stripped off all the paint a few years later when painted furniture was no longer in vogue.  

Guess what girls?  You are going to be stripping off the paint off your painted furniture in a few.  You heard it here first!


I guess I got a little off track.  Back to the subject at hand.  My mom had done a similar nativity set for herself and my Grandma loved it.  So of course my mom made a set for Grandma.  When my Grandma passed away back in the late 80's or early 90's the nativity set went back to my mom.  

Now my mom knew how much I loved both nativities, so she gave me this one that had been my Grandma's for Christmas one year.  It has been one of my most favorite Christmas gifts of all time.  




My nativity brings me much "JOY".  And so does this little cloche.  The white bottle brush trees are from the Dollar Tree.  I love the "Brrr" rocks I added.  I can leave this out all winter.  



Here is the little cabinet in my kitchen.  


I love the "Nutcraker" ballet and all the music. Have you been watching the battle of the Nutcrakers on Ovation? 

  I purchased this swan from Pottery Barn on clearance last year.  Or maybe it was the year before.  This is the first year I've used it in my decor.  It is actually an ornament.  But isn't she "purty" sitting under glass instead of being hidden on the tree?  Such a DIVA!

I'll let you in on another little secret.  I have a swan obsession as well.  It's not as bad of most of my obsessions, but still something I collect.  



This bottle brush tree is also suppose to be an ornament.  I found it at Kohls.  It gets to have it's time in the spotlight for this year.  Next year, who knows.  It may be shipped off to the Christmas tree.    


Another ornament that I found at Kohls this year.  Since I have a gazillion ornaments, I have to find other places for them, other than the tree.  This "JOY" one found a spot hanging from the apothecary jar.   This would be another ornament that would be easy to knock off.    

Well I hope you have enjoyed my White Christmas decor this year.  I really enjoyed using white, cream, gold and silver in my decor this year.  And I still managed to have a vintage feel.  You know how I'm obsessed with anything that looks or feels vintage.  I seem to gravitate to a vintage Christmas look. 

It seems like each year that I get older, the less I decorate.  I only decorated my family room and part of my kitchen.   

Maybe age has nothing to do with it.  And maybe it has everything to do with the fact that I'm lazy and a procrastinator.  Can you imagine what I could do if I weren't?  Maybe in my next life I'll get to find out.  

In case I don't post again before Christmas (I do plan on posting about my tree, but in case I procrastinate it) I want to wish you all a very Merry Christmas!  

Or if you prefer, Happy Holidays!  Heaven knows, I don't want to offend anyone. 

And in case you missed my Snowflakes and Silver Trees vintage style mantel, you can check it out here.  

Merry Christmas everyone!


5 comments:

  1. I love it all, Kim! You have such a talent for putting things together in the most pleasing way. And I had to laugh at your story of our mothers painting and antiquing every piece of wood furniture and then stripping it all a few years later! Carlene (Organized Clutter) and I have predicted the same thing as you. All of those ASCP painted pieces will someday find themselves being stripped of their currently trendy finish!

    Thanks for sharing your Christmas home tour!

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  2. OMG! You're home is a dream! I went for white and silver with a small dash of color this year. And I only decorated (lightly) the Living Room and a bit in the kitchen. Just didn't feel like putting the whole shibang up.
    I adore all your cloches and your style of decorating! Simply gorgeous!
    Wishing you a Merry Christmas!
    *hugs*deb

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  3. Love it! And I'm still not ready for Christmas. I think there's still one container of ornaments in the dining room. Next year, I'm starting to decorate as soon as I remove the Halloween decor. :-)

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  4. Everything looks so pretty! I love the swan most of all i think... and the white theme is wonderful, it does look all snowy!

    Cindy

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  5. Your decorations are lovely! I decorated with more white this year and I think I will leave it out through January. (Not the main tree though!) I was wondering about bleaching the bottle brush trees. Can you bleach any green bottle brush tree? Thank you!

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