Christmas Past

Yes, it's true, Christmas has come and gone. But, it is one of my favorite times of year, and was my more recent opportunity to make my home beautiful, so I'm going to share it.

We kicked off the season this year with an advent activity for Leo. I borrowed the idea from my good friend Christine. Since Leo didn't really understand what Christmas is all about, I thought the idea of reading a story each day about winter and the holiday season might help learn about what was coming. So, I wrapped up a Christmas or winter themed book for each day of December until the 24th. Thanks to my reading teacher Mom, I only had to purchase about half a dozen books to have enough. 

I made simple paper labels and attached with silver washi tape. The crafty designer in me wanted to make them more designy and complicated, but similar to the approach I am taking with the blog, I opted for just getting the job done. I set all the books up on a shelf in Leo's room, with a mini tinsel tree. Each night, as part of our bedtime routine, we would find the right book and Leo would open it while we put on his pjs. In addition to being a way to learn about the season, it also helped him learn about the concept of opening presents. 

Of course, the last book we opened on Christmas Eve was a board book version of 'Twas the Night Before Christmas. 

We all gathered on the sofa to read the story together, sporting our new Christmas PJs. All in all, I think the storybook advent was a big hit and we will probably make it an annual tradition. 

This Christmas was the first time that Greg and I actually hosted the holiday dinner. My mom came to stay with us, and it was just the four of us for Christmas Eve. Here's what the table looked like for our dinner on the 24th. 

If you are familiar with our dining room, you might remember that we typically have a bar height table with stools. We only have 6 stools, and we were expecting 8 people total for our Christmas dinner, my mom, and Greg's parents, grandfather and brother in addition to the three of us. We ended up buying an 8ft folding table to use for the event. It will come in handy in the future for all sorts of indoor and outdoor parties. I couldn't bear the thought of all of us sitting on boring gray folding chairs, which we already had, so I decided to paint them. There are some better shots further down. You can see that my Christmas colors are not the typical red and green. I use teal, lime green, purple (big surprise), pink and a little red. I love this whimsical mix of colors and how they look festive, but at home with the decor I always have in my house. So, for the chairs, I did each of lime, teal, purple and pink. The plates on the table came from Target a few years ago. I made the placemats back then as well, from wrapping paper covered in contact paper. You can get a better view of those here.

Of course, it wouldn't be Christmas without cookies. I usually make dozens upon dozens of frosted sugar cookies. I still made a few of those, but I also wanted to make some that might appeal a little more to Leo. I got the idea for these peanut butter cookie reindeer from Pinterest of course.

After we finished reading our story, we got some of those cookies ready to leave out for Santa! I'm pretty sure he liked them. 

Before I tell you about our morning, here's a look at some of the other holiday decor around the house. 

I loved the way this turned out. I strung a bunch of shatter proof bulbs with baker's twine from the chandelier in our dining room. It made the room feel a little like Christmas in Wonderland. 

We have always like colored lights on our tree. I love the way the colors of the ornaments I used complement the lights so nicely. Above, you see the ornament I bought Leo for his first Christmas last year. It was perfect, as one of my favorite names for him is "Peanut."

I set the table for Christmas dinner with our real dishes, instead of my melamine snowflake set. I didn't have enough snowflakes, and I wanted to be a little more formal. These are the dishes we use every day, but they are nice enough for special occasions. 

For place cards, I used my favorite sugar cookies. I have a set of little letter cutters I used to create the names. 

The placemats were made with some silver vinyl fabric that was left over from this year's fashion show. I thought it looked a like snow. I just used basic plastic tablecloths from a party store, layering a clear with white snowflakes over a blue. All in all, I was pretty pleased with my first Christmas dinner. It whimsical and fun, which suits my personality perfectly. 

 One more idea from Pinterest were these Grinch fruit kabobs. Even though Leo doesn't know the grinch, he loves fruit. And the adults got a kick out of the reference.

So, now that you've seen what the house looked like, here' a few shots of Leo discovering what Santa left behind. 

Before I go, here's a look at the basement. We've been having so much fun family time down there in our new family/play room. I wanted to make sure we were feeling the spirit of the season when we were down there as well. 

 I used similar colors down here, but went heavier on the red of course, because it's one of the featured colors in the room. The room still needs a lot of finishing touches, but I thought this decor added a lot for the month of December. Of course, now that all of it has come down, I'm itching to get moving on more of those finishing touches. I will be sure to share them as we go!

Then & Now: The Dining Room

Continuing the look back at where were started, and where we are after two years in our house, this week, I bring you back to the dining room, again set up for our fourth of July party earlier this summer. 

Our dining room furniture was well established when we moved in, so the biggest transformation in this room has simply been the pain color. 

What did we do?

• paint
• add lighting to the storage cabinets
• hung art on the wall

What's left?

• more art
• new wine storage
• possibly a lower more high-chair/family friendly table
• a new light fixture? there's nothing wrong with the one that's there, but it's not extremely interesting
• a new screen door 
• a new exterior door that is actually insulated
• window treatment? not sure if we need it
• a split system air conditioning unit house outside that will vent into the dining room to cool the main floor, and above to our bedroom

The Halls are Decked

Over Thanksgiving, I purchased a new pre-lit tree, which we of course had to set up immediately upon getting home on that Sunday. But, since I had to head back to Buffalo during the week, the real decorating had to wait until this past weekend. Bright and early Saturday morning, Greg headed into the attic to pull out my our many boxes of Christmas decor. I am so excited with the way the house came together this year. Take a look...


Here's the living room.

I bought this purple frame awhile ago thinking it was perfect for this room. But, I haven't yet found the time time fill it with an actual photo. So, as a place holder, I cut a piece of this wrapping paper I found, which is so perfect for our house, I can hardly stand it!

I also used the wrapping paper in the glass door to our cabinet. I've been experimenting with a way to make the glass translucent so we can have some hidden storage, but I haven't found something that I'm happy with yet. This is a great place holder which picks up the green from the coffee table and the teal from the walls. Last year, I bought the green picture frame below, and a can of green spray paint which I used on the mitten frame above, and the tree on the shelf below. I thought, why not try to repurpose some of our more traditionally colored accessories to match my color scheme. I happen to love when a Christmas color scheme complements the colors that are already happening in a room.

Here's the dining room.

I went a little snowflake crazy in here. All 6 pointed of course!

Every year, I love to fill a vase with bulbs. This year, I added some other items like the crystals and ribbons to bring in my green accent. 

One of the last things I did was to take more of my favorite wrapping paper (I need to get back to Target and buy another roll!) and create some place mats by laminating the paper between two layers of contact paper (on hand from the glass door experiment)

Don't they look look so fun with my new bowl and tray? (also from Target, they have a whole set of plates which I am restraining myself against...)

Just a little behind the scenes, here's how it all looked when it came out of the attic. I wonder how long it will take us to get it back into this state come January??

Empty Walls

I have been staring at the empty walls in our dining room for over a year now...granted, it's only been about six months since we painted them gray. The weekend before Thanksgiving, we finally had time to hang up a few things! I am so excited to finally be activating this formerly blank space.

Below, you can see two framed photos that we had in our old dining room. One is of the magnolia tree at our old place. The other is of some umbrellas hanging in a glass dome at the Venetian in Vegas. To the left of the window, are three ceramic "dot" vases that we found this summer in P-town.

On the opposite wall, that backs up to the kitchen, we hung Greg's beer labels that I framed for him as a gift for our anniversary one year. We hung them high on purpose, with the intention of adding more objects below at some point. 

Here's how things are looking from the living room. (Please pardon the half chewed chenielle blanket in the front left corner. Roy has been slowly devouring it, and I have yet to get rid of it...it's on my list, but anyway....!) We were really excited when we found those dots, for a few reasons. One, because the colors tie in with what's going on in the living room. 

And two, because the dishes we got for our wedding strongly feature dots! You can see why we couldn't resist picking up a few of these. At some point, I plan on making some flowers, either of paper or beads, to put in them. I would like to add a touch more green to the dining room, to tie in with the living room, and this seems like a perfect opportunity. 

We did pick up one piece of green art this fall that we thought we were going to put up in the dining room.  But, it seemed to have found a better home on the shelves in the living room. It will probably show up in a photo soon. 

I'm pretty happy with this way this turned out, for now. I tend to stress out a bit about silly decisions like this, so Greg just encouraged me to get it done. It's only a few holes in the wall after all. I'm sure it will evolve with time. But for now, like I said, I'm thrilled to no longer be staring at empty walls!