I wanted a white/natural Christmas this year, and not meaning the snow variety. I just desired to see more whites and rustic realism in the decorating, rather than flash. Without spending money. And not requiring a boatload of time. Yes indeed, I wanted it all and by golly, I went for it! I left all the neon Christmas colours in the decorating box and started picking and choosing my direction.
I’ve posted about my tree before. For the white garland, I ripped a white sheet in 6″ strips, leaving the frayed edges exposed.
Ah… why not add MORE garland. They fill up a tree real fast and I love the lush look.
A simple unsewn piece of burlap for the skirt and we’re done here. Perfect! Next!
How about a little funk for the fireplace mantel? A neighbor had just pruned his trees so I ran out to scoop up some branches. I’d think of something…
The branches were laid out first, with mini lights littering the mantel. I covered the lights with a ripped sheet and simply added the rest. The result is quite a nice ‘safe’ glow in the evenings. The mini lights stuffed inside the white box illuminate the underside of the star.
If I haven’t scared you yet, please read on. With some caution of course…
This one is safe. (lol) My kitchen office has a simple poinsettia given to me by a friend.
The light fixture above is pretty reserved. The white is ripped sheets once again. Oops, forgot to clip those threads!
But it just wouldn’t be quite right to not do SOMETHING slightly out of the norm. The ladder will be the Christmas card display.
I didn’t want to put up the stockings that I had, so…
… the burlap sandbags (I kid you not. $1.50 each at the local hardware) will do quite nicely. They looked weird on the mantel so they can just hang from two island chairs this year. And look how much they can hold too!! 😀
I just like stars. So I gutted the tree abit more and added them to the island light fixture. (that is yet to be connected)
Ok, we’re now in the kitchen. Have you guessed this year’s theme at all?!?
The center window has a piece of ladder I cut down to this size. Yup, had it on hand just this way. It’s future use is for a towel bar in the en suite.
Even the Nesterized lamps got further Nesterized with some stars and rustic twine.
The window sills were sprinkled with fake snow and under each star sits a canning jar with a glowing tea light. Quite a pretty effect!
Moving to a bathroom window… a quick fix was simply an existing wreath placed on a galvanized vase. Instant wreath topiary!
Welcome once again to the white trash bedroom. The headboard gate as you can see wears a new treatment.
I desired an over sized wreath so I simply wound up an existing garland in order to create it. I would have loved it partially flocked with no decorations, however that would have entailed me to break my no spending rule, so I decorated it in the tones of the bedroom instead.
The ‘elitist high end’ candle holders received some snow to winterize them up. I cannot even tell you how much I adore jars on a windowsill for candles. Safe from pets and kiddos alike! The jars look amazing day and night.
The area behind the ‘big honkin’ TV was still bare, so in went the new funkalicious sticks! Instant winter forest.
Complete with the new snowflakes my son just brought home from school!
Still with me? The next one is rather humorous.
My son hung the snowflake on the light tree as I was doing this photo shoot.
Me ~ “Why did you hang that there?”
He ~ “I wanted to decorate too!”
That’s my decoratin’ boy!!
Off topic but also humorous, he also informs me he wants to start a Lego blog. Where on EARTH would he THINK of such a thing at 10 years old?!? (I think I need to start a few new guy hobbies maybe)
Upon cleaning up after today’s photo shoot, I came across my fav little furry critter snuggled into my bed. Awww man… you KNOW what you have to do of course.
Psssst…..
It’s snuggle time. And all it’ll cost you is a little love.
Got your tree up? Link open until Christmas!
Christmas Decor Part 1 – The Tree HERE
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Tags: Christmas decor
Oh yes. all kinds of Christmas goodness going on over here Donna. Stars stars stars….way beautiful, and that branch on your mantle???? K, I am promptly going out side after the holidays and totally stealing this idea. GORGEOUS! The funky-fied ladder is coolness itself with it’s frames and card display! Outside the box creativity…never get enough.
Jars with tea lights….fabulously fabulous. Wreath awesomeness too. LOVE all the natural touches. I have a beastly tv sitting on an old steamer trunk too 🙂 ‘Course it just (finally) got moved upstairs and our great room now boasts a flat screen…sitting on an old antique dresser 🙂
Digging every little touch you made for the holidays. So much eye candy, full of character and texture and nature. Perfection.
BEAUTIFUL!! I don’t think it’s funky….love the kitty photo too.
mY tOUR iS nOW sHARED….come by if you can to visit. Happy Holidays!
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A design with simplicity and natural elements always touches me. Thanks for sharing your style.
Living it up at Lakewood,
Cindy
Great house tour! I do get so many ideas from you. Simple but soooo beautiful and thrifty and beautiful junk! And I so love my kitty’s.
Happy Holidays to you!
I adore the stars! Merry Christmas!
Kathleen
I love your unique ideas. I’m definitely going to dig out some canning jars and put tea lights in them. I love how that looks!
Your home is stunning! I can’t pick one, two, three or four of my favorite things – I just love everything that you’ve done.
Pretty funny about the lego blog, he is his mothers son!
I love how you used traditional christmas decoration with natural elements! It looks absolutely beautiful! So many great ideas!
Gorgeous, girl, just gorgeous. I LOVE your mantle and the forest behind your TV, you’ve got a way with sticks!
Everything is so pretty and natural looking. You have done a great job getting away from all the sparkly stuff, although, I love the sparkly stuff too. I love your idea of placing candles in vintage jars, very pretty.
Love your kittie too, and everytime I try to take a picture of mine, they look away! The picture of you is great too.
Everything looks wonderful! I love all of the natural colors at Christmas! I also love those snowflakes that your son brought home from school! He should do a guest post and give us a tutorial on how he made them! They are so pretty!
I love all your stars. I also LOVE what you did with the stone mantle.
it’s lovely!
love the kitty too 🙂
Beautiful natural decorating, it looks cozy and homey. Terrific as usual!
Lisa
Oh, I love stopping by! The stars in the window are my FAV!
-Jill
Well done! Im decorationg all natural too!Its tight here..hubby out of work…so making do with what we got..thanks for sharing it was great!
perfect, funky, adorable as ALWAYS! Love it!
A girl after my own heart… I LOVE stars I have them all over my house… Absolutely beautiful Donna… I am in love with everything…
I think I need to take a trip out to my yard and get me some of those sticks… love, love, love it… thanks so much for sharing your ideas you are such an inspiration.
Hugs Deb
Your home is just beautiful! May many wonderful Christmas memories be made within its walls.
Our home is having an old fashioned handmade Christmas this year. I hope you will stop by.
I love your style, Donna. Your home looks gorgeous for the holidays! 🙂
Roeshel
Perfect! The ladder idea is aces!
I love all the stars, they are one of my favorite decor elements. I think a lego blog would be great, my son would read it! 🙂
teri
Love the cut down ladder! This post is chock full of decorating goodness!
Absolutely gorgeous! All of it! In my opinion, you can never have enough stars!!! LOL
I’m a total sucker for stars, love love love them. The sticks, my friend, are brilliant. You come up with the most awesome ideas.
My 10 year old (youngest) son handed me my camera yesterday and asked me to put the pictures of his mini skateboards and hot wheel cars ‘on the computer’ so he could see them. He had taken my camera and shot 42 pictures of his toys.
Lovely. I really like your unexpected details like the ladder and ripped sheets. I too didn’t want any hooplah so I left my Santas and colors in my bin and brought out the silvers, naturals, creams and browns. Still tweaking and should finish it soon!
My 10 year old son and your son would get along quite nicely. My son started a blog just for his Star Wars legos creations!
I love all your Christmas decorations. My favorite has got to be the ladder and frames for your cards. So awesome! Those sand bags look great to and if they hold more my kids would love them. Okay, the jars with the candles are great too and the wreaths. And all the stars. I told you I love it all. I could look at your pics all day. Thanks for great creative inspiration.
Awesome! I think really, this is my favorite home so far! I like thinking outside of the box! I have been planning on stealing some branches from the neighbor, not sure what I’d do but now I know! Inspiring!
Love love love your blog!!!!!!Everying is so great!
There are soooo many fantastic things to see I can’t keep track of what I want to try first! Love the star over the mantle- and the headboard is FANTASTIC!!
Happy touring! Can’t wait to come see you again!
Marie @ Lemondrop ViNtAge
Gorgeous — simply gorgeous! This is really great. I am going to start buying up all the stars I see! Thanks so much for posting.
Love everything Donna, I just added the burlap ribbon to my tree…I used it around my doors last year and I had two rolls of it. The natural decorations look really great.
Hugs,
Donna
This is so refreshing after seeing some big Christmas decorating this year. It’s probably a tEXAS thing but I LOVE me some Lone Stars everywhere! Merry Christmas!
Wow, that cat looks so much like my Clyde (on my sidebar). Is it a Maine Coon cat? Scary, it looked so like him. Back to decorating: you have such funkaliciously wonderful ideas and your blog is just too cute! (Like mother, like son.)
Brenda
I love your stars & especially the candles in jars…Merry Christmas
I love your home. I have been coming to your site for a while now, and could not believe it when you wrote a comment on my blog about my house today. Your kind words where so encouraging. GOD BLESS AND MERRY CHRISTMAS
The a-naturale theme with the stars is perfectly peaceful. I very much enjoyed my visit to your home. Thanks!
Wow! I love your decorations and the creativity behind them! You definitely managed to pack a punch with minimal color and a pretty simple style. Great job and happy holidays!
Love the earthy tones and rustic touches, Donna! The candle jars in the window are simply elegant!
Amy
Wow! Absolutely FANTABULOUS! LOVE everything. So fun to have discovered your blog today.
Love it! Those sticks on the mantle and behind the TV are awesome!!
I’d rather hang out at your house than any other in blog land. No kidding. The mantle, oh my goodness. Perfection. And the wreath on the gate, oh my goodness again. And the window sills . . . and the son’s snowflake . . . and the stars . . . and the stocking sacks! Love it all!
I’m even eyeballing the views from your windows. Did you arrange those as well? hehehe 🙂
Everything looks gorgeous…and funky, of course. You are one creative lady.
Absolute perfection. My favorite so far. Burlap, nature…can’t get enough. Love it all!
Love all the jars with the candles–what a cheap way to do candles w/o looking cheap. I’d like that for everyday too.
Wow. I LOVE your decorations! The candle holders are really stunning!! You are one creative gal!
Your home is stunning! You are so talented! I subscribed, so now I can continue to be inspired by you!
So pretty! I love all your cool ideas. The ways you used what you had and made it super elegant is very, very neat!
LOVE the white trash bedroom!! And the ladder!
Im so in love with this blog its crazy. In the new year Im going to redecorate my house and do the modern county look. I love it. I will be on this blog a lot for some funky ideas
Love the way you decorated your windows.
I thought I would share a funny holiday e-card. Hopefully you’ll link by just clicking on my name.
love all the white! I go back and forth from all white/natural to colorful themes too.
the ripped sheet idea is genious
Love LOVE the boy decorating! Ha-ha-ha! And kitty looks soooo scrumptiously comfy — of course you have to go in for the snuggle.
Your home makes me want to settle in for some coffee and conversation. Thank you once again for sharing your unique style.
🙂
Love it all! So different and unique, yet so pretty and festive! Love the funky twists! 🙂 The mantel was my favorite! Stunning, looks like something out of a magazine! :)~Rhonda
Looks so good 🙂
♥ your decorations! Your home looks fabulous, very festive!
May you be blessed beyond measure this Holiday Season!
Thanks for sharing.
Blessings~ Trisha
I have to say I think of all the blogs I follow, your decorating style is my favorite. You give me the courage to “go ahead” with my junkster decorating ideas! Have a Merry Christmas!
love it all!
Michelle
okay …we’ve been reading each others’ mail … same burlap garland …same twigs, same iron, same , same, same …and and and …
you INSPIRE me all day every day
Love your no sew, no cost, no time decorating! That’s my kind of decorating for sure!
Thanks for stopping by blog too.
Merry Christmas!
I adore your white trash bedroom!
-FringeGirl
Wow Donna, this looks amazing! I love your tree (especially the easy white garland)! And those stars!!!! Unbelievable.
I just finished my Xmas decor, so I finally linked my tree. Thanks for hosting!
Just caught this from Inspired Home….how much Christmas fun is this?!? Love it all!
Hi~
Your Christmas mantel is really wonderful. Love it!
Donna
Loads of eye candy! I love it! I did 2 posts this month on sticks… I think I am addicted to them!!!
Love your wreath Donna! I’ve been meaning to ask if you have any hints for speeding up the rusting process on metal? Or even graying wood quickly?
Brittany aka Pretty Handy Girl
Hi. Came over from The Nesting Place. Your house is beautiful but I have one caution. DON’T put decorations on your chandelier. A beautiful large house near where I lived in NJ burned to the ground because of Christmas decorations on the dining room chandelier. I just wouldn’t risk it.