Use What You Have Christmas Decorating

Hello friends!

I am finally finished with my holiday decor (you know how that goes...do we decorators ever finish?) but I haven't had a chance to sit down and blog or really get any good pictures, so for tonight I am just showing a few little favorites that I took on my iphone using instagram. Hopefully I will get a better blog post up before Christmas, IF I can ever get off pinterest. Everytime I get on there I get so many more ideas and keep adding and changing and tweaking! It never ends!

Here are pictures of a couple of my favorite small gatherings:

 I really like how this turned out and it was so easy. I  just added some Christmas things to what I already had in my sitting room on these little shelves ( the inside of a $5 grandfather clock to which we gutted, repainted, and added some shelves). I simply put a lovely bottle brush in an antique baby shoe used as a "tree stand," with some vintage tinsel and pearls draped around it. Then I replaced a picture with  a little vintage winter angel gift tag in my antique flower frog. I am loving antique flower frogs right now! I can feel a new addiction forming...

The beautiful little vintage-Frenchy gift tag standing in the flower frog  actually is vintage-French.

My aunt bought this one and several others in Paris in the mid 1980's to decorate our family Christmas packages (I have seen reproductions of these over the years, and its possible that departments stores in the US also sold them at the same time) I was in sixth grade when I received my gift ( French perfume purchased in Paris, "Cabotine de Gres).  It was wrapped in the most gorgeous French wrapping paper. I remember it being off-white and gold,  and I also remember I was captivated by the paper as much as the perfume and I kept scraps for my scrapbook.  A sign of things to come!

"To Amber: Joyeux Noel!" was written on the tag. I have been hooked on vintage-French and Victorian images ever since!

Here is another of the sweet little tags. I do find it amazing that as a 12 year old girl I kept the tags because of their beauty and charm and I have held on to them for 25 years!

Once again on this shelf I just added some wintry things. I love the addition of the little "snow" owl, who had previously been in my kitchen on my year-round miniatures shelf. As I read your blogs I  realized that many of you are doing the same thing I am doing and have discovered  that we can also apply the "use what you have" decorating philosophy to holiday decorating as well. With some creativity I have been able to can come up with unique and meaningful holiday displays without the hassle of packing everything up and replacing my whole decor with common Christmas decorations.  In the future I will be refraining from buying new, mass produced holiday decor and with the exception of some vintage Christmas treasures I find on my junk adventures,  I will be using everyday junk decor in new ways.

If you sit a vintage ironstone pitcher and a silverplate platter on the table after a day of junking in June, do you think, "those look like Christmas decorations?" Probably not, but what could be more perfect than the shades of white and silver which mimic the colors of  winter snow and ice?

I love the challenge of "repurposing and upcycling" my decorating ideas as well as my junk! I used this technique all through the house this Christmas and I think I am enjoying this year's decor more than any other. Hopefully I will get some chance throughout the busy holidays to show you a little more, but for now its time to enjoy YOUR decorating, so I am off to check out your beautiful homes!

Joyeux Noel!


Christmas parties!

http://knickoftimeinteriors.blogspot.com/2012/12/knick-of-time-tuesday-64.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:

http://fadedcharmcottage.blogspot.com/2012/12/holiday-home-tour-2012-linky-party.html