Interior Design 411

Happy Holidays Y’all!

Welcome back to our Holiday Decor blog series. This is # 4 in the series and today I’m sharing my top Christmas Decorating Tips & Tricks. These are the things I’ve put into practice and fine tuned over the years to help keep my sanity in check during the hustle & bustle of the season. I hope you will find them helpful too.

Kristy’s Top Holiday Decorating Tips

• Decide on a theme and/or color scheme, and carry it throughout your home to establish a cohesive look and feel. For example, let’s say you’ve decided to have a “Cowboy Christmas” theme. Gather items that relate to cowboys, the rustic outdoors  and/or the wild west like the nature-inspired items, handmade ornaments, and vintage-looking photos of family and friends below. Make sure you have enough items on hand to carry your theme throughout.  Helpful hint: To make photos look vintage, scan photos and print in sepia tones.

• Use items you may already own to put a creative and one-of-a-kind spin to your decor.  For example, carrying on with the “Cowboy Christmas” theme to illustrate my point… tuck some berries and greenery into a pair of boots (would look too cute on the fireplace hearth!). Pair Christmas greenery and cranberries with a cowboy hat and wallah…instant centerpiece for the cocktail table. Don’t forget the fireplace mantle or staircase banister. Add a few spurs, the same popcorn/ orange/cranberry garland and colorful plaid ribbon or bandanas to the garland and you’re good to go! Helpful hint: Use pipe cleaners to attach the garland to the staircase – easy set up & easy take down!

• Pair everyday items together for a free or low cost instant centerpiece for the kitchen island or a tabletop display.

• Decorate in unexpected places. Add holiday touches to bath rooms (tie ribbon around towels), bookcases (add embellished Christmas candles), light fixtures (hang ornaments on ribbon & attach to the bottom of the fixture), the very top of or inside  a hutch. Don’t forget the back porch. After all, backdoor guests are the best!
• Decorate with candles. They’re relatively inexpensive and add a wonderful aroma to your spaces. Use the same scent throughout to create a ”scents” of unity. To create a bigger impact, group candles together or embellish them like the ones below. Be sure to carry out your theme/colors here too.

• When it’s time to pack up after the holidays, pack like items together – all red ball ornaments together, all snowflakes, etc. This makes for a faster job of decorating the tree the following year!
• Keep an inventory or better yet, a photo catalog of all of your decorations. This will come in handy especially if you like to or need to add to your collection over the years.
• Label all containers…especially if you change your theme and/or color scheme from year to year. No sense in dragging every single box of out of the attic if you’re color scheme is red, white & silver!
• Wrap ribbons and beaded garlands on Christmas Light Organizers. Using this very simple but effective organizer will help prevent crushing and knotting, and thereby will prolong their lifespan. I prefer the one pictured below instead of the round one for a couple of reasons – first, I can see into the container, and secondly, it’s easier to wind and unwind ribbon and garland around this type verses the round verson.

• Last but certainly not least…Don’t sweat it if it’s not perfect…no one else will know! Unless of course, it’s one hot mess!!! If this is the case, all in the professionals!

 To see the other blog posts in our Holiday Decor blog series just click on their names: “Outdoor Holiday Decor’ , “Gorgeous Holiday Wreaths” , and “It’s a Candy Cane Christmas”.

Until next time…Happy Decorating and Happy, Happy Holidays!