Welcome To My Home For The HolidayChristmas 2013

Hi! My name is Laurie, and I write a blog called My Home For The HolidaysIt is about my adventures in crafting, life in general and the things I loveI hope you enjoy my first ebookI am a novice at this and hopefully it all goes well!

Decorating has always been a passion of mine and here of late I have discovered that I am in love with all that is white, with touches of earthy tones. I love creating vignettes and believe it or not, I actually get to do this for a living. I work at a local garden center as a Home Accents Manager and visual merchandising is something I do everyday along with my very talented team. At home, I like to incorporate the things I learn at work into my own dcor. Simple touches as in adding greens, some Christmas balls and a tin into a basket lined with vintage doilies can create a simple little holiday display. I enjoy setting up vignettes into corners of my home to add a finishing touch to the dcor.

When I decorate my Christmas trees, I always add extra props to give it more dimension. From branches sticking out all over, to birdhouses setting atop my tree. I love to hang little ornaments or in this case, snowballs from the branches. I want my Christmas tree to tell a story. I am very theme oriented in my decorating and it brings out all the things I love. Just a few hints when decorating your Christmas treeStart off with the lighting if it is not already pre lit

Add your extra greens to the tree. Give it more of a dimension

Place some florals, leafy picks, pinecones, branches. Add a natural touch to it.

Place your larger objects in the tree. For example, this is when I would add my large birdhouses. I like to work in odd numbers and a zig zag placement to ensure that balance is created.

If you like a garland, now is the time to begin placement.

Place your smaller ornaments/balls on last.

No matter how you decorate your Christmas tree, make sure it brings out your personal favorites. Whether it be your child's ornaments, your hand made ornaments, treasured family heirlooms, make sure it tells the story of you and your family.

As much as I love a shabby chic white look, I also love the primitive style. I keep a smaller tree in my kitchen area to hold my primitive ornaments. I am slowly trying to transform my home into a Farmhouse French style home. Primitives can be incorporated into the subtle tones of white and natural colors. I love bringing nature into the home. I also like the simplistic look of Farmhouse French. As I grow older, I seem to want less clutter, but still incorporate my style of dcor. We are removing the carpet in our home and replacing it with faux wood flooring. We did it in our bedroom and it actually gives it a less cluttered look. It can still look and feel cozy with a throw rug here and there.

Adding a touch of hand made is always a must. These little brown paper bag gingerbread men will always adorn my home during the holidays. They are very special to me as my mother made them years ago. They make me smile every time I see them remembering when she made these simple little ornaments.

More primitives in the Christmas dcor. I love the Belsnickle like Santas as well as the old fashioned look Santas. The mason jar luminaries were made by me and an old crafting friend. So easy to make with brown paint and cinnamon. Adhere a photo printed from the internet to the front. Paint some snow ( I think we used a product called snow-tex) around the photo edges and the rim of the jar. Fasten some tea stained cheesecloth strips around the top and add some sort of adornment to the cheesecloth, like a bell or any rusty like object. Place a battery operated tea light inside the jar and it just illuminates the photo on the front. I love them!

The mantle on the fireplace is always fun to decorate. The glass cake style holder was made by me from thrift store/garage sale finds. I just glued a clear glass plate to the top of a glass candlestick holder ( E6000 glue ). Drape some beaded garland, place a glass ball on top and you have an interesting display piece. The Shabby Chic Christmas tree on the right I also made. I took the little green bottle brush trees, bleached them in Clorox and painted it with white paint and glitter. Add some little pearls for balls and glue the tree onto an old wooden thread spool covered in decorative paper and lined with ribbon. I also added some fiber fill to the base of the tree to look like snow. Most of these projects cost me next to nothing to create as I purchase most of my supplies at thrift shops and garage sales as stated above.

Feather trees and snowmen. I love them! I usually keep these decorations up past Christmas just for the winter season. An old milk box ( on the right ) is used in almost every dcor vignette I create at some point during each season. I love the galvanized look with the white and earthy tones.

I have quite a collection of reindeer to incorporate into my holiday dcor. They usually end up on the fireplace mantle over the Christmas season.

Of course I need to have some chalkboards in the dcor.

I hope you enjoyed My Home For The Holidays Christmas Edition ebook. This has been a trial run for me and I hope to create more for the 2014 season with each season and holiday. I am looking to expand the books to more pages, more how to's and maybe even some recipes. I would also like to add my fellow crafters from my Ladies Craft Night to the ebooks. They are both so very creative and I know you would enjoy seeing their finished products and how they do it!

Until themthanks again!~Lauriehttp://myhomefortheholidays.blogspot.com