That she blows! Or maybe I should say “thar she glows!” Either way, we got her up.
This year’s decorating theme followed a few simple rules:
- Use only free items we already had—no running out to buy anything.
- Avoid anything pointy, hard, or breakable for the little one’s safety.
- Load it with color—lots of bright, cheerful hues.
With those constraints we gave our full-sized tree a fresh, colorful makeover using leftover supplies from around the house, like stacks of paint chips I’d saved.
I always keep extra paint chips for projects—past uses include simple art pieces and a temporary postcard ledge display from our old office.
To make the ornaments I cut paint chips into narrow strips so each chip yielded two or three pieces. Then I punched a small hole near the top of each strip…
…and threaded twine or thin string through the hole to hang them. The finished pieces read like modern, colorful icicles covering the tree, and the best part was that they were all free.
Another main decorative element was several spools of ribbon from our gift-wrapping stash. We unrolled each ribbon, found the midpoint, and draped it over the top of the tree so equal lengths hung down each side in an upside-down V. The tree skirt is simply three faux sheepskins from Ikea, which have become a bit of a holiday tradition for us.
I even tied a small bow from leftover ribbon for the top. It gave the tree a cheerful, slightly feminine look this year.
A couple of notes from the photos:
- When we first photographed the tree we hadn’t caught up with our advent calendar yet—Clara and I had the urge to snap pictures as soon as the tree was up. Since then we’ve hung twelve advent ornaments on the tree and are back to opening one a day.
- We did a quick mantel refresh in the kitchen—here’s a closer look.
On the floor by the mantel I placed a few old feather trees and added two white ceramic birds on the mantel to read like Christmas doves. I also included a small thrift-store rocking horse that I painted for Clara and hung our stockings — this year arranged a bit differently just for fun.
It might look like only three stockings were displayed, but Burger certainly has one. John and I share a “Mom and Dad” stocking, and there’s a stocking each for Clara and Burger.
I also tucked a basket of faux gifts into the fireplace to add visual interest and plenty of holiday cheer.
One of the nicest outcomes of opening up the doorway between the kitchen and dining room is that the tree is visible from the kitchen now. It peeks around the corner and makes both spaces feel connected and festive.
That view wouldn’t be possible if we hadn’t removed the wall a while back—demo was worth it. It’s so nice to have festive touches in multiple rooms: the big tree in the dining room, the mantel in the kitchen, and the tabletop tree in the living room. Christmastime really does brighten the whole house.
That’s most of the indoor decorating done for now. I still plan to photograph and share a holiday frame gallery I’m putting together. And for the first time we decorated the exterior as well—lights, stars, a homemade wreath, and red reindeer figures—so I’ll share pictures of the outdoor display as soon as we can get them taken and write it up.
P.S. We’ll be back with a kitchen update soon. Some of the projects are detail-oriented—like resizing an old cabinet to match the rest of the kitchen and to house a built-in microwave—but we’re making steady progress!