it is beginning to look a lot like Christmas…

In the past I have piled tree-buying, tree-decorating, and house-decorating into one mega day-long event. This year I spaced it out and dragged up a box at a time and found the whole process to be much more pleasurable. So no more 10-hour decorating marathons for me. A bit at a time is the way to go!

My mantel is super simple and very different from what I have done in Christmases past. Well, the garlands (green and pinecone) and the white lights are standard. But the other pieces, not so much.

I left the narrow white window up from my autumn mantel. I painted it with a fresh coat of white intending to use it as a photo frame in the basement. But the narrow size makes it such a great supporting partner on the mantel (unlike the more square one which works better as the centerpiece – see it here with a wreath) that I might just keep it around as a flexible pieces.

The rusty star and the hunk of driftwood I dragged in from outdoors. The star usually goes on my garden gate and the driftwood spent the summer propped up underneath the pergola. I actually have a vision for the piece of driftwood as inspired by this blog post. Now, will I get to it before Christmas rolls around? Maybe… maybe not!

The photo above shows the top of the shelf in our main floor bathroom. It is a fun and unexpected spot to add some decorations. The little Santa bells are a "new" vintage treasure passed on to me by my always-cleaning grandmother.

And in this photo you can see the vase of driftwood that was featured in this autumn mantel design. I added one of the oak leaf branches from the mantel along with a sprig of fake red berries and it was instantly repurposed. And I must say, my jars of beads and buttons sorted by color prove to be perennially useful in decorating.

Happy holiday decorating to you!

framed-up fall mantel

I've featured the large crewel piece (created by my great-grandmother!) before but this is the first time I used an old window and empty picture frames. Natural treasures from the beach include driftwood and a large seagull feather. Natural treasures from the neighborhood include oak branches, acorns, various seed pods, and a pretty substantial piece of bark that I hauled home from a walk. Upon seeing it my husband only commented "Well, that's where the kids get it." A few pieces of glass including some of my milk glass collection and there it is. I am quite pleased with it and will probably leave it up until Christmas time.

old windows and chalkboard frames in progress

In a burst of spring cleaning/nesting I have given away most of my old window frames. I kept two and got them going. One I am sealing with a coat of fresh white paint and I intend to put black and white photographs in it. I have a wall of black and white art in my basement (the wall itself is red, such a great color scheme if I do say so myself). The other I am going to turn into a chalkboard for the kiddos but first I painted it the same great teal as my kitchen. I want to let that teal paint get nice and dry and hard before I put paint tape on it and do the chalkboard paint.

I have a great vision of having a whole chalkboard gallery for my kids to draw on. Originally my thought was to paint the chalkboard squares right on the wall and hang empty frames over them. Then I discovered via Pinterest that you can just paint right on the glass and thought that made much more sense! If you are interested, I found this blog post comparing brush-on chalkboard paint to spray-on chalkboard paint most helpful. I already have a can of the brush-on version so we are sticking with that.

So I got a whole collection of frames in the middle of being painted.* Actually, they are done. But I haven't put them back together yet. So they are in a sorry little heap. I don't think I can hang them until I get the old window chalkboard done. They are all going to be hung in the same stairwell and I need to map that out all at one time.

I am starting to think this is not a project I will get done before baby arrives so I figured I would give you a sneak peek for the time being. Oh, and I must show you my inspirations (via Pinterest of course). See it? Won't that be fun?

*Did you notice the crazy rainbow collection of colors. Gallons upon gallons? Every one of those colors is on a wall in my house somewhere! Hee!