The other night I finally mustered up the energy to take some pictures of my Christmas decor and put them on my computer (while Dan took a nap and I watched 30 Rock). So, without further delay, my pictures (that I've been meaning to put up for literally over a week)!
Okay - let me start with this. I have been bringing WAY too many of these E.B. holiday bags into my house lately. No more, Heidi. No more! (But today I wore a super cute scarf I got for $13!...I'll post a picture later.) But you can't deny - the bags are cute.
NOW it's the holiday season! It can't be until I make a cheesecake :) I brought this to the Schumaker Thanksgiving feast and sadly for my hips, there's some left over :(
SO. The Christmas dish saga. Two years ago, Dan bought me four place settings (out of the eight I wanted) of some SO pretty Christmas dishes made by the company St. Nicholas Square. I planned to just purchase the other four place settings later on.
Well, this past year, the collection (called "Eat, Drink & Be Merry") was sold to Food Network - so it was no longer owned by St. Nicholas Square. The basic design stayed the same, but the details of the patterns totally changed! :(
In a nutshell, Food Network no longer made the four patterns I already had and they stopped making the salad plates altogether! AH!
So what I had to do was find four place settings of the collection under Food Network that I liked. I'm not a HUGE fan of the "Eat, Drink & Be Merry" theme for Christmas, but the design is still cute. (I don't like to think of the Christmas season as an excuse for gluttony, drunkenness and general unruly merriment...but whatever.)
So I was able to purchase four additional settings of the dinner plates and bowl at Kohl's, and had to order the salad plates online at Replacements.com because, like I said, Food Network doesn't even make them anymore. I feel like this is the best possible scenario though - now at least I have four of each design so it looks intentional; like I just wanted to mix it up and not have the same pattern for all eight settings.
So this is the new Food Network version of the collection that I purchased this year. The bowl has a little picture in the bottom of it - it's the same gift that's on the salad plate.
And THIS is the St. Nicholas Square version that Dan bought me two years ago. I love them both, but these are DEFINITELY my favorites. (You can't really tell, but the tree and sleigh are made up of the lyrics to Jingle Bells written in cursive.)
My dishes cupboard, stocked with holiday cheer and ready for December! (I love all my Christmas mugs!!)
Our favorite Christmas flannel sheets :) We love the polar bears!
So I had these leftover ornaments and didn't want to not use them. So I bought a battery powered mini string of lights and wound it into this contraption. NOT. SATISFIED. The string of lights died after being lit for like, two hours! So I still have the vase with ornaments, but no lights...bummer.
The proud reindeer :) Love this guy!
Our childhood stockings. I was on the verge of buying new ones (from Pottery Barn...SO pretty) this year, but Dan has a VERY strong emotional connection to his stocking and didn't want to cause drama. (Don't get me wrong - I'm attached to mine too, but it would be nice to have matching stocks. Maybe when kids come along...maybe...)
My garland! All 6 6-foot strands were a Christmas gift from my oh-so-kind mother-in-law. I was worried that I'd be a little short or have a little extra and need to trim it. But the garland ended RIGHT at the bottom of the stairs - so did the Christmas lights, which I added separately. It was totally meant to be.
Close-up of the pretty 'lil pine cones :)
I replaced the stones in the bottom of this vase with these cute mini gold globe ornaments (in the upstairs bathroom)
Reading chair in the loft - I love this pillow :)
Amanda got me this for my birthday a few years ago - I love it!
The loft bookshelf - you can see my snowman pictures on the top shelf. And I love the ginormous jingle bells :) They really jingle!
The living room (and Dan on the couch) from the loft
Behold the glory...our 9 foot Christmas tree :) Yeah..."fluffing" a 9 foot Christmas tree loses its charm REAL quick. My hands and forearms were so scratched up from the branches - it looked like I'd been playing with a sharp-clawed kitten. But the end result was so worth it. She's a beaut!!
And THIS is the St. Nicholas Square version that Dan bought me two years ago. I love them both, but these are DEFINITELY my favorites. (You can't really tell, but the tree and sleigh are made up of the lyrics to Jingle Bells written in cursive.)
My dishes cupboard, stocked with holiday cheer and ready for December! (I love all my Christmas mugs!!)
Our favorite Christmas flannel sheets :) We love the polar bears!
So I had these leftover ornaments and didn't want to not use them. So I bought a battery powered mini string of lights and wound it into this contraption. NOT. SATISFIED. The string of lights died after being lit for like, two hours! So I still have the vase with ornaments, but no lights...bummer.
The proud reindeer :) Love this guy!
Our childhood stockings. I was on the verge of buying new ones (from Pottery Barn...SO pretty) this year, but Dan has a VERY strong emotional connection to his stocking and didn't want to cause drama. (Don't get me wrong - I'm attached to mine too, but it would be nice to have matching stocks. Maybe when kids come along...maybe...)
My garland! All 6 6-foot strands were a Christmas gift from my oh-so-kind mother-in-law. I was worried that I'd be a little short or have a little extra and need to trim it. But the garland ended RIGHT at the bottom of the stairs - so did the Christmas lights, which I added separately. It was totally meant to be.
Close-up of the pretty 'lil pine cones :)
I replaced the stones in the bottom of this vase with these cute mini gold globe ornaments (in the upstairs bathroom)
Reading chair in the loft - I love this pillow :)
Amanda got me this for my birthday a few years ago - I love it!
The loft bookshelf - you can see my snowman pictures on the top shelf. And I love the ginormous jingle bells :) They really jingle!
The living room (and Dan on the couch) from the loft
Behold the glory...our 9 foot Christmas tree :) Yeah..."fluffing" a 9 foot Christmas tree loses its charm REAL quick. My hands and forearms were so scratched up from the branches - it looked like I'd been playing with a sharp-clawed kitten. But the end result was so worth it. She's a beaut!!
The Sentimental Heidi and Decorator Heidi battled it out for this one. I bought some filler/generic ornaments because I knew we wouldn't have enough personal/childhood ornaments to fill up a NINE FOOT TREE. So I got these beautiful brown/gold/bronze/silver tones to use. I ended up LOVING that theme and wanted to do the tree with JUST the generic stuff! But there were classic sentimental ornaments that I couldn't ignore! So I tried to compromise with a mix of both. There are still plenty of the pretty colors I wanted, accented with little gems like these....
The cute Scandinavian couple that my mom got us in 2008. I love them!
And if you're an Immel, it's not Christmas until the blue rocking horse is hung on the tree with care
Here are my four fillers that I used...
This guy is pretty big - I like to think I have normal woman-sized hands, and when I spread my fingers out, it's about the size of these snowflakes. I think I used maybe 18 of these?
Then these glittery little devils. GLITTER. EVERYWHERE. It was awful, but they're beautiful.
I bought a tub of these globe ornaments. They're all brown, but some are glittery (like this guy) some are bronze/matte, some are shiny gold and some look like brown disco balls.
I also bought some twine stars from Pier 1, but the pictures was too blurry :( They're about 4" in diameter, made of twine, painted gold and they have gold glitter on them. They're super cute!
The living room recliner - lucky for me, this pillow fit the width of this chair exactly :)
My Eddie Bauer snow globe that Dan got me a few years ago. When I opened it, I noticed the water was a little hazy. So after Christmas, I took it to the store to exchange it. But they were in the middle of remodeling and they were getting rid of EVERYTHING in the store. So they had none left :( They said they could give me store credit, but they didn't have anymore globes. So in a no-brainer, I kept my precious globe and have learned to love the cloudy water :) It plays music and the ski lift actually lifts the little carts up and down. I love it!
Okay. THIS is my secret lantern project that we've been working on! I bought these lanterns by themselves at Nordlie. Then Dan made the posts and base. I painted and poly'd them (like...five coats!). I put little window candles inside (with timers - so they turn on every day at 5:00 and turn off at 10:00) and surrounded them with mini red, gold and silver ornaments. Before I filled them, Dan bolted them to the posts. I LOVE how they turned out!!!
A close-up of our Charles Dickens lanterns to welcome you to our home :)
Front porch (I'll add a close-up of the wreath later. It was dark so I had to use the flash and the picture of it turned out awful.)
And if you're an Immel, it's not Christmas until the blue rocking horse is hung on the tree with care
Here are my four fillers that I used...
This guy is pretty big - I like to think I have normal woman-sized hands, and when I spread my fingers out, it's about the size of these snowflakes. I think I used maybe 18 of these?
Then these glittery little devils. GLITTER. EVERYWHERE. It was awful, but they're beautiful.
I bought a tub of these globe ornaments. They're all brown, but some are glittery (like this guy) some are bronze/matte, some are shiny gold and some look like brown disco balls.
I also bought some twine stars from Pier 1, but the pictures was too blurry :( They're about 4" in diameter, made of twine, painted gold and they have gold glitter on them. They're super cute!
The living room recliner - lucky for me, this pillow fit the width of this chair exactly :)
My Eddie Bauer snow globe that Dan got me a few years ago. When I opened it, I noticed the water was a little hazy. So after Christmas, I took it to the store to exchange it. But they were in the middle of remodeling and they were getting rid of EVERYTHING in the store. So they had none left :( They said they could give me store credit, but they didn't have anymore globes. So in a no-brainer, I kept my precious globe and have learned to love the cloudy water :) It plays music and the ski lift actually lifts the little carts up and down. I love it!
Okay. THIS is my secret lantern project that we've been working on! I bought these lanterns by themselves at Nordlie. Then Dan made the posts and base. I painted and poly'd them (like...five coats!). I put little window candles inside (with timers - so they turn on every day at 5:00 and turn off at 10:00) and surrounded them with mini red, gold and silver ornaments. Before I filled them, Dan bolted them to the posts. I LOVE how they turned out!!!
A close-up of our Charles Dickens lanterns to welcome you to our home :)
Front porch (I'll add a close-up of the wreath later. It was dark so I had to use the flash and the picture of it turned out awful.)
Ah...decor pics, posted!
Yesterday was a crazy baking day for me! I made two loaves of banana bread, homemade chex mix (the BEST kind) and peanut clusters. (Every time I make the peanut clusters, I have leftover chocolate/peanut butter mix. And every time I know it's still hot and it'll burn my tongue. And every time I don't care...burnt tongue? CHECK.)
I'll leave you with a few visuals until next time :)
Hooray for holiday decor and delicious food!! :)
1 comment:
Heidi your house looks absolutely beautiful with all it's Christmas cheer! One day I hope to have such awesome decorations :)
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