Color Coordinated

I'm a big believer that your Christmas tree & decor should match the rest of your house, and yes, that includes wrapping paper too! So, if your house looks like this:

Your tree should look something like this:

This tree in Lee Kleinhelter's living room is probably my favorite non-traditional Christmas tree ever. It may seem odd to have a yellow and white tree, but it goes seamlessly with her decor and anything else would have stuck out like a sore thumb. And because I love her style so much, here's some other pics from her house (from Cottage Living mag):

*via martha stewart, i suwannee, cottage living

Happy Monday

Here's a clever & stylish way to display those Christmas cards that will soon be streaming in...

*via Canadian House & Home

Black and White Friday: Christmas Edition

I absolutely love Christmas (in case you couldn't tell) so please forgive me for all of the Christmas decor posts, I'm sure this won't be my last. In case you're still working on getting your home ready for the season, here is some black & white inspiration for you:

*via canadian house & home, so raise your glasses, bloesem

Modern Glamour

This is probably my favorite Christmas tree ever, these are SO my colors...

I fell in love with this room last Christmas season when I saw it in the Nov/Dec '08 issue of Cottage Living (their last issue). It has been my inspiration since, there are so many details that make this room special. From the disco ball topper with the coordinating disco balls tied to the presents, the urn tree base, the perfect shades of aqua on the gorgeous flocked tree, to the dog's collar which perfectly coordinates with the rest of the room, I love it all! After seeing this photo last year, I had wanted to flock our artificial tree (I'm not even sure that would have worked), but luckily I found a beautiful vintage white tree instead which made my husband very, very happy (= no mess).

Here are more details of the room:

I think I'm finally finished decorating my tree, I'll be sure to post photos soon. What is your holiday style? Do you stick with a color scheme or do you go with a more sentimental approach?

Cyber Monday

I hope you all had a fabulous long weekend, I know I did! I got most of my Christmas decorating done, but I still have to fill in some gaps since I changed the color scheme of my tree this year. Last year I did all aqua and apple green on my white tree, but this year I decided to just stick to blues and I love it, but I need to find some more large aqua ornaments to finish it up. Did you start your holiday decorating yet? Maybe you have some gaps to fill in also....I'm having some great sales in my etsy shops today that might help:

All of my wreaths are on sale today at junktrunk :

tree wreath

bird wreath

winter friend wreath

And all of my stockings are on sale at L Studio today, plus free shipping on everything!

red deer stocking

My etsy shops are keeping me busy today, so I'll see you back here tomorrow!

Happy Thanksgiving

I'm signing off for the rest of the week to enjoy a great Thanksgiving day with friends, to decorate the house for Christmas, and spend some nice quiet time at home. I'm so thankful that you take time out of your day to visit my blog, I appreciate it so much!

Have a great weekend!

*via Martha Stewart

Score!

You may have noticed that I have a thing for lamps. I LOVE lamps (& chairs), and I undoubtedly have too many of both. It's not that I go out looking for them, they just seem to find me. The thrift stores and estate sales in my area are full of excellent quality vintage items at very reasonable prices and it's hard to say no to such great deals. Since I have collected so many lamps throughout the years, many of them 'singles', I have made a new rule that I can only buy lamps in pairs unless I have a specific spot where I only need one. I liked the eclectic, mismatched look for a while, but now I'm looking for more symmetry (and this will significantly narrow down my purchasing options). Sometimes I feel like I'm stealing from the nice elderly folks that put on the garage/estate sales because they price their items so low. I mean really, why even sell something if you're only asking 10 cents for it? What are you going to do with 10 cents?

Here are some of my major scores from the last couple of weeks...

I bought these lamps last night at GW for $6 each!

They didn't come with shades (not that I'm complaining), so I'm thinking of something like this:

I think they'll be perfect for my bedroom!

I found these lamps a couple of weeks ago for my back hall, again for only $6 each. I haven't decided what I'm doing with the shades yet because I'm looking for a new console table for this spot:

The glass candelabra was another score at only $2!

And now for the chair that is causing much controversy in my house at the moment:

This chair was FREE! It was sitting outside across the street from an estate sale so I scooped it up and somehow managed to fit it into the back seat of my car. It swivels and rocks, the only problem is that it has a somewhat large tear where the back hits the seat of the chair. I was thinking I could just tape it up with black electrical tape and cover it with a pillow...is that tacky? I know it is a little bit, but I'm cheap:) My husband says he would really like the chair if we reupholstered it, but hates it the way it is and doesn't want it in the house. Why did I have to marry the one guy in America who cares how his wife (who is an interior designer) decorates the house??? Not that I don't want to reupholster it, there are just a million other projects ahead of that one. Wouldn't it look great with the wood painted glossy white?

Any thoughts on the chair dilemma?