My Holiday Decor

It seems that there have been a ton of McLinky parties with “Show us your holiday decor!” and “Give us a tour of your home!” and I have been wanting to participate. Very much so. Problem is everytime I’d get the apartment camera/blog ready (as in, it doesn’t ever truly look like these pics, but I wanna lie to you and make you think it does), I’d start another project and it’d become total chaos again. And again.

And again.

I’m sure you can relate, right? Oh please tell me I am not the only one who let’s bags and bags of random purchases pile up on the sofa. Am I?

Finally, tonight I decided I need to get everything put away and camera ready. So, you ready for a tour of my humble little apartment?

I had debated about whether or not to even post pictures since I know (really, I do) that they do not compare some other people’s homes. They have 10 foot tall trees (real ones even!), majestic staircases, and glorious kitchens to decorate. I have a living/dining room combo and a bar area that serves as my “mantle”. Yeah, nothing too impressive, but if you’re out there reading and you have a tiny apartment or home, you too can have a gorgeous home. And hey, it’s less to decorate which means less to put away in January.

And off we go! Right when you walk to in our front door you step immediately into our living room. Like seriously, you do. No foyer, no grand hallway, you’re in immediately.

You turn to the left (robbers, take notes) and you see our lovely beige sectional and my white Goodwill coffee table. It used to have pumpkins on it, but now it looks like this:

The silver/grayish hurricanes with scrolly patterns are from Wal-Mart, $5 each. The big glass bowl is a wedding gift and it’s by Mikasa. The 2 silver candle holders were a major score at Dollar General for $2 each. The runner is from last year’s Kohl’s holiday decor, and it’s silver with a flocked, black damask pattern. I paid $13 for the runner, and I lurve it! The jewels scattered on the table are from Target- they come 24 to a pack for $6.99 and they’re technically supposed to be ornaments. Finally, the ornaments in the bowl are from Dollar Tree & Wal-Mart; the colors are black, silver, blue, and red.

Now, if you’ve ever seen my wedding pictures, you know I am obsessed with black, red, white/silver, and damask. You also know that I tend to, ummmm, hoard things, so I had a lot of wedding stuff leftover that I wanted to use to save money. But, I also have this obsession lately with the teal/aqua/blue color, so I added that to the mix and it worked out just lovely.

Or so I think.

Anyway, more pictures of my coffee table:

Next, if you keep walking forward, you’ll end up in the dining room. Except that it’s not it’s own room, it’s more like an 8x8 foot space. I always love tablescapes, and I like using what I already have. If I don’t already have it, I’d like to buy it somewhere cheap like Dollar Tree.

Here is my dining room tablescape- I wanted something romantic, retro, but modern…and I used leftover damask wedding stuff. Swoon.

The damask candle holders are from Dollar Tree and I wrapped sparkly blue ribbon from Michael’s around them. I also did this to the vase in the center, which is also from Dollar Tree.

Down the center of the glass vase, I have a string of clear/aqua beads. I just used the cheapy plastic beads from Wal-Mart that I had on hand. The red candle holders are from a set of 5 that I picked up at Garden Ridge on clearance 2 years ago for $4. Resting on top of the red candle holders are ornaments from Wal-Mart. Runner is from Hobby Lobby, table cloth is from Garden Ridge, plates are from the Target Shabby Chic collection, and the red chargers are from Kirklands. The red pomander is made from 3 bunches of red roses from Dollar Tree inserted into a pomander from there as well. Easy peasy.

And if you move to the right you’ll see my awfully outdated, ugly, tiny kitchen, so we’ll just skip over that and mosey on over to the “bar” area. Which isn’t even big enough to serve as a bar area, so mostly it’s a stupid window above the sink. Oy.

During the holidays, I use it as a mantle, since, you know, I don’t have one. The lighted garland is 9 feet long and I bought it from Target for $10. On it are random ornaments I strung on using some floral wire I had on hand. Four red and aqua snowflakes (4 for $1 from Target) hang from the IKEA black shelf that holds the garland up.

This year we splurged on NICE stocking holders (no more thumbtacks!):

  The top 3 are from Target- the sparkly ones are by Shabby Chic, $12 each; the bone, $10 each. The cardinal is from Hobby Lobby and that stocking holder belongs to my mom who will be spending the holidays with us. Doesn’t my husband look FABULOUS in his pic? He’s a cutie, and he’s mine, all mine. MINE!

And I look pretty hot in my pic. I really shouldn’t have chopped my hair off. Why do I do such things? WHY?!

But I digress.

I would show you our fabulous stockings, except that someone stole them. Or that’s my story. We each had a CUTE (super CUTE!) stocking- mine was black/silver damask, Pee Wee’s had a cute dog and bone, hell if I know what Daniel’s was, but the point is they’re gone. I have torn this apartment upside down looking for those @!#$*&! stockings, and I give up. I just know I am going to find them on January 4th. I just know it.

And now we all have generic Dollar General crappy stockings that I refuse to show you.

Moving on.

 

This cylinder is left over from our wedding (what a novel idea…) and I just filled it with random ornaments. I love it!

While it’s not a real mantle and it’s not big or grand…we like it. :-)

And now comes the star of the show. Well, actually, I think our tree kinda sucks. I am always so impressed with other people’s trees, and I think ours is just eh. I’m not even going to tell you it’s obviously crooked. Wait, I just told you. And now you’re going to be looking at how crooked it is.

Crap.

And now without the gaudy flash:

Here are some of the details on the tree:

That Texas ornament is honor of the future BCS National Champions. January 7th, it’s on.

And finally, the real reason I decorate is for my child.

Um, mom, why the hell isn’t my ass covered? And my balls? I don’t wanna be compared to Tiger Woods…

Good grief, mom! It’s animal cruelty to cause blindness for the sake of your stupid blog that no one reads. Ugh.

Dad, make her stop. Now.

Can’t you just tell how much he loves the decor?

;o)

Show me pictures of your home! Leave me a link in the comments, and I’ll take a walk over to your home and ooh and ahh at all your fabulous decor, too.

Hope you enjoyed my home tour! Happy Holidays!

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