Christmas Starts at the Front Door

I recently spiffed up my front entrance with a new door mat,

and have been keeping flowers and plants in that little corner too (I guess I forgot to post my purple mums, ornamental cabbage, burgundy pansy arrangement, but it was lovely, trust me), so when I spied a cute white enamel bucket with red trim on a recent thrift outing, I knew just where it would go.

I tucked my Christmas tree trimmings into a plastic container (cut off a plastic bottle from the recycling bin) to keep them watered and then stuffed some plastic bags down in to fill in the space and then added my giant (and some normal sized) pine cones to the top. For sparkle, I strung a small string of battery operated white lights from Target around the pine branches and I now have a nice, full, twinkly bit of cheer at my door. 

Ideally I'd like some birch logs or some other pieces of fire wood in there too, but Lowe's didn't have the birch logs and I didn't want to run all over town for them (or pay online prices) and the packs of fire wood were heavy and I just wasn't in the mood to deal with slogging them along with the tree. I was going to borrow some from work, but wanted to get the arrangement done before I'd be back there, so for this year it is just the greens and cones. I like the rustic messiness of it and am enamored of enamel. Ha.

Pink and Purple Butterfly Christmas Tree

As unlikely as that sounds for a Christmas tree theme, I have to say I'm thrilled with how my tree turned out this year. This is my second time doing a "theme" tree instead of all my collected ornaments from childhood, and I have to say, as much as I love the sentimental, traditional ornaments, the theme tree is just so much easier to get out and put away.

I stared with a live tree - a $20 Frasier Fir from Lowes - after a bad experience a few  years ago with a too big tree I swore off them for awhile, and now my rule is I need to be able to pick it up easily (and carry it up and down a full flight of stairs), so I go with the  small (5-6') size, which has the added bonus of being cheap. And they are nice trees and they cut and wrap them for you and help you put them in your car and give you the cuttings from the bottom. Truth be told, I'd rather support a local tree farmer, but just can't beat the price and convenience of the big boxes.

The color scheme was inspired by a tree I saw last year at Longwood Gardens, done up in plum and silver with gingerbread and natural elements.

Shortly after I lucked into some Martha Stewart ornaments at the thrift in shades of purple and pinkish red (I think they were from the Twilight Collection - for reals) so I snapped those up and added the straw pine cone-ish ornaments and star topper (from Ikea awhile ago) and a thrifted straw garland that looks a bit like popcorn to me. The butterflies are actually paper that is embedded with petals and seeds (you're supposed to plant them and grow wildflowers) and the lighter pink and silver ornaments are just thrift store stuff collected over the years. The "skirt" is just a big red and white ticking stripe sheet from,  you guessed it, a thrift store, that I've wrapped around the base.

So what do you think? I think I did a pretty good job emulating my inspiration tree.

P.S. I'm linking up to Thrifty Decor Chick's Christmas Tree Party - stop by and check out all of the gorgeousness.

Let's Talk Turkey: Place Settings That Is

It's hard to believe, but Thanksgiving is only a week away so time to do a little seasonal decorating and tablescaping. I picked up a few napkins from Target's new Threshold line - they have a feather painted on in gold and I thought they were just so pretty at only $2/each. I've layered them with my Ralph Lauren Claire dishes, a gold leaf charger, wooden tiled place mats, and the orange linen tablecloth left from Halloween.

I love the glint of the gold mixed with the more rustic wooden pieces. It just looks so warm and cozy to me.

The centerpiece is a wooden candelabra (needs candles still) and two amber glass forcing jars that I've added tea lights to. 

The china cabinet also got a little restyling - probably the most traditional it's ever been with actual china in it this time, although I still like to mix things up with mis-matched pieces and asymmetrical groupings. The tureen is a Wedgewood piece, the brown and white transferware is Johnson Brothers "Friendly Village" pattern. I also kept some of my Halloween pumpkins around.

I'm still not over my little owl, so he's still out along with a Johnson Bros. ironstone plate in the background.

My owl candle is also still out, along with some amber stemware that I just love

Another random tureen (I love ironstone for mixing and matching) and some cute wooden bowls over on the side.

More of the Friendly Village and the amber stemware. 

And one last shot of the stemware - I just love how it glows.

The majority of this stuff was all thrifted, except the Friendly Village pieces, where were actually, ummmm, trashpicked rescued.

Terrarium Time

Part of my Hurricane Sandy prep included dragging all the patio stuff into my living room. Yep, there was no food in the house, but my crap wasn't going to blow through anyone's window. When I went to drag it back outside a few days later, I took a look at my sad little succulent plants in their strawberry pot. I'm not "on the succulent bandwagon" so to speak, they're just the only thing I can keep alive because I'm not good at watering anything that doesn't come begging (note: the kitties always have water, one just likes to beg for the faucet to be turned on for him). Anyway, I remembered Katie's Pinterest Challenge terrarium project and the fact that I had purchased a jar to make one some time ago, so I got it out along with some rocks I had on hand (I think they were Dollar Tree vase filler) and went to town.



Rocks on the bottom, plants with whatever dirt they came out of their original pots with arranged in no particular order, more rocks around the edges, cute little clay house I had on hand, water, lid, done.

While this is not exactly a Pinterest Challenge Project (don't have a single terrarium pinned) since it was inspired by someone else's Challenge Project, I'm going to go ahead and link up here and here.