Christmas Decorations 2013

by Bex

So I've shared with you my most exciting and beloved decoration this year but of course there are lots more.  I love Christmas and get immense pleasure from all the "Festive Fripperies" as Nik refers to them!  Unsurprisingly the colour scheme is still the same this year - olive green, white and silver.

I haven't prettied up all my gift wrapping yet!

Our tree this year was an absolute bargain!  We usually buy one locally for around £40 - £60 (remember the monster tree in 2011?!).  Our tree this year is a little shorter than last year's but cost just £25 from Ikea!  Not only that but we received a voucher for £20 to spend in Jan/Feb next year and as we're Ikea Family members we also received 6 free champagne glasses for spending £25!  Ultimate bargains, we love them!  (I already know what we'll buy as I recently managed to break my cake stand with a cloche from Ikea and I'm always running out of tea lights.)

When we got it home and left it to settle after removing the net and placing it in a stand we were actually quite shocked at how massive it was - it spread out so much when the branches were let loose!  We actually had to do a bit of trimming so I utilised the cuttings to place around my candles in the fireplace.

I wasn't sure I liked our tree any more after it settled, it was very wide and very bushy (bushiness means the decorations are harder to place and see) but after some swivelling and trimming I was happy with it again and now that it's all decorated I love it!

I managed to sneak in a couple of new tree ornaments this year - Nik already sussed me out though, nothing gets past that man!!  I love the new beaded snowflakes from TK Maxx ( I got 2 similar ones).

I also made a mini Christmas tree ornament out of our leftover wedding buttons (used in the buttonholes and for my button heart).

There is also the new star for the top of the tree (another freebie from my John Lewis goody bag so that was allowed) - I've never found anything I really liked to top the tree before and usually just hang one of my butterflies or snowflakes there.  I love snowflake ornaments, in case you didn't notice!

A few other new additions are these fairy lights in a vase (the vase was old, I just never tried this before and I love how it looks like it's glowing with fireflies inside)...

I put my cotton & cable cottonball lights up this year rather than saving them for our Christmas/New Year table.  I think they look great draped around our alcove with all our big travel, diving and photography books.

Another Pin It Do It I've written about for next week is this bauble display...

And instead of hanging my big baubles on the kitchen door this year, we have a new sign hand-painted and given to us by our friend Lisa.  (She bought the sign from Anya at Little Crescent Moon where you can buy them ready-painted.)  The eagle-eyed among you may have spotted it in the background of the pictures in the kitchen when we made our shelves.  ;)

The snowflakes are glittery!  :)

(I don't usually put my surname on the blog as I don't want my full name to be googleable due to my job, but since this is in a picture it should be safe!  ;)  You may have seen on Twitter that I've just invented a fake name for press purposes though, they insist on a full name and I was asked to be in a style feature recently so had to come up with one!)

I decided to put the big baubles into one of my big glass serving bowls on the hearth this year.

The snowflakes that Mum cut out for me and my father-in-law and I spent Christmas Eve 2011 sticking together have previously been stuck on the kitchen cupboards or windows but I always thought they looked a bit messy and cluttered.  This year I have chosen my favourites and placed them across the top of the fireplace.  I actually tried to make them into a garland and hang them but they kept twisting round so I just took them off the string and stuck them directly to the wall using blu-tak.

And of course, there's my Christmas bunting which I made back in October after I made my Halloween bunting!  I made just one for Christmas, enough to go along the big wall in the kitchen.

The plain green triangles are made from the offcuts of my saree and the very dark green with snowflakes were the leftover bits from when I made stockings a couple of years ago.

In the hall I've hung the 3 big beaded baubles from our chandelier and the CHRISTMAS sign I bought at the Country Living Christmas Fayre a couple of weeks ago is up on the mirror with a glittery gold dragonfly I found in the pound shop last year.  The sign had come with red check fabric which I swapped for green ribbon.  I think I might paint/glitter the letters next year.

There are more fripperies but you'll have to wait until next Wednesday to see them as they're all Pinterest inspired so I've put them all into a big Christmas Pin It Do It including terrariums and cornflour dough decorations!  ;)

What do you think so far?  Too much green??  (Ha, there's no such thing as far as I'm concerned!)