It's almost December. Almost time to get the decorations down from the attic and make the place festive. Can you tell I'm excited?! I LOVE Christmas! To inspire myself (and hopefully you), I thought I'd finally post some pictures of our decorations last year. For obvious reasons (newborn twin survival), I never got around to much blogging but I did manage to take a few photos! I'm only managing to blog about it now because my Dad's here unexpectedly for work and managed to book his flights to give him a weekend with us at either end of a week of meetings! He's playing with the twins in the living room while I write this up on my desk this afternoon. (But don't worry, we did also have lots of lovely time playing together this morning, I didn't just scarper immediately!)
It was my first time decorating the new house so I changed things around quite a lot from what I used to do in the flat in Glasgow. For starters, the new living room has plum colours now so all of my beautiful olive green stuff was mostly re-purposed in other rooms. As I don't have a mantel any more anyway, it was going to have to change but I also changed the main colour on the Christmas tree and on those shelves Nik and I made a couple of years ago. Instead of green being the main colour, I stuck to neutrals - white, taupe, silver and wood. (Although my green NOEL was placed here temporarily and stayed.)
The same went for the tree with all of the green decorations and baubles kept for another idea which funnily enough never happened last year but hopefully will this year! Incidentally, I am NEVER buying a spruce again! What a nightmare with the needles!! I never had a real tree until I met Nik and we moved in together in Glasgow and I was pleasantly surprised that they weren't really a problem. Nordman firs. Definitely buy Nordman firs!
The pictures are clearly quick snaps and not the usual timely beautiful pictures with glowing lights all perfectly 'styled'. Sometimes life is just too real. Note the 'breastfeeding box' and pump on the arm of the sofa! So glam ;) I did love sitting there feeding the twins next to the glow of the tree though, so much so I'd often bring them downstairs to feed at 1,2,3,4am... :)
We also had some lovely personalised decorations specially for the twins' first Christmas from both sets of grandparents. I had planned to make hand print baubles but, meh, two babies who don't like paint!! It was enough of a struggle to get some on paper for their baby books!
A new addition last year was the snowflake display in the bay window. I bought them in TK Maxx - £5.99 for the small ones and £7.99 for the big ones. I saw similar ones this year for around £10 but I can't remember where. Nik put up 3 hooks for me (which also came in handy for the twins' birthday decorations) and I hung my beaded snowflake candle holders. It was difficult to get a good picture of those with the light behind them and with the reflections at night, even with the lights off. They're beautiful in real life, I love them!
The only downside is that they can only take electric tea lights due to the heat of real ones obviously. I've struggled to find any good ones but I still love the overall look. I have another one in our box window but the photo of that is even worse, lol.
My favourite thing to decorate was probably by new dresser! You might remember it arrived just two weeks after the babies were born and I still love it to bits! Of course, our dining room and kitchen still have green features so I was able to use all of my favourite green bits 'n' pieces in there.
And finally, the hall. I used some of my very old red decorations in here, including my old red berry wreath which actually goes very well with the red stained glass flowers that I hate in the front door! The red ones have been banished to the 'red box' for a few years now so it was nice to get them out again.
The garland was also an old purchase from Ortak which I added some of my butterflies (also from Ortak) and dragonflies (from a pound shop) to. (Mum and Nik tied this on to the banister for me as I was struggling!) The big green balls were meant to be hung in the hall but ended up staying on the end of the banister for the duration! Mum bought us the lovely Poinsettia and I put my mini tree on the sideboard too.
Considering that we were all just trying to survive last Christmas, I think the place looked pretty festive. I do love Christmas so I was glad I still managed to decorate the house. It's always extra fun the first time in a new place. I'm really excited about this year though, although quite apprehensive about K&P and the tree this year! Kalyan is going to absolutely love the lights and pretty shiny things and MIGHT be content to stare and point (his favourite things to do with lights and balloons) but Priya is bound to be in there trying to grab everything - I wouldn't put it past her to try and climb the thing! We'll see.
I'm still not back at work (loooong story and very frustrating, although I'm loving this stage with the twins so I am glad not to be missing anything) so we're on an even tighter budget this year but I have bought a couple of very cheap pieces from Wilko and TK Maxx. I have to say, TK Maxx is my absolute favourite place to shop for Christmas stuff!
It was my first time decorating the new house so I changed things around quite a lot from what I used to do in the flat in Glasgow. For starters, the new living room has plum colours now so all of my beautiful olive green stuff was mostly re-purposed in other rooms. As I don't have a mantel any more anyway, it was going to have to change but I also changed the main colour on the Christmas tree and on those shelves Nik and I made a couple of years ago. Instead of green being the main colour, I stuck to neutrals - white, taupe, silver and wood. (Although my green NOEL was placed here temporarily and stayed.)
The same went for the tree with all of the green decorations and baubles kept for another idea which funnily enough never happened last year but hopefully will this year! Incidentally, I am NEVER buying a spruce again! What a nightmare with the needles!! I never had a real tree until I met Nik and we moved in together in Glasgow and I was pleasantly surprised that they weren't really a problem. Nordman firs. Definitely buy Nordman firs!
The pictures are clearly quick snaps and not the usual timely beautiful pictures with glowing lights all perfectly 'styled'. Sometimes life is just too real. Note the 'breastfeeding box' and pump on the arm of the sofa! So glam ;) I did love sitting there feeding the twins next to the glow of the tree though, so much so I'd often bring them downstairs to feed at 1,2,3,4am... :)
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| Us with the tree on Christmas day |
We also had some lovely personalised decorations specially for the twins' first Christmas from both sets of grandparents. I had planned to make hand print baubles but, meh, two babies who don't like paint!! It was enough of a struggle to get some on paper for their baby books!
A new addition last year was the snowflake display in the bay window. I bought them in TK Maxx - £5.99 for the small ones and £7.99 for the big ones. I saw similar ones this year for around £10 but I can't remember where. Nik put up 3 hooks for me (which also came in handy for the twins' birthday decorations) and I hung my beaded snowflake candle holders. It was difficult to get a good picture of those with the light behind them and with the reflections at night, even with the lights off. They're beautiful in real life, I love them!
The only downside is that they can only take electric tea lights due to the heat of real ones obviously. I've struggled to find any good ones but I still love the overall look. I have another one in our box window but the photo of that is even worse, lol.
My favourite thing to decorate was probably by new dresser! You might remember it arrived just two weeks after the babies were born and I still love it to bits! Of course, our dining room and kitchen still have green features so I was able to use all of my favourite green bits 'n' pieces in there.
And finally, the hall. I used some of my very old red decorations in here, including my old red berry wreath which actually goes very well with the red stained glass flowers that I hate in the front door! The red ones have been banished to the 'red box' for a few years now so it was nice to get them out again.
The garland was also an old purchase from Ortak which I added some of my butterflies (also from Ortak) and dragonflies (from a pound shop) to. (Mum and Nik tied this on to the banister for me as I was struggling!) The big green balls were meant to be hung in the hall but ended up staying on the end of the banister for the duration! Mum bought us the lovely Poinsettia and I put my mini tree on the sideboard too.
Considering that we were all just trying to survive last Christmas, I think the place looked pretty festive. I do love Christmas so I was glad I still managed to decorate the house. It's always extra fun the first time in a new place. I'm really excited about this year though, although quite apprehensive about K&P and the tree this year! Kalyan is going to absolutely love the lights and pretty shiny things and MIGHT be content to stare and point (his favourite things to do with lights and balloons) but Priya is bound to be in there trying to grab everything - I wouldn't put it past her to try and climb the thing! We'll see.
I'm still not back at work (loooong story and very frustrating, although I'm loving this stage with the twins so I am glad not to be missing anything) so we're on an even tighter budget this year but I have bought a couple of very cheap pieces from Wilko and TK Maxx. I have to say, TK Maxx is my absolute favourite place to shop for Christmas stuff!
1 comment:
May all your special things come your way. Wish you and your family "Merry Christmas". I am also excited for Christmas. This complete family looks amazing.
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