Category Archives: Holiday Decorating

Happy Holidays! A Night & Day House Tour

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Happy Holidays All! No matter how you celebrate the season, I hope you are having fun! Here is our new home all done up for the holidays. It is scaled back quite a bit since moving into our new (and much smaller) home, but I just can’t let go of my Maximalist leanings 🙂 Long-time followers of the blog will recognize most of our decor from the old house recycled in new ways for the new.

The only “new” things this year are the fresh wreaths and garland from trusty ‘ol Trader Joe’s, our adopted curb goose we brought home to live with us last year, and new sequined ribbon on our tree (75% off from an after-the-holidays sale at Neiman Marcus).

First, the Outside.

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Holidays at the New House Part Deux…plus the First Big Project!

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HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

As promised, here is the outside of the new house gently done up for the Holidays. You may recognize the decorations from previous years at the old house, all recycled here this year. The one new addition is our delightful Christmas Goose, a curbside find (ie: free) here in Salt Lake City a few weeks ago. I’ve named him Gustav the Goose (yea I know, I’m a dork :-). He is lit by a section of led rope light. (I just poked it up through the hole he has in his feet 🙂

Also FIRST BIG PROJECT REVEAL!  We had new steps and a gate put in a couple weeks ago. We love what it does for the entry to the house both functionally and aesthetically. We are planning to add wall caps to the new concrete walls as well as paint the house a coordinating grey in the spring and will also refinish the deck. Here are the before and afters, during the day and at night.

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We Moved! First Holiday in the New House…

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2 months ago we moved from Denver, Colorado to Salt Lake City, Utah. It’s been a crazy whirlwind but we are finally starting to feel settled in our new city. There is still a ton of work to do, lots of painting, wallpaper, landscaping etc. etc., and of course I will be blogging lots of “Before & After” projects as things progress. It’s been a big challenge as we have seriously down-sized (the new house is much smaller) and got rid of at least half of our stuff in the move. It’s been good for us 🙂 Even though I havn’t had time to do any painting yet, I just had to get some holiday decorations up. It’s definitely scaled down after our over-the-top Denver Victorian, much more streamlined. On the bright side, I can do it in a day instead of the 2-3 days it took in the old house. You’ll see that most of the decor has been “recycled” from the old house. The only new holiday stuff are some stunning flowers and fresh greens from good ol’ Trader Joe’s (I wouldn’t have moved here if SLC didn’t have a TJs 😉  I spent a total of just $29 on 3 bunches of flowers, a bunch of greens, and cedar garland, and got enough goodies to make 3 flower arrangements and had enough greens left over to spread around the house. Oh and a tried a couple waxed amaryllis bulbs on the dining room table (also from TJs, $7.99 each) and I love them! Zero maintenance, perfect. TJs is the BEST place for flowers!

 

I will get pics of the outside in the next couple of days. In the meantime, enjoy. Happy Holidays!

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The entry to our house is actually what was originally the back of the house. Long story, but they apparently moved the street some time ago, so we live in the Backwards House 🙂 For now our front door is a sliding glass door ( we may change it to French doors in the future). The front room serves as an entry and my art studio. More pics in the near future, I promise. holidayhouse2017o

I spoiled myself with a lovely flower arrangement and an orchid on my desk. (all from TJs) It’s the perfect spot to work at, with a view of the yard and the city and mountains to the West.

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Happy Holidays House Tour 2016 – Outside

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Happy Holidays all! As promised, here is the outside of the house this year, scaled back from previous years but still festive and fun. (See he inside here: https://atomic-temporary-47873803.wpcomstaging.com/2016/12/23/happy-holidays-house-tour-inside-2016-with-helpful-hints-tips/ It’s all multi-color lights out front (the secret to a mish-mosh of decor items, a cohesive color scheme). Nothing new this year, just a few things moved around. Everything is either alley finds or thrift store scores collected over the years.

At night, all sparkly bright 😉 My favorite is still the bubble lights, I’d cover the house in them if I could…

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Happy Holidays House Tour, Inside – 2016 (with helpful hints & tips)

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2016 has been a rather mad year (broken foot in March, graduating my tattoo apprenticeship in July, getting married in September, hubby’s surgery in November, and that crazy election). I am very much ready for 2017, but that won’t stop me from sending 2016 out with a good time. We have so very much to be thankful for…

I scaled back just a bit this year (I know, it’s still completely over the top 🙂 We now have a smaller tree (I’ll describe what I did below) and I left a few decorations packed in the basement this time.

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Holiday Decorating 2014, Part 4 of 4…Outside…It’s a Multi-Colored Good-Time Christmas, on a Serious Budget.

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Here it is Part 4 of the 4-part Holiday 2014 Decorating Series…Outside! Firstly, allow me to apologize for the picture quality. I use my iPhone and it just takes crappy low-light pics. Below are pictures taken both a dusk and after dark.

I changed things up a bit outside this year, as I managed to accumulate a decent amount of multicolor light strings over the last couple of years and decided to change the front to all multicolored. Every one of these light strings came from the thrift store, many of them new in the box, and most of them only a couple bucks. That amazing lit garland over the porch? The one with all the ornaments and multicolor LED’s? Believe it or not, someone threw it away! That, along with the lit wreath on the door, were found in a near-by alley. (This garland was inside on the stairs last year.) The tree in the yard was our old Christmas tree before we upgraded to the big one we have now. The tree next to the front door was yet another fabulous alley find. All the pine cones are leftover from previous years. The only new things are some assorted pine boughs I bought, which are in the pots and along the porch’s half-wall where the bubble lights are (yes, even those were found at the thrift store.)

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Elegant, Unique, and Sorta Victorian Holiday Decorating, Part 2, Christmas in the Main Room.

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Welcome to Part 2 of my yearly Holiday Decorating series, the Main Room! This is the room we go all-out in. It’s in the front of the house and can be seen from the sidewalk, and is where we wind up doing the majority of the entertaining, so it’s where most of the madness happens for every holiday.

I really didn’t add anything new, just a couple odds and ends I picked up at the thrift store since last season and some new glittered ribbons. If anything I actually toned it down a bit from last year. I do like to change it up a bit every year, using things in different spaces and in different ways, leaving some things in storage, and finding new goodies from my “stash” of supplies to add to the mix. Moving things around is the key to keeping it fresh and fun.

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To the right as you walk in the room.

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Elegant, Unique & Sorta Victorian Holiday Decorating (On the Cheap of Course), Part 1 of 4: the Entry

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The Holiday decorating is finally done! It only took me 3 days this year 😉 I really didn’t add anything new, just a couple odds and ends I picked up at the thrift store since last season and some new glittered ribbons. I do like to change it up a bit every year, using things in different spaces and in different ways, leaving some things in storage, and finding new goodies from my “stash” of supplies to add to the mix. Moving things around is the key to keeping it fresh and fun.

Today for Part 1 I’ll share the Entry Way. (The Main Room, the Outside, and Other Spaces are coming to the blog soon!)

I actually toned it down considerably from last year, when I had the stairs done in ornament-packed multicolor garland (which is now outside, you’ll see it soon!) This year, I stuck with my jewel-toned decor and just made a few subtle changes. I still used my favorite decorating trick, peacock feathers (sooo cheap and what a great visual impact! Find them in bulk on Ebay), but added some dyed teal ostrich feathers left over from a big party decorating job I did a couple years ago, as well as a new wired purple glitter ribbon I fell in love with.

Instead of adding tons of feathers all up and down the garland like I usually do, I just used them in groupings at the newel posts and center point. They are simply tucked into the garland (this is the same garland I’ve been using for about 7 years now, purchased half-off at Target the day after Christmas.) At the bottom of the stairs I also added a couple of strings of big purple Mardi Gras beads from my supply stash that I acquired from a party years ago. The new purple glitter ribbon is simply added on top and held in place by the wired garland.

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The view upon entering the front door.

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A closer look at the stairs. That’s one of our Dogvacay guest dogs, Cleo the Weimeraner, towards the top of the steps.

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Here’s a close-up of the newel post. Yes, that is a taxidermy peacock “Herman” to the right, one of my most prized possessions. He “lives” there year-round.

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This is at the bottom of the stairs, just to the left of the front door. The big lamp is simply adorned with a bit of gold glittered ribbon (I used more of it in the main room) and a sprig of fresh pine. In the mirror is a “sneak-preview” of the Main Room, coming to the blog next!

The Big Switcharoo…Halloween into Thanksgiving, Decorating Quick & Cheap.

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Halloween is over. Sigh. All the skulls and spiders and crows are packed away, (and the leftover candy has been packed away…mostly into my thighs ;-). It’s time to settle into the Fall, tone it down a bit, and gear up for the fabulous feast that is Thanksgiving. Here’s a look at what I’m doing for decor this year.

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