Author: Brianna

A Blogging, DIYing, Crafting, Database Querying, Mama. Learn more: Our About Page
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Christmas Mantel: Snowy Woodlands

Despite the cloudy, rainy mess our December is turning out to be, I was more in the mood for snow. Perhaps I needed the peace of snow falling in the woods after my shiny dining room and busy Christmas schedule. To be sure, I kept the sparkle to touches of shimmer. Let us take a look at the snowy woodland inspired mantel.

I know you should never lead with an apology, but excuse these photos. It seems we will never have another sunny day in which I can photograph my decor.

To create the upholstered/snow draped mantel I placed batting under white seersucker fabric. Those lovely corners? Yeah… I cut and pinned those because I was too lazy to walk downstairs and sew. I figure temporary display merits temporary seams. To offer some contrast to all that white I added fake alpine trees and collected pine cones. I also found some decorative cinnamon sticks (i.e. decent scent but not good for flavoring) I had squirreled away with last years decorations. They worked great to cover the bases of the trees in lew of a tree skirt.

I did want some shimmer so I took these dollarstore candle holders from last year, brushed a little white glue on the tops and rolled them in Epsom salt mixed with a pinch of clear glitter. I had planned on disposing of the candle holders after this Christmas since the candles are stuck (and they were only a dollar) but I may have to find a way to hang on to them. I love the subtle shine!

Again I am a huge fan of using what I already have on hand to create a new display. My wardian case became a candle holder in the fireplace, plant pots and baskets got co-opted to create stands for the candles and display pine cones. The snowflakes hung from the dining room chandelier last Christmas. Only the snow ball trim was new and at $2 per 30 foot roll I spent a total of $4 bucks.

While not shown (I’ll be doing the great Christmas reveal next week) the Christmas tree will sit next to the mantel and bring in a little more sparkle to the scene. As a hint, it will involve home-grown crystals to make an icy complement to the snow.

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Red & Silver Christmas Table Setting

Today’s holiday table setting is based on red, silver, gold, and mirrored shine. This Christmas tablescape utilizes only a few items, but gives a sense of elegance and expense through the use of mirrored surfaces, warm lighting, and holiday shimmer. Enough with the chit-chat and catalog description let us take a look:

You might recognize some of these tablescape elements from earlier Christmas table decor. Since that table setting utilized a lot of live moss and twigs I wanted to create something that could make it through the whole holiday season without constant maintenance.

So instead I utilized a tiered serving piece as a table centerpiece. Filled (very carefully I might add) with glass ornaments in red, silver, and gold with added sparkle from mirrored accents set around the dish. Using the same glass ornaments, red glass birds, and lights I made a holiday tree out of branches to set in the corner, and mask the fact I still haven’t placed any artwork in the dining room. Let’s take a look at some accents:

I (and my bank account) personally like to reuse Christmas decorations from previous years. The table runner and napkins were from Target in 2010. I have amassed the collection of glass ornaments mainly for a few dollars here and there at Goodwill. I have a thing for glass, however I also have cats and a toddler… It is necessary to get my glass ornaments in the least expensive manner possible i.e. dirt cheap. On the note of cheap, I used a scarf layered under the table runner to add a little more red and pattern to the table.

The crystal candlesticks were a gift at my wedding. I have to admit at 23 I was kind of like WTH? is up with these fancy-schmancy candlesticks. However, 23 year old self was a douche! I have used these puppies over and over again. Nothing elevates a look like shimmer from crystal, silver, and gold.

My favorite thing about this table decor? Even when I remove the place settings and just leave the center runner and decorations it works great with our everyday meals, plus I’m not stuck misting moss everyday.

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Camping Birthday Party

Recently we celebrated my sons 2nd, 2nd birthday. Meaning his wonderful relatives in Durham had already had his and his cousin a joint 2nd birthday party. Of course I have next to no pictures of the first or second party since I get so caught up in the moment I forget to take pictures of the decorations. Suffice to say that both events were lovely! Since I had mentioned my idea to throw McClain a camping themed birthday party I thought I would share the very few pictures I had the presence of mind to take.

I made a simple “Happy Birthday” banner by enlarging the Pinewood font and cutting out the letters on my Silhouette craft machine. For a rustic camping look I clamped them to some hemp twine and strung them between branches I anchored in buckets on either side of the buffet table. While the color is washed out in the photo I used blue, red, and green embroidery floss to make friendship bracelet tassels.

We moved all the furniture to the edges of the room to open up play space for the kiddos and places a tepee in the corner near the fireplace. My mother let me borrow a number of plaid and striped wool camping blankets to use on the floor and as throws. Here she is enjoying one with McClain in the tepee.

Chocolate and vanilla cupcakes were topped with moss (green sugar in two shades) and woodland characters. I have to say I used my Silhouette again to find these cute little animals and cut them out. However, there are plenty of cartoon forest creatures available as free clipart you could use. Just print them out and mirror the other side. Then match the two sides and glue to a toothpick.

Here is a detail of the cupcake toppers. I also set (high above the children) candles, with various birds and moss. While not shown, I used mess-kits to serve many of the snacks and lanterns as decorations. The menu kept with the theme by serving campfire chili, cheese log, and smores icecream sandwiches.

McClain’s favorite part besides the obvious attention and presents was a toss up between the tepee and the cupcakes. Though for pure family use I’m going to have to go with the tepee. We kept it up for a week and everyone, including the felines, enjoyed their time sitting in it.

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Snowy Woodland Tablescape

I created the following place setting and tablescape for tomorrow’s Centsational Girl/Homegoods Holiday Tablescape Contest. Well I created it for that contest and for my own Christmas decorations.

The inspiration for this particular project was the snowy woodlands of Western North Carolina. But enough chit-chat let us take a look and we can discuss more after a few photos.

 

The idea was to design a tablescape that embodied the spirit of Homegoods based on style, affordability, and creativity. I hope I achieved all three. I actually went to Homegoods/TJMaxx to scope out what they were doing for the holidays. I wrote about their trends here and then went ahead and followed none of them.

While, it was NOT even implied you needed to purchase a product from Homegoods I happened to fall in love with the tiered display item I used as a centerpiece. I’m not even entirely sure what its intended use is, but I loved the fretwork and patina, which immediately put me in mind of the outdoors. Since the cold weather at Christmas leaves us stuck indoors, I thought it would be great to bring the outside in. Live moss, old branches, vines, and fluffy snow decorate mirrors that mimic the cool streams of the mountains. Glass cardinals give a nod to North Carolina (State Bird) and add some pops of color for Christmas. Here are some more details:

 

You’ll have to be the judge as to creativity and style. However, I can attest to the affordability! Most of the tablescape is constructed with items my son and I gathered while wandering the neighborhood. I already had plates, red glass balls, some mirrors (candle mirrors), and fake snow (from a previous Christmas). I really only purchased the tiered stand, some new napkins, and the glass cardinals. Altogether it was much less than $50 and I have plans to reuse the stand all year long.

If you would like to construct something similar here’s a quick guide to how I created the tablescape.

  1. I laid out the main objects. The white “runner” is a cut open trashbag. I wanted to use the bare wood of the table but protect it from the damp moss and branches. You can see my “helper” supervising in the background.
  2. I wanted an organic centerpiece so I cut the plastic to both wrap around and touch certain place settings. BTW, if you hadn’t noticed there is a two year old helping me create this. So I can attest the main layout doesn’t take long at all.
  3. I took various types of moss, lichens, and branches and laid them to follow the curves of the outline and act as stream banks for the mirrors. In case you worried we only gathered small sections of moss since it takes forever to grow. I wanted to make sure not to denude the neighborhood. Most of the moss will get replanted in a few weeks too.
  4. I filed in the open areas with snow. I tried to mimic the natural way snow lands and melts to let some of the landscape show through.
Not shown: Other steps involved adding my red accents, switching out various colors of dishes. Though I only own one set of fine china, and an everyday set of white and green. So there wasn’t much in the way of trading the plates out. I took the red napkins and twisted them into bow shapes to place in the bowls instead of using traditional napkin rings. While, offsetting the plates to give a modern edge to the tablescape. Finally, I want to note that I had some store bought vines and lichens (from previous crafting projects) that I used on the plates and chair decorations. I figure guests want to enjoy nature without tasting it.
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Color Schemes: Color Wheel Basics II

Tuesday we looked at the basics of a color wheel (Part I). Today we are going to jump right in and look at the theory used to select color schemes. Don’t despair if many of the colors we use today are a bit bright! We’ll touch on how to use the theories we learn and apply it to real life design next week.

A Full Color Wheel

To fully flesh out our color wheel we need to add tertiary colors. These colors are made from mixing the primaries and secondaries. For example:

red + orange = red-orange (such fancy names)

blue + purple= blue-purple

As a side note when naming tertiaries the convention is to use the primary first and hyphenate the secondary name, as in yellow-green not green-yellow.

Using the full wheel we can illustrate a number of different ways to pick color schemes.

The Triad is Not Just a Shadowy Agency

Triad color schemes rely on make an equalaterial triangle through the middle of the color wheel. For example red, blue, & yellow are a triad, and also used heavily in children’s color schemes.

In this particular triad I have picked a trio of colors that are reminescent of schemes based on the colors of India.

Simply turn the triangle and use the ends as pointers to get a triad color scheme.

Tetrad; Yeah I Didn’t Pay Good Attention in Geometry Either

Tetrad color schemes involve choosing four colors. Instead of a triangle we’ll use a square as the pointer in the color wheel.

In this case the four colors would be, well very bright. But as I described above we are working on theory here:

I promise it will come together to allow you real life design inspiration next week. Though the above color scheme reminds me of some of my outfits in the 1980’s if we want a real life example today.

Other Schemes of the Color Variety

There are a ton of other ways to use the color wheel. Each have a rather fancy name like analogous or split-complementary color scheme. This wikipedia article has good text descriptions of many different types of schemes.

Tune in next week when we wrap this series up by looking at how you can use these color theories to pick out a scheme to fit your next event.