Christmas Home Tour 2015

I’m excited to let you know I am participating in Jennifer Rizzo’s Holiday Housewalk Link Party. I’d love for you to stop by and check out all of the other amazing participants. 

 

I am truly so excited to celebrate Christmas this year. I’ve always had a deep love for the holiday and I look forward to it every year. I love creating a cozy and welcoming home for our family and friends. I love indulging in the many delectable holiday meals and heavenly baked goodies. I love Christmas music. I love the giving and cheerful spirit that is awakened in so many during this time of the year. I love hot chocolate. I love cheesy made-for-TV Christmas movies. I love spending time with loved ones. I love, I love, I love! I could go on for hours.

I tried to capture that magic through our Christmas home tour this year.

A few weeks ago, as I was preparing for the holidays I shared my Christmas inspiration with you. If you remember, I was very intent on creating a Classic Farmhouse Christmas. I envisioned simple holiday decor reminiscent of a classic farmhouse, with lots of rustic elements, fresh greenery and pops of red.

Well, things didn’t go quite as planned. I began bringing in elements that matched my vision, red ribbon, red mercury Christmas bulbs, even the most adorable wooden horse with red accents, but once it was in our home I just didn’t feel right. It all seemed so jarring and harsh, it just didn’t flow well with our home. I still absolutely love this vision, and so many of my talented blogging friends have decorated their homes with classic Christmas red this year and it looks amazing. Maybe I’ll try again next year.

Instead, I was drawn to the soothing and calm neutrals I love so much.

I wanted our Christmas tree to appear as if it was sprinkled with snow. A fully flocked tree was not in our budget this year, so instead I made do with what we had. Inspired by my sweet friend Lucy at Craftberry Bush I came up with a creative way to get that “snowy” look for less. I’ll be spilling all of my secrets for a beautiful and snowy Christmas tree later this week.

I’ll always remember the look on our sweet Zoe’s face when she saw our Christmas tree for the first time.

I kept our bookshelves simple this year, so they didn’t compete with our Christmas tree. I always find it challenging to find the perfect balance between bare and cluttered. But these bookshelves that flank our TV are my favourite spot to decorate. I love displaying family photos and mementos and vintage finds, mixed with trendier items from big box stores.

This year I styled them with vintage books and canning jars, lanterns, framed photos and a few simple Christmas ornaments.

Our open concept living and dining room is the perfect place to host large family gatherings and holiday parties. But when we aren’t hosting company, our dining room becomes my wrapping command centre.

I corral all of my wrapping essentials in this beautiful vintage-inspired DIY toolbox (you can find our tutorial here). I have a comfy space to spread out and wrap all of those Christmas gifts while still being close to my family (and the TV for all of those sappy Christmas movies I love so much).

I don’t like to spend a lot of money on holiday gift wrap. I collect beautiful wrapping paper I find throughout the year, sticking to solid colours or basic patterns, like polka dots and stripes. And I always incorporate a few packages wrapped in simple brown kraft paper, it’s inexpensive and practical.

My favourite part of holiday wrapping is adorning each gift with pretty ribbon and topping it off with a personal embellishment, like a mini boxwood wreath, Christmas bauble or tiny stuffed toy. It’s that extra something that adds just the perfect touch of whimsy.

Behind our dining table sits a simple glass-door hutch. It’s where I store our many pieces of white tableware. I had fun adding a few subtle Christmas touches here this year.

I added in a few silver deer antlers, oversized Christmas balls, mini boxwood wreaths and boxwood sprigs.

I created these sweet and simple DIY Christmas Countdown/Advent Calendar bags this year (you can find the tutorial here), along with a Free Christmas Countdown Advent Printable (you can download it here). I love the way these looks strung along the garland on our stairs.

Around the corner is the heart of our home, the kitchen.

We spend a lot of time in here, chatting, cooking and of course, eating. We put a lot of time and effort into creating a beautiful kitchen that we can enjoy (you can read all about that here).

So I always make sure there are a few subtle Christmas touches in here too, like this cute little DIY Frosted Miniature Christmas Tree perched on top of my vintage scale.

And I can’t forget to mention our love of baking. This weekend we threw together a batch of my favourite Christmas cookies, melt-in-your-mouth Whipped Shortbread. If you need some motivation to start your holiday baking, check out this list of 25 of my favourite holiday cookies.

The last stop on our Christmas Home Tour is our bedroom.

This year we tackled a major bedroom makeover to create a vintage farmhouse retreat. I love how cozy and charming our bedroom feels now, and I had so much fun adding a few little touches of Christmas here and there.

I can’t get enough of these vintage snowshoes. Aren’t they the perfection addition?

That wraps up this years tour. I am so thankful that you joined us here today and I hope you found a little bit of inspiration for your own home this holiday. I’ll leave you with this sweet photo of Zoe and her daddy reading my favourite Christmas book, ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas.