Christmas wrapping ideas - rustic elements.

Can you believe it's only 3 days till Christmas?
We go walking at night and the neighborhoods are so beautifully decorated this year. The house is a joyous mess of lights, reindeer, the scent of pine and cedar, and ornaments, so many ornaments.  I just adore this time of year.

This year, I'm all about the rustic look and that includes presents wrapped in brown craft paper.  Have you ever done this?

I think it looks wonderful with simple ribbon, this year I chose a pretty gunmetal grey.

Maybe tie on a bleached pine cone or two. And how about some twine wrapped around and around?

I meant to cut some fresh cedar from the garden and tuck that in too.

Ah well, there's always next year!



Merry Christmas, my friends!

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[PS...you probably noticed I keep using my galvanized pipe garment rack for everything except garments, huh? I just can't help myself, it's such a great base to put stuff on]

Christmas tour of my parents house.

[Christmas vignette].

Hi lovelies!

I just returned to Portland from two weeks at my parents' house.

Their taste is flawless! And I was so charmed by the Christmas touches in their home, I wanted to share them with you. 

[of course I asked permission first! don't want to get put on restriction don't you know]

So last Spring my parents moved to this charming little town near Ft. Worth TX, called Granbury. 

It has a wonderful courthouse square in the old downtown, surrounded by shops and an opera house.

This is the courthouse on the Square:

[granbury courthouse at the Square].

Can you believe how wonderful? Those are Christmas lights at the top that stretch down to each corner of the Square.  I loved that shot so much I've already blown it up to 16x20 and framed it!

But I digress.  I'm meant to be showing you Christmas decorations at the house, I think.

This is the family room.  I love the elegance of the red berries in the vase, and the little vignette on the coffee table.

[lantern with lights near the fireplace]

The dining room has pops of red with more berries and a snowflake runner, as well as twinkle lights and chandelier greenery:

[I've already got dibs on this sideboard if they ever tire of it]

Love those battery operated twinkle lights! They're on flexible wire so they're super easy to tuck into tight spaces without seeing the bulky cord you typically have on Christmas light strands.

Their master bedroom even got in on the act!  With red and cream as the primary colors in their room, a red lumbar pillow and a wicker tray of berries add the perfect Christmas touch.

A snowy wreath with berries and plaid ribbon bring Christmas color to the dresser wall.  Oops I forgot to move the Christmas card box!

You might've noticed I didn't have a shot of a Christmas tree...unfortunately it got lost in their move so they'll be buying a new one.  Next year!

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free Christmas printables.

Hi friends!
One of my favorite-ist seasonal decorating tricks is to swap out the art in my frames.

Simple. Easy. Right up my alley.

So here are a couple of free Christmas printables for you. I made them 3300x4800 so they should print up pretty well at larger sizes. I usually print mine at Costco; when I uploaded them to Costco's online service I didn't get a resolution warning till I went above 16x20 in size.

To download the files:
right-click [or control-click] on the image and save/download the file. It should download the full size; please let me know if it doesn't and I'll fix it.

Merry Christmas!

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Christmas under glass - decorating with mason jars.

Happy December 1st, friends!

Did you stop to take a breath after Thanksgiving?

Or did you dive head-first into Christmas decorating?

It seems like the few weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas fly by so quickly, there's barely time to put up the Christmas decorations.  I tell you, a little eggnog latte really helps it along  :-)

I love decorating with mason jars and glass vessels. They really work well for snowy little Christmas scenes and they're so simple to do.

This year I did the very easy tree and epsom salt combo...

Then I decided to use one of my footed glass vessels and put a wee village inside.  The Dollar Store has some great miniature village pieces...churches, little houses, frozen ponds, and adorable bridges.

I picked up a beautiful church...and gave it a misting of my favorite color, Rust-O-Leum Champagne Mist. I tucked the church into my footed vessel with a little bottlebrush tree and some fresh cedar clippings from my garden:

[dollar store church sprayed with champagne mist].

Because I gave it only a light misting, you can still see some of the original colors under the Champagne. I like how it gives it a little more depth and texture than if I'd hard-sprayed it all over.

PS. Oh! That print! It's from the wonderful Noel Chalk Set at the Caravan Shoppe.


Wishing you all a peaceful and blessed Christmas,

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