Christmas Creativity

I know it's a little late, but I realized that I never took that chance to show off my Christmas decorations. It's probably because, despite how much work I put into them, I wasn't as happy as I thought I would be with the end result. I didn't dislike them, by any means. I just always felt like something was missing and I couldn't figure out what it was.

I did actually hand paint those letters... a much bigger ordeal than I originally imagined.

I am in love with these dishes!! They're my mom's, but she's collected so many Christmas dishes over the years that she said I could take them. So excited to finally have Christmas dishes!

Jarrod and I are actually starting to take the decorations down tonight. A little sad, but I think it's time. I'm excited about moving past the holidays and getting started on a new year. Time to pack away the holidays for another year.

My spooky setup

I've said before how I love any excuse to decorate and rearrange my house. That's part of why I love this time of year. Between fall, Halloween and Christmas, my house gets a brand new look every month!

And of course, decorating for Halloween is one of the most fun. I love fantasy and make-believe and Halloween to me is just another excuse to get to be a kid again. One of these days I want to have one of those crazy, extreme Halloween houses, with lights and smoke and sound effects and graveyards and tons of spider webs and on and on and on. But this may have to be something I do waaay in the future. Mainly because, I don't think we have the ideal house for something like that. While we've only have one Halloween here, from what I remember from last year, we didn't have a whole lot of older kids trick-or-treating. It was mostly the real little ones with their parents who wouldn't really appreciate a big display. Also, our house is on the street that leads up to the main road and we're only a few houses from the end. Even though we had a decent number of kids come by last year, I assume a lot of them probably turn around at the cul de sac down the street. But we'll see what happens in the future, once we have kids and holidays become an even bigger deal than they are now.

For now, I'm happy with my little decorations that I've put up. We've got some cute Halloween decorations outside, including a spider and his giant web and, of course, my little ghosty.

But what I'm really proud of is my Halloween mantle. I gathered lots of ideas from around the internet on Pinterest in order to come up with it.

My cousin and I searched everywhere before finding this fabulous candelabra at T.J. Maxx. That was the one piece I knew I had to have! And I have to admit, I'm pretty proud of my spider display, which I totally just made up and put together myself. Now I have to say, I've never been particularly crafty, but these past couple months I've been obsessed with little craft projects and I'm so pleased with how all of this came out. I even painted the "B" with a homemade crackle solution. Here's a better look at that:

It was my cousin's idea to do the googly "Boo" eyes. I'm very upset that I'm going to have to take everything down after tomorrow. I spent so much time putting together my Halloween display, I have no idea what I'm going to do for my fall mantle, until Christmas. But that's just another reason to redecorate!

Fall craft-time

Fall candy jars!

More craftiness coming soon!

Operation: Fall Decorating

Fall decorating is under way! As part of my usual Saturday morning house cleaning, I went ahead and switched out some of my normal house decor for some more fall inspired pieces.

I added in a couple of orange pillows. My sister and cousin kept telling me that I need to add more color to my house. I tend to stick to blues and greens. See my thing is this, I'm not a designer and I don't have a designer eye, so I tend to stick to what I know and try to keep a color theme constant throughout the house. But then a designer comes in and can see where I can add in accents and those other elements that us normal folk don't always think about. So they were telling me that adding in some coral and orange would be a good compliment. I was a little hesitant, but I took their advice and it really does look nice.

I also set up my fall inspired dining table! I've got my new table runner and my gold chargers and my jars set up that I plan to fill with candy - as soon as I get to the store and buy some!

I love this time of year when I have an excuse to redecorate. Eight months of the year the house is set up one way and then there are four months of fall and Halloween and Christmas to decorate again! I've had fun getting things rolling this year and I can't wait to continue setting things up over the coming weeks.

Here's what I've done so far...

Fall is here!

It's the first day of fall and it's raining, but I've got my boots and my Coach raincoat and a Pumpkin Spice latte to get me through it! I'm so excited this day is finally here. I've been stocking up on fall decorations for the past few weeks and have been dying to set some of them up, but I have this weird thing about putting out fall decorations before it's actually fall... just like I have a weird think with wearing boots or sweaters or jackets before it's actually fall.

But now the day is here and I don't have to worry anymore. Although I am very upset because I have been looking for a candelabra for my Halloween decor and I found the most absolutely fabulous one yesterday! But I get home and  find that it doesn't fit. I could've cried. But both my sister and cousin (who are both designer/decorators, by the way) say there's a way to make it work, so we'll see about that.

I am afraid, however, that fall decorating will likely have to wait until the weekend because I've got a hot date tonight. I don't live off of a credit card, but I do put most of my purchases on there and then pay them off at the end of the week, because that way I don't pay any interest, but I do get reward points. So every few months I get enough points to buy a gift card, so I always get one to a restaurant that Jarrod and I can use for a date night. Tonight, we're going to Bonefish and I am so excited to get to wear my new dress! It may be a little summery, but I ran out of options of wearing it in the summer, so tonight will have to do! I'm hoping the weather will clear up a bit so I can actually get all madeup without looking awful by the time I get to the restaurant.

So here's to a great fall and hopefully some 70-degree weather!