Young House Love

Home Decorating & DIY Tutorials

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Simple Christmas Decorating

Let’s talk about the festive-ification of various surfaces. Booyah. $herdog had some fun with the mantel… as she is apt to do. And since $herdog is also apt to share the play by play of her various surface-switcharoos with you guys, especially around the holidays, you better ho-ho-hold onto your hats. Because it’s about to get festive up in here. Spoiler alert: the console table and the built-ins weren’t safe either…

Mantel2

The mantel makeover was pretty simple, I hung our stockings by the chimney with care, and stacked some faux presents that I made a while back on the mantel (more on how I made those here). Oh and see that glittered stag at the top of Gift Mountain? That’s just a cheap-o Target ornament that we grabbed the last time we were there.

I got two so they wouldn’t be lonely.

Mantel3

And since I know someone out there thinks Burger got the short end of the stick since there are only three stockings… not true! Mommy and daddy did (because we share). Each of our precious kiddos get their own proprietary stocking.

Stockings Names

Then I shifted my focus to the console table by the door. This was another pretty fast and fun switch-out. First I brought out a few feather trees from our big tupperware container in the attic along with a little faux evergreen that I’ve had for half a decade…

Console1

… and then I shoved some silver ornaments into the glass-based lamp.

Console2

Then I dropped more ornaments into a bowl on top of some silvery-blue books…

Console3

… and stuck a ceramic partridge-ish bird into my glass dome along with a big green ornament to pick up the color in the trees, the art, and the console table itself.

Console4

Then I was feeling downright jolly, so off to the kitchen I went with my bag o’ toys holiday accessories to make a few Christmas-y kitchen tweaks. First I tossed up some hot pink ornaments that I had glued magnets to a few years back (more on that here) for holding holiday cards up on the fridge.

Kitchen1

And then I ho-ho-hoed my way over to the open shelves (wait, did that come out wrong?) and tossed a bunch of silver ornaments into the formerly empty cake plate that sits on the top shelf next to another somewhat partridge-ish bird.

Kitchen2

Then it was built-in time, baby. I just wanted to add a few little holiday-ish nods without redoing everything completely, so up went a few pops of red (which actually looks awesome with the deep teal color on the back wall of the built-ins) thanks to a few faux poppies, a red book, and a big round ornament. Tossing up an even bigger green ornament along with some silver balls in a hurricane at the bottom seemed to round things out nicely.

Shelves1

Then it was time for the other side, which got some red coral, a small knitted red cactus, more silver balls in another hurricane on the bottom shelf as well as a faux clam shell full of smaller ornaments up top, and a tiny little ornament in honor of Burger.

Shelves2

Let’s get a little closer, shall we? See that little crazy chihuahua ornament in the green bowl? Is he amazingly hilarious, or what? Cracks us up every time.

Shelves3

We actually similarly styled this side of the built-ins for a shoot back in October for R Home magazine. Since it was their holiday issue, they asked us to toss some festive holiday stuff in the background of the shot (which turned out looking like this, which is close but not identical to what we have going on now):

R Home Cover1

And as you can see from that photo, the little Burger ornament isn’t only entertaining to us. He actually helped us keep Clara’s attention just long enough to get this shot.

So now that I moved around the house decorating various surfaces, my list is looking a little shorter. Woop woop!

  • set up the big tree (gradient, baby!)
  • get a live tabletop tree again (like we did last year, but with a new ornament idea this year)
  • decorate the mantel, the built-ins, and the entryway console
  • hang our outside lights & decorate the front porch
  • shoot a Christmas picture of Clara & Burger for our annual holiday card 
  • make an advent calendar for Clara? Ahh I’m behind already!
  • shop for slash make all the gifts on our Christmas list (about 80% done already, can’t wait to cross this sucker off!)

Oh yeah you might notice that we also crossed off our annual Clara & Burger pic, which we officially have in the can. Can’t wait to share that with you guys after we mail it out and are sure our friends/relatives get it (don’t want to spoil the surprise, haha). And no, it’s not a pregnancy announcement Mom!

Who else is decking the halls? Any boughs of holly going on? Spill it.

Psst- You can check out a ton o’ holiday crafts/decorating ideas from the last five years here.

Update: You can check out all of our favorite holiday decor finds here – many of which are under $15! 

Comments

  4. Jess @ Little House. Big Heart. says

    Love the pops of pink on the mantel!

    Question: On your dining room built-ins under your ceramic rhino, you have a book with coral on the cover. What’s that book? I’m just a tad obsessed with coral right now and am looking for books to stack in my (coral and navy) bedroom.

    Reply

  6. Anne @ Planting Sequoias says

    We’ve been decking out our apartment for the last week and, I must say, it’s looking quite festive!
    One thing that always amazes me about you guys is how all of your stuff coordinates! Is that an aquired skill? I feel like lately my tastes are all over the place! (Traditional? SURE! Antique? SURE! Modern? SURE!)

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      I think it’s something we’ve honed in on over time! But you’ll be surprised how much you can layer (we have old antique plates on our built ins along with shiny modern things, etc). Just play around to see what looks good together!

      xo
      s

  9. Elaine says

    Oh, I’m decked, baby! A lot of my regular decor goes away the day after Thanksgiving and the Christmas stuff comes out.

    This year, I had a YHL moment. I have a metal candleholder shaped like a tree. I love it but it’s old and starting to look worn. Suddenly I thought, what would $herdog do? Spraypaint!! Next year, he’s getting a whole new look.

    Reply

  12. Melissa says

    Beautiful! I’m inspired to decorate when I get home tonight (after dinner, after the kids are in bed…). My husband (an amazing stay-at-home dad) is taking the kids to get a living tree today. I’m looking forward to making/painting some pre-fab wood ornaments with them.

    I was “late” with the Advent calendar this year too. No biggie. My son is 3.5 years old and doesn’t care. I made (i.e. copied) one I saw online. It’s a long Santa’s beard (topped with a Santa head and hat) on lined paper with the days counting up to 25. You/your child trims the beard one day at a time, so they have a visual indicator of the passage of time/getting closer to Christmas Day. He’s pretty good at cutting along the lines and asks to do it every night after dinner.

    Reply

  14. Megan @ Two Live Colorfully says

    I live how you shoved, dropped, stuck, and ho-ho-ho’d your holiday decor up this year. It inspires a really funny visual!!

    I super love the pops of red against the deep teal background! Festive without shoving your facing in a pile of holiday cheer!! Plus those colors remind me of the cute house cookies at y’alls book signings!

    Great job Sherry!!!

    Reply

  15. Evin says

    I’m saving my decorating for when I get to my parents’ house this weekend. Your book is waiting for me as is the annual ornament scavenger hunt. Ok, it’s just a hunt. My favorite thing to have out is a ceramic light-up tree that was in my Grandma’s house. Sadly, the nativity set got separated years ago when the manger was used for Barbie to go camping. Can’t wait to put some of your ideas into action on my parents’ built-ins!!! Happy Christmas!

    Reply

  17. Sarah | The Accidental Okie says

    1 – I love love love the ornaments on the refrigerator. Best Idea ever!!!!

    2 – You have an empire?!? That’s pretty impressive. It reminds me of the interview Beyonce gave where she said she didn’t want to have a baby until she’d built her empire. It’s so cool that you both succeeded! ;)

    Reply

  19. lornarachel says

    I love the little fake trees! I’m unemployed at the moment so we decided not to buy a real christmas tree this year but a friend of ours just gave us a lovely little fake white tree and a set of tiny baubles – I love him so much I consider moving him with me into different rooms as I move around the house!

    Do you have lots of boxes of unused ornaments/general decorative things that you store away and bring out when you want to do a reshuffle or decorate for a particular season? Does this mean you buy little things all the time even if you’re not sure how you’ll use them?

    (2nd blog comment – felt bad the last one was just in the hope of winning the Singer!)

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      We actually have a really simple system for storing holiday stuff so I’ll have to photograph it when everything’s down from the attic again during clean-up. We basically just have tupperware bins that are labeled (or color coded) for Christmas, so everything goes into them and they all come down for me to decorate, and anything we don’t use goes back into the attic (still in those bins) and then when we clean up we put things back into the bins they came from and get them all back into the attic. It seems to help just to have a few big tubs that we break out every year.

      xo
      s

  20. Linda says

    Your holiday decorating posts (for Christmas, Halloween, WHATEVER!) are the ones I always look forward to the most.

    I also blame you guys for my obsession with raiding the dollar section at Target last year to snatch up every glittery ornament set I could find to stash them in every bowl/vase in my house. ;)

    Reply

  21. Jamie says

    Love the holiday tweaks! Perhaps it’s the kick in the pants I need to finally (finally!) get excited about holiday decorating. Usually, I’ve got everything up by the day after Thanksgiving, but not so this year.

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      I have a theory that the warm weather is throwing people off. Do you have warm days going on? It’s hard to remember that Christmas is coming when it was 75 degrees yesterday!

      xo
      s

  22. Sandy says

    Okay, so I can’t get passed that you look a little like you are levitating in that magazine cover. I am sure it was just that you were rocking so high heels, but it makes me giggle every time I see it!

    Awesome holiday fun!

    Reply

  23. Monika says

    You guys manage to time your posts perfectly with my need for a break at work…thanks for being 5 minutes of “me time” during my busy mornings!

    We’ve done some basic decorating – outside lights and some fake pine garland twisted with white lights throughout the downstairs. The homemade gifts are almost finished, but there are still lots of cookies to be made!

    Happy Holidays :o)

    Reply

  24. Jeremy says

    Wow, it’s official. I can no longer read your blog while sitting at my work computer. My cube mates often wonder why I am laughing out loud only to come over and find me not working but reading your blog. Having said that, 3 of them now read it daily and when they hear me laughing log on themselves.
    I love when $herdog come comes out and starts talking about herself in the third person. Thanks for the laugh this morning (which came when I read that you “ho-ho-hoed my way over to the open shelves”) and the great decorating tips. My house looks more traditional then my taste, but it was my wife’s year to decorate for Christmas (yes we alternate years because we have completely different styles)! Merry Christmas!

    Reply

  27. Britt F. says

    I have the same EXACT Burger ornament (although he wasn’t named Burger until this post;)! I bought him for 90% off at a little boutique due to a huge gash in his belly. My boyfriend at the time thought I was crazy for buying a broken ornament, but I couldn’t leave him there all sad and busted. He still had a lot of pizazz left in him, so I paid my money and rescued him. Small world!

    Reply

  28. Jayme says

    I bought that same stag ornament a few weeks ago! He’s going to be the first in a collection of ornaments for my daughter. I’m buying her one a year until she is married and decorating her own tree!

    Reply

  30. Gabriella @ Our Life In Action says

    I absolutely LOVE the Christmas balls on the fridge. Not only are they cute, but really cool too!

    I took a break from decoratifying and snapped some Christmas pictures….I need more practice on the lighting but I think since I am a novice, they turned out pretty cute. :-)

    Reply

  33. Christy Davis says

    I can’t help but ask. . . Are you standing on your toes in the a magazine shot? I just giggled when I saw it. I am 5’10” but most of my friends are a head shorter. :)

    Reply

  36. JMB says

    Pulled out all the stops and decorated the first weekend of December. Then, last weekend, we had to pull most of it down/put it away because we got word that the person we hired to do some repair/finish work in the house for us could start this week! It was lovely while it lasted…and we still have the tree up, so all was not lost :o)

    Reply

  37. Desiree C. says

    Gah! I get so sad when I read the last line of your posts. I promise I’m not obsessed.

    Okay, maybe slightly!

    The holiday dazzle is great! And the gradient tree is a brilliant-beyond-brilliant idea! Is there ever a day where you guys have zero creative juices flowing? I feel like that never happens to you. And that’s a good thing.

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Aw you’re so sweet Desiree! So glad you’re enjoying our blog. As for zero creative juices days- we totally have those! And we get all freaked out since we kinda have to keep blogging since it’s our job, so there’s all sorts of weird pressure that we put on ourselves. But you know what? When we relax and just give ourselves a moment we’re more creative, so we’ve learned that staying calm and just keeping the momentum up (and the enthusiasm up) is so much better for our creativity than beating ourselves up about it. We like to say “keep calm and DIY on.” Hahah!

      xo
      s

    • heather says

      Here’s a creativity flowing tip that takes two people, and will hopefully make you and John both laugh in the process, especially if you’re stressed. I learned it from a cartoonist who spoke at a PR event I went to this year.

      Set a timer for 15 seconds. Each take a piece of paper and just let your pencil or pen flow over the paper in any variety of shapes. Now, switch papers and each person draw the very first thing that they see in the other persons drawing.

      It’s fun! My boss and I had to do it and had each other in stitches. I saw a ghost. One of the other people in the room saw a donkey with a sombrero and a cactus. It was so funny.

    • heather says

      (P.S. You draw the first thing regardless of all the lines. The key isn’t to use all the lines the other person drew, you just fill in what you see and ignore the lines that don’t work.) Have fun!

  38. John says

    Looks festive! Did some holiday decorating with silver balls hanging from silver beads in the picture window and fake poinsettias in the window box and planters. Found three window candles that recharge in sunlight and will last a good six hours.

    Reply

  39. Kay says

    I have a bad tendency to buy lots and lots of little metallic ornaments during the after Christmas sales at Target (they’re so cheap! And little! And cute!) and I’ve never been entirely sure what I should do with them…. until now! They will be made into ornaments! Thanks guys!

    Reply

  41. Kim says

    When our kids were younger they would get really sad that the Christmas decorations had to go away. So we started making paper snowflakes and hung those around our windows. They had fun making them, they were cheap, recyclable, and were appropriate through the end of January. They made the transition from tons of decorations to none (or just small valentine’s decorations) alot easier!

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      That was ours too! We just used that on the console in the hall instead this time around (we decorated for that shoot back in October and then tucked everything away again).

      xo
      s

  44. Kendra says

    What’s on Clara’s Christmas list this year? You guys should do a blog post about your 2012 gift picks for this year!

    Also, do you guys do Elf on a Shelf with Clara?

    Reply

  46. Chelsea @ Riding Escalators says

    Loving the decorations! We managed to get our little fake tree up (we don’t go all out since we spend the holidays with family), and I completed the look with our new decorations from our LivingSocial crafting party! My husband has already managed to break one though. Good thing we did three – otherwise he would have been sleeping on the couch!

    Reply

  47. kara @ launching our life together says

    Love the pops of red to your bookshelves. I added some festive stacked books to our mantel, and my husband was all like ‘Why is Water for Elephants on our mantel?’….because it’s red my dear.

    How do you hang your stockings? I haven’t found any stocking holders I love yet, so in the meantime we’ve scotch taped the loops to the mantel. Classy, I know.

    Reply

  48. Mary Ellen says

    Hi Sherry,
    I was opening my email this morning and look what Amazon sent me http://bit.ly/URSF3G The book was part of their holiday ad. You guys are too cool for school! I am so proud of you guys, and cant wait to meet you when you are in the Atl next year. I hope it will be a Bower Power/YHL book signing. Katie can provide the entertainment.

    Mary Ellen

    Reply

  49. Laura says

    Love all the decorations! Do you add the cup hooks for the stockings on the mantel just for Christmas? Or are they up all the time? We don’t have our stockings up right now because the decorative stocking holders we have are too dangerous for my inquisitive toddler (could fall on his head if he pulls the stocking). So I’m thinking of putting in hooks, but I am afraid of accidentally damaging the mantel.

    Reply

  50. CrayolaJW says

    I made some biscuit tree decorations, which was pure procrastination, I should have been sorting out presents! Was fun though and the best bit is that they are edible!

    Reply

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