Holiday Home Tour 2012

Every year I’ve wanted to do a post like this, but every year, I am in a total state of chaos leading up to Christmas and don’t feel like I can let anyone enter my home. It is usually a work in progress like it was in this post. That is why one year, I blogged about my friend’s house instead.

But there is nothing like forced cleanliness to help me get my behind in gear. We hosted my niece’s baby blessing at our home last weekend and with some help from the baby’s mom and grandma, I was able to get my house ready for guests–at least the bottom floor. Here are some pictures I took of the holiday decor adorning my home this year…

This is the closest my outside lights have ever come to filling my vision of what they should be (and I did most of it myself!) We DIYed a paver walkway this year (never got around to blogging that), but I new I wanted to line it with Christmas tree lights. These are just tomato cages staked to the ground and wrapped in lights. I might invest in more lights for next year.

I used the same basic idea for the Halloween ghosts.

Welcome to my winter wonderland! At least that is the effect I am hoping you feel–though it is a bit difficult to capture in photos.

On either side of the mantle you’ll find one of my coffee filter/cupcake liner trees I managed to save from last year.

Our theme for this year is Marshmallow World. I would have loved to hang Marshmallows all over my house, but I knew my 2-year-old would find a way to eat them all (he is shoving his face full of Christmas candy at the moment).  So I settled for cotton balls threaded through fishing line and secured with a dab of hot glue (more of those in a minute).

I made the snow ball garland out of mini cup-cake liners using a technique I learned from Rhonna Farrer.

You can make the balls any scale. Just change the size of the cupcake liner or use a coffee filter for a large puff.

Not the easiest picture to see, but I wanted to show you that we line the stairs in lit garland.

And also the formal tree. Doesn’t show up well back-lit in the daytime, but is covered in white, silver, gold and clear ornaments this year.

Here are the two main nativities I have displayed. I forgot to take a picture of the nook where I have all of the little nativities displayed.

Going into the family room, you can see the Nutcracker section.

…the other side of our fireplace (Yes! We have two sets of stockings). Featuring an early Christmas present from my sister–the J-O-Y blocks.

And the smaller family tree, loaded with colorful ornaments. Before our gathering I quickly made a small tree skirt for this tree, using nothing but coffee filters and hot glue.

Hopefully you can see how I put it together from these pictures. The top two pictures show the skirt right-side-up. The other two show the underneath side so you can get an idea of how I put it together. I took one filter and cut a whole out of the center and left a slit. Then I cut the rest of the filters in half and just glued them on top of each other to created the scalloped layers.

I have a very small Christmas village on display on the kitchen counter by the cereal station.

Grandma brought this little foam house kit to make with the kids one night. It is really cute and sparkly and has been the centerpiece on our table ever since–sitting on top of a Goodwill milk glass cake platter.

And above the dining room table, more cotton balls and snowflakes.

If I had had more time, I would have strung them up in even more places in my home. It really makes a fun effect to see the cotton balls floating in the air. Maybe one of these years when I don’t have a 2-year-old, we will really turn the house into a marshmallow world and string marshmallows, instead.

So there you have it! Have you posted about your holiday decorations? I would love to see them. Please leave me a link in the comments!