I’ve added a few new decorations this year that I’m excited to share!

Gin bottle tree

While we were staying on Amelia Island, FL this past winter, we bought this gorgeous blue glass tree. Here’s the dirty little secret: it is made out of a gin bottle! The artist was minding the store when we went in and told us much more than we wanted to know, actually. It almost took away from the beauty of the item, but I’m so glad I bought it. And we miraculously got it home without breaking! It’s about 18 inches long and is really a beautiful piece of art.

I stumbled upon this cute little tree made out of magazine pages and had to have it for my office! It’s from Home Goods and I paid $12.99 for it. The secret was I got there the day they were putting out the Christmas decorations. Things tend to get a bit battered and bruised at Home Goods and TJ Maxx I think, but this made it into my cart right after it hit the shelves. I’m worried about how I will store it without bending the branches (that are rolled pieces of magazine pages).

The big new addition this year is the kitchen decorations! Last year I added a small tree to the kitchen and decorated it with food and cooking items. The room was still feeling sparse though. Last year my daughter and I went to a Christmas tour of homes and in one house they had beautiful decorations on the backs of their kitchen chairs. So this year, we’ve added that! My husband did all the work on this – I just gave direction. We bought silver ribbon (9 feet per chair) and he made them into bows (he watched a YouTube video to learn how). Then we attached a blue snowflake ornament to each (I can’t believe it, but I found these at Walmart – and they are jingle bells too which is kind of fun) and we added some faux evergreen (cut off from some extra garland). He attached it to the chair with 3M removable hooks. It looks amazing!

Next up, the kitchen chandelier. I originally planned to just put some garland on it, but then I found cute blue and silver star ornaments to attach. It has really dressed the space up.

I also decided the dining room needed some work. We have an old (as in rusted on the back side) wreath we usually hang on the wall in there and it has seen better days. I ordered two small preserved boxwood wreaths which we’ve hung on the sliding glass doors. We used ribbon to hang them (looped through the wire on the back) and velcroed them (with removable 3M sticky stuff) to the top of the molding above the doors.

So these are my new additions, all of which I’m quite pleased with. Have you added any new decorations this year?

I’ve added a few new decorations this year that I’m excited to share! While we were staying on Amelia Island, FL this past winter, we bought this gorgeous blue glass tree. Here’s the dirty little secret: it is made out of a gin bottle! The artist was minding the store when we went in and … Read more

no