The Decorative Dreamer: Christmas

Showing posts with label Christmas. Show all posts

Monday, November 21, 2016

Hard Candy Christmas in the Kitchen

Hi sweet friends! Yes, this is really happening! I actually decorated the kitchen for Christmas today. If you follow my FB page you know that I have been struggling with getting in the mood. Today I was touch by the spirit, and decided it was time.

So without a lot of chit chat because honestly, I'm a bit tired now. Let's just jump right in and let me share my "Hard Candy" kitchen with you.

I'm calling it a Hard Candy Christmas because my kitchen is always decorated with a candy theme. I love the candy and gingerbread look for kitchens. It's just so warm and inviting as all kitchens usually are.

I started with my very thin pencil style Christmas tree and moved right on to the chandelier. Did I mention I also have a thing for elves in the kitchen?

Next, I worked on my shelves. They are so fun and I am enjoying changing them out regularly. I've got it set up pretty good but I've got a bit of tweaking to do. I need to paint the wood block for the background of my embroidered sign (it's going to be black) and I want to find a cute little mini candy type Christmas tree to replace the plain little tree beside Mr. and Mrs. Claus. I think they need their own miniature Candy tree as well!

Next I worked on spreading out a few of festive servicing pieces and positioning my baking Santa's around as well.

I had to set up an area to display more dishtowels. Oh mercy, do I ever have so many embroidered decorative dishtowels! I don't have my newest ones down from the sewing room yet, but don't worry they will make their way in the kitchen soon.

My newest addition to the kitchen is the adorable shabby framed chalkboard. I actually just picked this up recently on clearance at Kirklands and new exactly where I wanted to use it. I did'nt want to do the chalky scene for Christmas though I really wanted to just use it to hang a wreath on. I already had this wreath and was quite pleased to see it actually is sized just right. I was trying to figure out what to do with my adorable measuring spoons to display them when it hit me they would look so cute here on the wreath. Love it! I may add a few gingerbreads or other baking items to the wreath, or maybe not, still debating that one.

After it was all done, I vacumed and mopped the floors. What an enjoyable day to listening to Christmas music on Pandora, smelling my melted candles and now wrapping up the evening with homecooked Chili from the hubby. Whew! I'm tired, but my kitchen is all decorated now and it's all clean too. Now that's not really the true meaning of a hard candy Christmas is it? I know, so maybe I'll rename it my Sweets for my Sweets Christmas kitchen. LOL!

Thanks so much for stopping by, and wishing you the spirit of Christmas soon!

Hugs and Waves!

Mary

Tuesday, December 22, 2015

Silver and Gold Christmas Dining Room

Were in full celebration mode here at The Decorative Dreamers house, how about you? We've already started the celebrations at our house last Saturday after hosting Christmas for my husbands side of the family. It was so nice to be able to see everyone and to have been able to do so without being stressed from work this year. I love working retail and I do miss working, but I have to say that it has really been a blessing time of year. I have been able to slow it down and focus on the little things and that has meant quite a lot to me and to my husband as well. He always takes the week before Christmas off and is thrilled to have me home with him this year. He also has always been one of my most treasured blessings!

My dining room is one of my favorite rooms in this house. I love it for so many reasons. One reason is because of the location of the room in this house. It is to the left when you enter our home as most dining rooms are but because our house sits so much higher then the street when you look out of the windows it overlooks the whole yard and just feels so open. I also love that it has another door that leads into the kitchen. Because the view is so enjoyable I have never put blinds in this room. I do finally have curtains but since this room is so rarely used they always stay open

I also love that this room is large enough to accommodate a big table which I now finally have. It has enough space for additional pieces of furniture for serving as well as a Christmas tree too. When I started this tree it was primarily to showcase my collected Lenox ornaments. I started collecting one of them each year starting when my husband and I first married. That was in 1988 and we now have quite a full set. I decided they would be best complimented with silver and gold and so the dining room tree came to be.

This year I added the gold angel wings that I got from after Christmas sales last year. I actually had forgotten I had them until last week when I came across them while organizing my Christmas decor storage. They are quite large and really pretty but I think they would have been better if I had put them on first so they would be more in the background. I do love them though!

I read a blog this morning that talked about focusing on details this Christmas. Not necessarily with regards to decor but with regards to special visions that create wonderful memories. I loved this bit of advice. I really want to do this not just for the holidays but for everyday!

I couldn't believe my luck when I went out just last week to find a new tablecloth to fit my larger table. I found exactly the color and size I wanted at the first place I went to. It is an off white color with silver metallic threads throughout. I love TJ Maxx! I thought for sure they would have been sold out already but I guess since it's larger in size I was still in luck.

Speaking of silver, this year I even made time to polish the silver. Now mind you we will not be using this silver tea set but since I was polishing my silver serving pieces I decided to polish this set up as well. I love how shiny and sparkly it is!

Our marble buffet table also sparkles as well this year. It's the perfect place to display my Fitz and Floyd. I love unwrapping these pieces every year!

I actually have used this tray several Christmas's to serve ham. I think I may have to retire it from serving duty though because I noticed it is starting to loose some of it's coloring around the edges. I just can't bare the thought of seeing it all worn and rubbed off, but gosh the ham sure does look good served on this pretty platter!

I purchased this manger scene from the Atlanta market this year. It was from a vendor who sold handmade ornaments from Peru. They are just spectacular. Can you imagine making this by hand?

Okay, I just have to share this little tidbit tip I used this year. Early in the season even before I set out any trees or Christmas decor. I pulled several pieces of my silver serveware and displayed them in a utensil dish. I did this so I would see them and remember to get them polished before company came. I am so glad I did this. I had them in another utensil caddy then switched them over to this one since I needed the caddy for silverware. I already had this metal container and then I found a glass container I already had as well that fit perfectly. I love this look and it matches a larger metal piece that I usually use on the dining table for floral displays year round. I think I will now keep my serveware out and handy all the time now. That way it gets used as well as serving a decorative look appropriately in the dining room.

I hope you have enjoyed the tours of Christmas this season. I hope to do more blogging again now that I more time to do so.

QUESTION: I have a bit of a dilemma that I hope someone will help me with. My son has restored one of my older more expensive laptops that crashed many years ago. It is now totally restored and free of any old pictures and virus's too. I could use it again to blog but am very concerned to do so since I have been through several laptops that mysteriously developed virus's that caused them to crash totally. I have also recently deleted several blogs I followed because they were causing my blog feed to be filled with strange blogs that were not only phishing but some that were x-rated. I currently use a chromebook but am unable to use photoshops (Picasa) on this without a great deal of hassle. I have been using my phone for photos and my blogger app to post them, then editing the words on the blog with my chromebook. If I go back to my laptop I can use my camera for better photos and be able to edit them and tag them as my property which is important to me. The question I guess I have is how can I prevent these virus's from creeping in again. I am hoping some of you will take the time to share what measures you use to prevent this from happening. I am interested in hearing what you do not just with malware but with anything you can do on blogger to prevent this as well.

As always, thanks so much for stopping in again today. I really appreciate it and hope you'll come back again sometime if you'd like.

Most importantly,

I want to wish each of you a very Merry and Blessed Christmas!

Jesus loves you!

Friday, December 21, 2012

Christmas in the Dining Room

Whew! Baby, it's cold outside! Just in time for Christmas too. Yay! I just realized I haven't shown you all my tree in the dining room this year. Soooo, since it's getting late and I need to rush out the door I thought I'd show you some photos without alot of chatter.

I've been playing with Picasa and thought this looked kinda snowy and nostalgic.

I have a silver gold and ivory tree in the dining room. This year I drenched it a little extra with the white opaque tinsel.

My dining room tree was started to highlight all of my lenox ornaments that I have collected since my husband and I were first married.

This is my newest ornament this year. I got them from work at Stein Mart. They are very heavy and are stainless silver with lot's of bling!

This was an old ornament I rolled in glue and glitter to revive it years ago.

I love my tree in the corner here. It's wonderful to dine by when the family is all gathered around celebrating Christmas dinner. I highly recommend a tree in the dining room if you haven't done one yet. It's a great feeling!

Have yourself a merry little Christmas yall!

See ya again soon!

Monday, December 10, 2012

My First Nautical Christmas Tree

Hey Yall! Did you catch of glimpse of my newest tree on the last post? I guess you could say this year I've decided to test the waters a bit with a new "to us" Christmas tree.

I've had a very small tree I've put on the screened porch for a few years now but this year I decided to put the slightly larger tree that I use upstairs on the porch. I also decided it was high time I started a nautical theme. I always see such cute nautical ornaments while on vacation and never get any because I've never thought they would look right on my trees.

Well, all that has changed now that I've finally given myself permission to add a new tree to my collection. And what better place to put a nautical tree then on my screen porch.

I decided to try this one out here to see how well it would tuck right in beside the hammock. This is sort of a test to see if I want to get a larger tree. I think it's passed the test with flying colors. I love it!

Of course a nautical tree just had to be blue right? This is the first time I've done a tree with mostly blues. It's really been kind of fun!

I bought a few new things but used a few things I already had as well. These blue branches I used for the topper and throughout the tree came from Michael's. I got them at 60% off. I bet I'll find more of these after Christmas too.

The mermaid ornaments I already had. I will have to get more of those now for sure! Do you recognize the white anchor. It's the napkin rings I made 2 years ago. LOL! The ships wheel, fish, and other small wood nautical ornaments all came from the wooden crafts section at Michael's. They were all already painted too and all I had to do was hot glue the ribbons on to hang them with. Woohoo!

These balls where from Michaels and I knew I had to get them because they looked like fish scales to me. The little wooden boats I already had as well.

I decided to tuck my Sailing Santa right underneath. I think he will make a nice tree topper on a bigger tree, don't you? Hmmm??? Oh well, maybe next year!

Thanks for stopping by!

Have a great day friends!