christmas tour.

Welcome to my Christmas-decorated house! I like crafting and decorating my house, anyway, but I really love to do it for Christmas. And since I promised my dad photos of this year's decorations, I figured I would go ahead and join The Nester's Christmas Tour of Homes, too. If you love Christmas decorating, you should definitely check it out (but read about my house first)!

Front Door

I don't really do much to decorate the outside of my house (which is surprising when you figure how much I do inside). This year it's just a wreath on the door, and candles in the windows (which are usually knocked down by Harvey as soon as I get them up).

This is the front door wreath - it's simple, but I like it. I wanted to include the bright blue ribbon after I saw Edie's wreath at Life in Grace (I even looked for a large K to paint, with no luck). I created the bows using this bow tutorial from Living with Lindsay - they're not perfect, but I'm pretty happy with them!


Living Room

My living room is definitely the room where I go all out, and this year I actually cleared out the bookcase completely so I could display even more. These are most (not all) of my Christmas dishes, with a few frames that I love, that still need pictures (and did last year, too). When I finish wrapping gifts, I'll add those to the top.


Rather than lay the garland on top the mantel, I decided to hang it below this year, so I'd have more room across the top of the mantel. I got the window from my friend Victor, who was replacing all of the windows in a house, and brought me ALL of the old ones. (Seriously, there are 30 different windows in all different sizes in my garage right now, including a HUGE picture window that I can't wait to fix up). I made the wreath myself, using wool yarn, a foam wreath form, and a glue gun (and I actually have a glue gun burn to prove it!).


I bought another tree this year (using Christmas gift money from my grandma). It's pre-lit and comes in three sections, rather than having individual branches that need to be sorted and attached to the "trunk" one by one - so much easier! My main living room tree is always a collection of souvenir ornaments, and it's full!


Every year, I buy ornaments to symbolize EVERYTHING I want to remember, so I'm always adding several to my collection. This is one of my favorites this year - I bought it in Russia in February.


I decorate these shelves a bit differently every year.


Normally, it houses my Precious Moments nativity, but I've never really liked it there as it's mostly white and gets lost on the shelf. This year, I moved it to the dining room, and instead am displaying the nativity blocks I cut (with Victor's help), painted, and embellished with vinyl silhouettes from SayItOnTheWall.com. (I also bought the silhouettes for this nativity story cube - its currently sitting on one of the cake stands in the bookcase).


The art was made by entering a bunch of Christmas words into Wordle. I played with the settings and colors until I had a design I liked it, then took a screenshot of it to save it on my computer as an image. Then, I just printed it out, attached it to extra scrapbook paper I already had, and placed it in one of the frames I usually use on this shelf.


Dining Room

Most years, I just add Christmas decor in and around my existing decor in my dining room, but this year I removed nearly everything that I normally display. The only thing I kept was the print I bought in Moscow. I added a new one I just bought at a Christmas craft fair in Frederick over Thanksgiving weekend - a print of Frederick's Baker Park and the Bell Tower in winter, by artist Harry Richardson.


The "Jesus knows me this I love" sign is a birthday gift from my friend Heather. I love it, but have had a hard time knowing where I wanted to display it - now I think this is where it will stay for a while.

My Precious Moments nativity works much better in here - the shelf is a better size, and with the wall behind it, the figures don't get quite so lost.


I made the table runner (I'm sure you can tell) using display curtain panels, hem tape, and hot glue. Someday I might dress it up a bit by adding trim to the spaces between each panel, but for now, I like it! The trees are sitting in a centerpiece box I made earlier this year. I also hung glittery ornaments from the chandelier.


Everywhere else

I kept things pretty simple throughout the rest of the house.

I have a small tree in the kitchen, tucked (almost) out of the way since the kitchen is so small, with small glittered cookie cutters as ornaments (I was inspired by the glitter ornaments at Centsational Girl). I also hung up a Christmas dish towel and pot holder.


I added a couple little things to the bathroom - a snowflake hand towel, Christmas books in the magazine basket, and a little snowman figurine on the shelf I made above the sink. Plus, I got out the holiday soaps from Bath and Body Works.

For my bedroom, I braided three strands of jute twine together to form a rope, attached it to the top corners of one the display windows, and hung the sand-and-shell ornaments I made two years ago.


And that's it! My house, all decked out for the holidays - and ready, except for last-minute cleaning, for the girls-only Christmas party I'm having on Friday. Now I just need to keep it clean until then!