Deck the Halls...with Canning Jars and Burlap

I've run a little behind and a little ahead this week.  Normally I have the tree up by Thanksgiving night.  This year, no.  It was partly due to the fact that I was simply worn down  that evening but also that I needed to move some furniture about and no one was at home to help.

With the advent of December I want my home to begin to seem somewhat holiday-ish.  At this point the majority of the leaves are off the trees.  Landscapes are brown and gray and deep forest green and bleached wheat blonde.  It is time to say goodbye to the flame orange and red and deep burgundy of autumn.  Time to say hello to winter and in winter we celebrate Christmas.

I normally begin to gear up for decorating about Dec 10.  This year I've moved it up because we have our family party this weekend and I really wanted the children (grown up and small) to feel they had had a holiday experience.  I've seen some great ideas on Pinterest this year and on a few blogs like The Cultivated Nest.  First was this front door idea

Isn't that incredible?  The blogger painted hers to show them off against her white front door.  I left mine as they were, but might paint them white later.  I don't think I was quite random enough with mine here.

 
These were from Dollar Tree...I paid $3 for all of the snowflakes you see in this first picture.  There was at this point one large, 3 medium (sold in a package of three) and 10 small (sold in a package of 10) for $1 each. The blogger complained that her mounting tape didn't stick...Well mine more than stuck to the door.  I'll practically have to scrape the paint off the door trying to get the mess off.  I moved the ones on the bottom to the top half of the door.  Looks a little better I think.

You'll note the broken large ornament...Well it fell again this evening.  It isn't that the mounting tape doesn't hold well to the door, it lets go of the ornament itself.  It's been quite warm here too which may well contribute.   John really liked this idea and I'll definitely keep working with it to see how I can make it work.

I played about on the front porch for a bit.  The intent was to dress it up and make it pretty, too, but I started spray painting some things.   Maddie, silly dog,  knows full well when I'm painting that it will unsettle her mightily but she got plum high while I painted a small stool and a  shelf I want to use in the kitchen.  I had to stop painting because she got goofy acting, smiling, snorting, sneezing, and then looked at me with this huge grin while her eyes crossed.  Sigh...She was right as ever in a few minutes after I'd stopped.

It's pretty plain at the moment.  I'll add the Christmas tree holiday pillows to the chairs Sunday morning which will add a little something more to the porch.  Remember these?

I think they will look well with the wreath on the front porch window frame:

This is an area that needs a load of work.  Fresh paint, scaping, sanding...but it's not happening this week!  I'm worn out trying to do too many things at once.

I knew about how I wanted the mantle to look over all.  It's simple, a little earthy rustic.  Definitely farmhouse.  I like it but changes occurred all through the decorating process.  You right click your mouse on any photo and open in a new tab so you can see a larger version and better see the details.

I wanted to use the battery operated tea lights IN the jars, but I realized it was going to be a huge pain to take them out and put them back in again each time I wanted to turn them on/off.  So I settled for setting one behind each jar.  That is the yellow light you see in the photo above and the bright spot to the immediate right side of the left jar in the photo above this one.  It looks kinda neat but isn't by any means hugely bright.  I decided to bring out some of my old glass sherbert cups to use to hold real tea candles.  I like the effect better but each time I moved them near the jars it just looked crowded.   So the battery operated tea lights went away to be used elsewhere.

Eventually the smaller jars were moved to the buffet in the dining area. I used one of my big cookie jars with a Santa ornament and some bottle brush trees.  The 'snow' is rock salt.  Now the mantel looks like this and I think it's just right:

The buffet I like very well.  I wanted to use the dough bowl on the dining table but it's a big one, too large to fit the table and diners as well.  I moved the small canning jars to the buffet too and later transferred the items into wide mouth quart jars.  The hurricane in the midst of the greenery in the dough bowl is actually a vase with a candle holder inserted in it and a candle I'd used until it was about 1/3 it's original height.

I always have such a hard time photographing in this area of my home.  Here's a close up of one of the jars:

I have a centerpiece on my dining table but I loathe it.  It will go away.  At present I have nothing there but three votive holders in green glass.  Nothing to see or chirp over.

I decided that this year I'd use the old ice cream churn for my tree holder.

I used burlap ribbon to go around the tree.  The pinecone ornament you see above is one of only two sets of ornaments used on this tree.  The  pinecones are lovely glass things.  I bought them last year.  I also have several of these beaded birds:

You may have to enlarge the photo to see the bird to better advantage.  The birds are in shades of browns too.  

The tree looks a little one sided and skimpy in this photo...again it's a hard to photograph area.  The room overall is not light and bright but rather dark, yet the windows are so bright anything photographed near them tends to fade away.

John must have told me two dozen times how much he likes the decorations this year.  It's a good start  for this week I think. The only thing I really want to work with is the dining table centerpiece in this area for this week.  

Finally I kept the back door area simple.  I added this to the baby bed springs:

And used the same swag I had last year on the back door.  

I won't tell you I'm done.  I'd love to do a few things more but I've certainly managed to keep it very thrifty so far.  I've spent a whole $6 on new items (snowflakes and bottle brush trees and the subway art Christmas plaque) and liberally re-used items from years past.   

I culled my decorations really hard a few years ago and I've not bought much to replace anything, so I really am working with a very limited amount of stuff, so I feel pleased that I managed to pull together the decorations thus far.