Monday, December 15, 2008

Holiday House Party Time!

Update: Kimba at A Soft Place To Land is hosting a house party too! Join in the fun!

Not one, but two great blogs are hosting holiday house tour parties today! Visit Hooked On Houses and Boo Mama for lots (and I really mean A LOT!) of beautiful house tours. It's a wonderful way to get ideas for your own holiday decorating - plus, you get to look inside everyone's houses!


Welcome to my home! Here is the front door:


It is probably terribly rude of me, but the first room I'm going to show off is the hall bath. This year is the first year I've gone all out to decorate the bathroom and I love the way it turned out! The shower curtain & accessories all came from Kohl's.




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When you walk into the foyer, there is a plant shelf on the right:


One of my favorite things about the plant shelf is the electrical outlet. The builder of the house installed an electrical outlet hidden at the base of the shelf that operates on a light switch. This allows me to put lots of lighted and moving decorations up there without showing any cords!

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Opposite the plant shelf I have a small dresser and antique chair:

I decorated the mirror with holly garland from Joanns, a Nativity set and candles. This year was all about using things I already have, so I put an old velvet table runner under the decorations.

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At the other end of the plant shelf is a little decorative niche:

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The living room is our designated "Disney Room" at Christmas (my family is a little Disney crazy!). We have one tree that is solely devoted to Disney ornaments. Each year the kids get matching ornaments from Disney World and we have one of the Disney artists sign them with the child's name & year. The rest of the ornaments are ones I've collected from Hallmark over the years. Please pardon the unsightly cord!

I decorated the window garland with red & white candy canes and red ball ornaments that I wired together to resemble the Mickey Mouse head icon. I got the giant ball ornament from Disney last year - isn't it great?


The window wreaths are just Dollar Tree wreaths that I decorated with more plastic candy canes (also from Dollar Tree) and ribbon. I hung them with ribbon tied with a safety pin at the top and attached to large suction cups hidden under the valance.

My mom gave us this awesome Disney village this year. It includes Mickey, Minnie, Donald & Goofy's houses. I love how whimsical it is!

Our sneaky Elf on the Shelf Christopher was found in Lulu's stocking today!

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A shelf with some Santas:

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Our Christmas tree:

One of my favorite traditions is stringing a popcorn & cranberry garland for the tree.

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The TV armoire is decorated with garland, a fiber optic tree and 2 ceramic pieces my mom made when I was little. I love these pieces because they remind me of childhood Christmases.


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The family room sliders have more lighted garland and lots of snowflakes (all from Dollar Tree and hung with fishing line and suction cups):

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Every year I clear the top of the kitchen cabinets and display my Christmas villages:







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I display my gingerbread collection in the kitchen. I hang garland with handmade gingerbread men on all of the kitchen windows (I hang all of my garland with safety pins attached to the window valances). The window wreaths are from Dollar Tree and are decorated with gingerbread homemade cinnamon ornaments. If you have never made these ornaments, they are super easy & fun to make, plus they smell wonderful!

I forgot to take a picture, but I also have a small tree in the corner of the kitchen nook where I hang all of my gingerbread and kitchen-related ornaments.

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The kitchen chandelier gets into the holiday spirit with tree & Santa tin cut-outs and Christmas candle rings:

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The plate rack gets Christmas plates:

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Even the kitchen pantry & cabinet get a Christmas make-over!

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I hope you enjoyed the tour! Be sure to visit Hooked on Houses , Boo Mama & A Soft Place To Land for lots more tours!

12 comments:

Becky said...

You've been a busy little elf. Everything looks soooo festive!

Bonita said...

So many pretties! I love what you did with your windows, the snowflakes everywhere and the vivid colored houses.

Heather said...

your home looks so warm and inviting, it's all so cute!! Thanks for sharing and Merry Christmas!!

Kristi said...

You have been busy. How was your party? I love your green walls in your kitchen. It looks beautiful with your decorations!

Shannon said...

Beautiful!! I love the popcorn and cranberry garlands! I also love the plant ledge with the light switch!

Laura said...

Truly a festive home! Thanks for sharing.

Julia @ Hooked on Houses said...

Everything looks so pretty and festive! Your newly decorated bathroom is fun--I can see why you'd want to show it off first. :-)

Thanks for joining my blog party and inviting us into your home! -Julia

Ronda's Rants said...

It's even prettier in person...just like you!
Your home is beautiful and always a wonderful place to come to!
Thank you again for a lovely cookie party!

Domestic Goddess..Diva sometimes said...

Everything looks perfect! I love those big snowflakes! Thank you for the tour!

Ameratis said...

Everything looks beautiful! Thanks for sharing. The bathroom especially looked nifty!

King family said...

So nicely done. I can even tell I like the decor when it is not Christmas too. Thanks for letting us peek in .
Have a Merry Christmas.

Denise said...

Oh, everything looks so pretty. We are big Disney fans, also, I love Mickey's village!