Christmas Decorations: The Living Room

It is my favorite time of the year! I have been a busy bee decorating our home for the holidays. Our house was suppose to be on The Chamber of Commerce's Holiday Home Tour, which was canceled last minute. So.....all those months of planning and getting the house ready for the tour, were NOT wasted! I absolutely LOVE the way my house has come together this holiday season. I am in the process of photographing each room so I can share it with you. I'll start with the living room.

This year I decided to go all the way with live greenery...no fake stuff here! I got the dwarf blue spruces at Home Depot (which I plan to plant outside after the holidays). I also went with short leaf pine garland for the mantel.

I made the cedar wreath from clippings from our yard. I also had a lot of extra 1"x4" boards left over from our recent bathroom renovation (which I plan to reveal in an upcoming post). So I cut them down, stained, painted and distressed them and put them together to make the backdrop for the mantel. I love the texture it adds to the room.

After about 6 years of saying I was going to make us new stockings and never actually doing it, this year I actually did. I used canvas duck for the body of the stockings and then did several different cuffs in contrasting neutral fabrics. I picked up the letters from Hobby Lobby, painted and distressed them and added a pretty textured rope to hang them from each stocking.

For the coffee table, I was forced to make a burlap table runner after one of the boys took a metal truck to the top of it a few months ago. (I'm all about the distressed look, but this was a little extreme.) I used my granddaddy's shoe shine box to hold some fresh greenery. I also took a thrift store picture frame, painted it, added some feet and some pretty fabric and made a tray out of it. I filled a glass container with gold ornaments, added some burlap ribbon and a sprig of greenery. So easy!!

Some people may think the candles you put in your windows may be a little old-fashioned, but I love them. I remember my Mom always putting them out and it reminds me of Christmas as a child. My kids love them as well.

This is my Granny's bookshelf that my parents gave me a few months ago. My Granny and Papa bought it when they first got married.

Freebie paperback books that I tore the covers off, tied with jute twine and added greenery.