let’s get merry & bright!

It’s time to share our Christmas decor! Truth be told, I’ve had the apartment decorated for almost two weeks now, but I try to keep up my whole sanity front, so I’ve waited to debut our decorations until today.

This year, we went simple and with a more non-traditional color scheme (which I’m loving!).

We kept our cute little Christmas tree and also the DIY ruffled tree skirt I made last year. One tip I have for making a tree look great is to really pile on the ornaments, so that’s what we did. Ours is pre-lit so we don’t have to worry about lights, but if you lighting your tree it’s best to start with those first.

Next, move on to garlands and greenery to fill in any empty looking spots. I found these great green poinsettias at Michael’s to add some extra interest to our tree.

And lastly, bling out your tree with as many ornaments as you can fit. Another good tip is to have ornaments of different sizes. Our tree has a full range of ornament sizes and shapes like traditional balls, icicles, and our special ornaments that make it fun and interesting to look it.

I picked up two new stockings from Target. I’ve been love the chunky knit trend that’s been coming up a lot lately and the colors on these were perfect. They tie in fantastically with our current décor which makes everything look festive but still cohesive.

I also whipped up a tiny Christmas vignette complete with a glittery reindeer. Because, what’s the holidays without some glitter, right? A small vase of candles and a dapper red and white bow make it undeniably Christmas. And make sure you stick around because I’ll have a tutorial on the cute glittery reindeer canvas art coming to TLC soon!

In the dining room, I added some tear drop shaped ornaments to our falling leaves installation. I thought about taking all of the leaves down and doing all ornaments. But the leaves are still have that great holiday color and they make the whole thing super light which takes the stress off of the fishing line we used to hang the branch.

And, of course, we also have our card display frame and a jolly Christmas print which I showed a sneak peek of in this post about not having a mantle. Seriously the card display frame was super easy too. Just ribbon taped around the frame (tightly!) and mini clothes pins to hang cards. Free and cute!

So we kept it cheap and simple, but we still got a lot of bang for our holiday buck with this year’s decorations.

How is your house shaping up for the holidays? Do you stick with the same decorations each year or mix it up?