Decorating the Christmas Tree

It was such an exciting thing to get our first Christmas tree. As students there was no way that we had the money to waste on such frivolities, and our first Christmas after graduation was spent apart. He was in America and I was in England, living in London but spending Christmas in Hampshire with my parents. The following Christmas we visited my parents and then the next year we actually owned a one bedroom flat in London and bought our very first Christmas tree. Now we own two homes and have a large collection of Christmas decorations, but I can still remember going to Peter Jones on Sloane Square for our first ornaments.

I put up several trees each year but my absolute favorite tree is a metal one that is just decorated with silver bells and the red garland that I bought for our very first Christmas tree. I have a silver bell for every Christmas since we got married and then a second one for each Christmas since our daughter was born and a third one for each Christmas since our son was born. When they are each ready to have their first Christmas in their own home I plan to give them their ornaments and pass the tradition on. My collection includes any kind of silver bell so some are music boxes, some are sleigh bells, some are sterling, and some are silver plate. But they are all engraved with "Christmas" and the year.

Towle Musical Bell

Wallace Sleigh Bell

Sterling Bell

Holly Ball

As soon as the bell tree is up I'll post a picture on instagram for those of you who want to see it.

We also decorate a real tree in each of our family rooms each year and here are a few tips that I have picked up over the years.

Buy a large, sturdy stand. If your stand is too small or too flimsy your tree will fall over. Last year I bought the swivel tilt stand. It's a load of rubbish. Don't waste your money. Our tree fell over so many times that we threw it away before Christmas.

This is a great stand...

Buy icicle lights on green wire. Several boxes of them. Place your tree in the stand but wait until the next day to put the lights on. This will allow the branches to drop.

If this is your first year decorating for Christmas then take your time picking your theme. You want to pick something that you will love for many years to come and that you can add to over time. I choose silver, crystal and mercury glass as the theme for our main home. Our first Christmas in London I had a budget of about $45 (30 pounds) to spend on ornaments but I chose wisely because we still use them every year. As our children were born I started doing additional trees with their handmade ornaments in each of their rooms. 

For our second home we were in a very different position financially and so I was able to just buy everything I needed at once. I chose a bronze and gold toned theme. I bought boxes and boxes of ornaments, a beautiful chocolate brown tree skirt, two wreathes for the front door and yards and yards of garland for the railing. Add branches, picks etc for the mantles and tables and my town and country minivan was packed to the roof!

Silver, Crystal and Mercury Glass Ornaments

Etched mercury glass ornaments

Mercury Glass Garland

Silver pinecone 

Hand Blown Ornaments

Do you have a Christmas decorating theme or do you collect ornaments to remind you of places that you have visited? Do you buy Christoper Radko ornaments or shop at Target? It doesn't matter what type of decorations you use as long as you and your family love them.

      

Friday 5 Favorite Gadgets

It's been quite a while since I did a favorite gadgets post and I have 5 simply amazing items to share with you.

Macbook Pro 15"

This is the reason that I am blogging again. I used to use our Apple desktop, while the other members of my family all had laptops. A couple of years ago I got an iPad and that was the end of me actually writing a blog. An iPad is fantastic in many ways but as an entertainment tool. I found it too hard to actually compose a post on it, so just ... stopped. Last month I decided to buy myself a laptop, and chose the 15" Macbook Pro. For two reasons, firstly because of the graphics and secondly because as a stay at home housewife I really don't care that its a little more cumbersome, I wanted the bigger screen. It's been a big hit because within two weeks of my getting it, my 16 year old daughter upgraded her 13" macbook pro to the 15" too. She is the editor of her schools yearbook this year and as soon as she saw how much better the graphics were on mine she wanted one too!

Simply Human Trash Can

Nothing dates a house more than not keeping up with technology so if you've been in your home for 5 years on longer then you may want to check out the new trash cans that are on the market. This one by Simply Human is amazing.

Bissell Hard Floor Vacuum

This vacuum actually gets the crumbs that seem to collect at the edge of your baseboards.

Shark Sonic Cleaner

Promises 1,000 scrubs per minute! Say hello to very clean hardwood floors. (But it terrifies poor Milly.)

HP Officejet Pro 8600 wireless printer

We recently upgraded our home printer to this wireless one, and boy are we glad that we did. All four of us have laptops and it just makes life so much easier.

      

Pie Safe

Do you often have a house full of people and like the idea of being able to leave baked goods out for friends and family to help themselves to?  A pie safe is the perfect way to make sure that the food remains safe from pesky flies.

I found mine here

I bought these pie dishes, and then baked three varieties of muffins, and voilà...

How do you serve baked goods?

A New Hobby

Do you have a hobby? Or do you collect something? In both cases, once you find that thing that you're passionate about, you will willingly spend your time and money pursuing that passion.

Maybe you love to play games, and every time you find yourself with 10 minutes of free time you sit down and try to beat the level that is currently frustrating you.

For me, my hobby, my passion, my collection are all one and the same. My passion is my home and family. I gladly spend time cleaning and organizing. I enjoy hunting for just the right items. I love to have house guests and host dinner parties. I don't look at time spent cleaning as a waste of time, because it makes me happy to live in a clean environment. I don't mind putting things away because it makes me happy to know where to find things when I need them. I don't mind ironing because I like to see my family looking nice. If it takes me six months to find the perfect sofa, that's OK because I know that I will love it for many years to come.

Change the way that you look at housekeeping. Instead of thinking of housework as a never ending chore, think of your home as the way that you express yourself. Buy bedding that you love and make your bed every day. Pick a china pattern and start collecting it one plate at a time. Use your lovely things, don't leave them sitting on a shelf. How you live each day, will add up to how you live your life. Make it beautiful. You won't remember the time spent playing games, what you will look back on are the times spent around the dinner table. Take the time to set the table, cook a delicious meal, make memories with your family and friends.

Think of caring for your home and family as your favorite hobby. Sometimes a change in perspective changes everything.

      

Beverage Dispenser

We often have houseguests so I am used to serving a lot of people. Last weekend my son hosted a sleepover for some of his 8th grade friends. There were 8 of them. By our standards that was actually a small group.  For breakfast I served fruit, muffins and juice.

Sometimes I will just serve store bought drinks in their original containers, as I did then...

But sometimes I want to serve home-made drinks or gussy up the store bought ones and the best way to do that is by using a beverage dispenser.

I love this beverage dispenser from Z Gallerie.

But I wanted something a bit more rustic looking to go with the simple decor that we have at our lake house, as well as something that would work when we have 30 people so I bought 3 of these from Amazon.

Make sure that you also buy some colored chalk so that you can be artistic on the chalk board. (I need to work on this!)

Once you have your beautiful beverage server you will want to use it often so here are some suggestions...

Mint Iced Tea

In the south people drink a lot of iced tea. Being English, I never liked it, and I still won't drink sweet tea but in the summer I really enjoy a glass of unsweetened iced tea. I put a sprig of mint from our garden into the dispenser and I just love the flavor combination. I sometimes make a tiny amount of simple syrup to slightly sweeten it.

Sangria

Orchard Punch - I love to add some fresh cranberries to the dispenser when I serve this. You can also replace the ginger ale with champagne for special occasions.

Decorating the walls

I'm sure you have a lot of fun choosing furniture and accessories for your home. I know I do.

However I always have a hard time finding artwork. It doesn't seem to matter if its original or mass produced, it just seems to take me a while to find the pieces that speak to me.

When I was building our country abode I found that since this is a second home that not only did I need to devote a lot of time and energy to the building process but I also needed to fully furnish it from scratch. That meant a lot of new artwork.

Here are some of my finds...

In my foyer I have a very large map of London that I found at Restoration Hardware. The color of the river exactly matches the silk curtains. A very lucky coincidence!

In my sons bedroom there is a gorgeous framed photo of a yacht from Ethan Allen.

In my daughters bedroom there are six framed antique pressed flowers that I found at Scotts Antique Market in Atlanta.

In our bedroom there are four pictures of birds (you can just see the edge of the fourth on the far wall of our bathroom)

I won't admit how long it took me but I actually made these myself. They are all cross stitched on linen...

The Perfect Coffee Mug

This is the mug that we use for coffee at our lakehouse. It is the Tradition Mug by Alpico (available at Williams Sonoma) and is the perfect casual mug.

My Bedroom at the Lake...

Sources:

Barley Twist Lamps and Linen Shades - Target

Bedding - Williams Sonoma Home

Curtain Rods - Select

Curtain Fabric - Lewis and Sheron

IPod dock/Clock Radio - Sony

Chest, Bed, Night-tables - Restoration Hardware

Linen Bench, Mirror, Candlesticks - Restoration Hardware

Bowls - Liberty for Target

Chandelier - World Imports

Bronze Birds on night-table - Biltmore gift shop

Snowball Vibernum

This is one of my favorite Spring plants.

Something new at the lakehouse...

This is the family room at my lake house...

I really love it but I wanted some furniture to go on the left hand side, facing the fireplace.

After lots of looking I found this chest at Wisteria...

The bleached oak looks great with my salvaged wood pieces from Restoration Hardware.

Once I had found the chest (which is now filled with games and puzzles) I started looking for chairs. I considered so many wonderful options but my heart was won by a pair of chairs from Restoration hardware.

My dining chairs, and barstools are both covered in sand linen, and I liked the idea of bringing the same fabric into the center of the space. It works beautifully.

Decorating 101

Having a well appointed home is a dream most of us have.

I can remember back to my college days when I shared a house with a group of my friends and I would dream of the day when I had a home of my own.

In movies, a young couple will graduate from college, each get a high paying job, and then move into a beautifully decorated HUGE house.

Sadly that is not real life. In reality it takes many years to put together the home of your dreams. Unless you do so on credit, but I think we all know that living beyond our means in a slippery slope that we don't want to get on.

When I was 26 I left London and moved to the US. We did not sell our flat in London so needed to start from scratch when we got here. The best decision I made was that I didn't decorate for the life I had at the time, but for the life I wanted in the future. My reality at that time was that we were living in a two bedroom, two bathroom apartment, but I had dreams of living in a large house in a country club. I knew that as I got older I wanted to live in a home from the pages of Traditional Home magazine so that is how I made my design decisions.

As the years passed we gradually moved up the housing ladder. It took 8 years from the time we arrived here until we bought that dream home, and I have now lived in it for another 8 years. It does look like it stepped out of the pages of my favorite magazine, but I still have pieces from my apartment, along with pieces from my first two houses prior to owning this one.

My homes are my passion and my hobby. I feel that they reflect who I am, and I put as much care and effort into running them as I do raising my children, and believe me there is nothing more important to me than that job.

I enjoy sharing my finds with you, and I hope to introduce you to some things that you love, but when it comes to making your own dream home I hope that you build it from your heart.

My decorating 101 advice is to figure out what your dream home looks like and start building it piece by piece. If you don't yet know what your dream is then try looking around some model homes, or look at different design magazines. There are lots of different styles out there, but one will speak to you. Think of it as a hobby and a passion, and you'll be surprised where it takes you. Great design is not about how much you spend, but about how much you love the items around you.

Great Blue Heron

I just spent the last 6 months making this...

I still need to get it framed but it looks ah-mazing.

Artwork

I have so many things that I want to share with you that I hardly know where to start.

There have been a lot of things that have inspired and excited me during the last 6 months, but I think the first thing I'll share with you is some new artwork.

I knew that I wanted a photo of a sailing boat in my son's room at the lake, but just could not find the perfect one.

After 2 years of looking, and one year of living with an empty wall I am pleased to say that my search has ended.

I bought this photo at Ethan Allen ...

It is very large, about 3 foot by 4 foot, and is one of a set of 3 if anyone has a lot of space to fill.

Landscaping at the Lake House

I have been busy for the past few months trying to finish up the lake house landscaping.

I'm not done yet but here are some pics of the progress so far.

All of the flowering trees and plants have white flowers. I have always wanted to try this but never had the right property. It was such a great decision, it makes everything so calm and peaceful.