Christmas Tour of Homes 2011

Welcome!  

First a little introduction for those popping in from the linky parties... My husband and I got married this past summer and had a beautiful beach wedding.  We are settled in North Carolina where my husband is a youth pastor at a local church.  We moved into a duplex a few months ago and have been enjoying settling into our first home.  We are loving our first Christmas season as a married couple!  We welcome you to take a look around at our Christmas decorations and hope you'll take a moment to look around our blog!

____________________________________________________________________________

Here's our front porch...

The porch is the only place where pops of red can be found in our decor.  I found this red berry wreath at a thrift store for $3.  I think I might have ran to it- I just knew someone else must have had their eye on this thing.

Last year I found this antique sled on Craigslist for $15.  I used some clearance ribbon I picked up last year after Christmas, some berries from the yard, and some evergreen branches that my friend gave me to spruce it up a bit.

My best friend gave me lots of branches that she and her husband cut from the bottom of their real Christmas tree so it would fit in their stand.  I was able to make swags for our windows as well as stick it around the house.  Thanks Heather- I've loved decorating with it!  Plus, I didn't have to buy wreaths!

When you come into our living room from the front porch, we have our Christmas tree up!  My favorite thing about our Christmas decor is the Christmas tree.  It is a mixture of handmade ornaments, hand me downs,  and ornaments I found on clearance the past couple of years.  The tree skirt is a huge wedding dress train!

The crowning jewel of the tree is the capriz shell look-alike garland.  It is actually made from wax paper!  You can find my tutorial for it here.  For under $2, I think it really "made" the tree.

For our gift wrapping, I went with simple kraft paper and simple bows.

I also printed graphics from The Graphics Fairy onto white lunch bags.  I used shredded book pages to stuff the bags and fill in around the gifts.

I planted paper whites in early November and have been able to enjoy the blooms this past week! 

Another favorite in our decorations are our Christmas stockings.  I made them from canvas drop cloth material I had leftover from my ottoman slipcover and leftover lining material from my custom bridesmaids dresses.  The vintage pin was my great grandmother's and I wore it on my wedding dress.  It is special and I wanted to showcase it.  

We don't have a mantle so I just hung them from the top of our bookshelf.

Above our nativity set, I wrote a verse on our chalkboard to remind us of the true meaning of Christmas.  

Several years ago, my parents bought me the Willow Tree nativity set and I love it.  I finally get to put it up in our home!

We decided to put the wise men across the room and move them closer to the nativity set throughout the season.  Because the wise men were not actually there the night of Jesus' birth, we want to leave our nativity up a little longer than our other Christmas decorations and finally have the wise men arrive.  Right now they are by the Christmas tree.

I also made a pillow based off my favorite Christmas book- The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree.

And just for fun, here is everything at night.  We love how cozy it is!

Thanks for stopping by!  We hope you enjoyed the tour!

I'm linking up to: