Only 16 days to go folks!  Our weekends are pretty much packed solid until the big day so I wanted to get done decorating early enough to actually be able to enjoy all the holiday feelings.  I mentioned before that I had done a big cleanse earlier in the season, and while I put out some of our usual decor in the rest of the house I tried to only add new stuff to the living room this year (you can check out the full living room reveal here)

Maybe it comes from the house I grew up in, but I like to feel like Christmas has exploded onto every surface (No minimalist approach for this girl!) But instead of just buying stuff I concentrated on adding handmade pieces wherever I could.  I already shared the mantel in an earlier post, so this week I wanted to quickly share the rest of the room.

The biggest addition was the village that now lives on the shelf above the TV.  I quite literally got bored one day and thought “hey, I’ve got tons of scrap wood in the garage – what can I do with it?” and started cutting out house shapes, building this village as I went.

 

The whole village is almost 10 feet long, so I attached a few pieces together at a time to make it easier to display and store.  Once sanded, I painted it all with white chalk paint.  I added some pine and holly branches from the trees outside, as well as a bunch of bottle brush trees from Target’s Dollar Spot.  I may add some more colorful trees next year, but I’m really happy with how it turned out.

On the other shelves I added in some more pine branches (the little white bells are from IKEA a few years ago), a faux white antler I found at Michaels, and made a hand-painted sign with this lovely quote I found on Pinterest…..oh and my husband is OBSESSED with Poinsettias so I’ve had to utilize every space I could to display them.

The tree got a little makeover this year too.  My husband insists that Christmas trees need colored lights (in trade I get to keep the outside lights all white) but to make it a little more cohesive I found lights that only had Red, Green, and Blue lights.  I had him mix in a strand of white lights, and picked up a few strands of white beaded garland from Target (which he correctly realized look like strands of popcorn) and presto – it looks great!

Last year the tree skirt and the Roomba had a contentious holiday season, so when I saw this galvanized metal tree collar from Hearth and Hand I grabbed it immediately and it’s so much better.

On the bookcases behind the tree my husband had the great idea to set up some of his father’s old train sets.  The boys of course love playing with them and I love that it’s kind of a modern take of the “train around the tree” tradition.

One of the main reasons I built the picture ledges during the living room makeover was so that I could have a place to put our Santa Pictures from each year and I’m happy to say they’re working out wonderfully.  Of course, I couldn’t resist even more Bottle Brush trees, and I was able to sneak in our pixelated Reindeer from Ikea.

On either side of the fireplace I added two ornament shadow boxes based on these plans from Shanty-2-Chic and filled them with two pretty mercury glass ornaments from Home Goods and some more Pine branches.

Behind the couch I built one more ornament display stand to replace the planter box that is usually there (plans also from Shanty-2-Chic) and filled it with ornaments from Target (the stars and the Snowman are from this year’s Wondershop; the balls are from last year).

And of course, I couldn’t resist some new pillows and blankets for the couch!  The big light blue one and the red striped pillow I found at HomeGoods…I honestly am super cheap when it comes to pillows and HomeGoods is my go to place – they’re a good price and almost all of them have removable covers and down-filled inserts.  I went a little crazy in the blanket department and bought 3 of the big cozy green blankets on Black Friday (in my defense they’re 3 different colors and they were only $18 that day)….oh yeah, and I also got that little gray plaid one too (for only $10!)

Speaking of that big green blanket – I don’t usually do this but I have to share one more thing…..this amazing little tool from ConAir!  Those blankets are amazingly comfy, but they leave lots of nasty little green fuzz on the couch – this little battery operated baby to the rescue!  I’ll post a video of how it works on my Instagram, but I just lightly brush it over the couch and it sucks up all of the pilling.  It’s only $12, can be used on all kinds of fabrics, and for some reason comes in 4 or 5 different colors – so it would make an awesome stocking stuffer!!

Even though Cash isn’t feeling the holiday spirit, I sure am…now to cuddle under the blanket and enjoy the lights!