So, I was all finished decorating the back rooms of our home, i.e. family room, kitchen, kitchen’s eating area, powder room and all spaces that dwell within said rooms. As you have seen, I used the more traditional Christmas colors of burgundy and gold for that part of the house. In my past posts I have explained that my accent color for the front rooms of our home is a pretty green that is seen everywhere I look in most stores and I pair it with khakis and creams.  So, my Christmas decorating goal  was to utilize that same green and add silver, teal, and white therefore creating light, airy, and hopefully cozy rooms.  Let me reiterate a bit about my decorating style, my all-over goal is to always provide a place where whomever enters feels as if they can sit down, put their feet up, pet a big dog, have a cup of coffee, tea, or hot cocoa, and be as comfortable here as they would feel in their own home. I always, no matter the time of year, use warm mostly earth tones throughout the house and I add pops of color with my decor.  I mostly stick with burgundies, khakis, and creams (for my regular decor) in the back rooms of the house, and that pretty green color for the front rooms.  All that said, I was worried that by adding the lighter colors of silver, white, and teal for Christmas that I might ‘cool’ those rooms down a bit. BUT, I was determined to try because I love the clean and bright look that those lighter colors can bring to a room.  Also, those rooms are a smidge more formal to begin with just because of the cherry wood furniture; I have 3 pieces that were handed down to me from my grandmother and then my mom, we also have our own dining room furniture; all pieces are a dark cherry color. Before we moved in here, we purchased a new couch and 2 chairs for the living room selecting comfortable, lighter colored furniture that would help to stave off the formality that the cherry furniture inherently puts forth.  We tried our best to mix the old with the new, I feel like we accomplished our mission.

All that said, I’ll now show you how I decorated these pretty rooms that sit on the front of our home separated by the foyer…

This is looking at the back of our our front door, living room to the left and dining room to the right, family room behind me…

First, the dining room:

Here are a couple of things that I created for the dining room, first, the dining room table’s lantern centerpiece.  I will not bore you with another “how to make a lantern centerpiece” in this entry.  If you would like to know how to do so, please check out my A Lantern Centerpiece For All Seasons link. 🙂

Here are all of the accent pieces that I used to create this centerpiece (using the very same tray and lantern as I highlighted in the link above):

I also made a bow and attached some of the same accent pieces that I was using in the arrangement to the back of the bow via the pipe cleaner with which I closed the bow and tied it onto the top piece of the lantern.  Here is my Bow Tutorial (Video) if you’d like to see how to make a tiered bow…

Next, the sideboard.

First, my Aunt and Uncle gave us that pretty white and silver bowl on the left, I was sure that this was the place that I wanted to show off its prettiness…so that was the very first thing that I set up on the sideboard.  I then added the candle sticks, Christmas trees, reindeer, and then set my sights on creating something special to go around that lamp…

The lamp was my grandmother’s and then my mom had it in her house for many years, and its resting place before coming to me was in my mom’s nursing home room.

 It is a very, very special lamp so I wanted to do it justice.  Unfortunately, I was concentrating so hard on making this arrangement that I neglected to take pictures of how I created it.  It wasn’t hard though, all it really is are a couple of white flocked pine picks, a few white and silver pinecone ornaments, and a few sparkly white and silver poinsettias.  OH, I did add a battery operated mini light set (with a timer)…

The dining room hutch’s decor is simply a green pine garland wrapped with white lights, 3 big silver bows, and a few silver Christmas trees, the lanterns and the rest of the decor remain on the top of the hutch year round…

Now for the living room:

The first thing, I created for this room was a smaller lantern centerpiece to go on top of another one of my pieces that used to be my grandmother’s, this little table:

As you can see, it has a glass top on it, but check this out, you can actually lift the glass top completely off. I keep whatever doily that I am using under the glass…

I started my centerpiece with a silver tray that used to be my mom’s (as you can see, there are many sentimental pieces in these rooms)…

I placed a lantern on the tray and surrounded it with a pip berry garland and then started to add the other accent pieces 

I placed a battery operated candle inside the lantern and stepped back, I was happy with what I saw…

There is one more little grouping that I just made up today after I took a trip to our local Kirkland’s store.  I purchased those stackable lit gift boxes, I just couldn’t resist them, they were the perfect color to pair with the rest of the decor that I had planned for that rod-iron and glass table (which I also got at Kirkland’s shortly after we moved into this house)…

This old secretary is one of my favorite pieces that I inherited from my grandmother.  My Aunt just told me a couple of stories that I had never heard about this piece of furniture.  Apparently, my grandmother purchased this Secretary by selling her homemade candy (I remember as a child we’d help her pull butter mints, I’m not sure if that’s the candy to which she is referring, but what a neat story!). And apparently, the 13 panes of glass in each door represents the first 13 original States. What?! I love these stories!!! 🙂 ANYway, I love to give it a different look as the seasons change.  I remember sitting at it as a child and opening up all of the drawers that contained all sorts of fun treasures and pretending like I was a secretary…sweet, sweet memories.  ANYway, I choose to leave the big door open and put a bit of decor on the inside (maybe when I have grandchildren one day, I’ll have to fill up those little drawers with all sorts of goodies and help to make some sweet memories for those little tykes). The picture on the top is a picture of my beautiful mom on her and my dad’s wedding day. **Miss you mom!!**  Anyway, here is how I decorated it up for Christmas this year:

I purchased our white Christmas tree last year at Walmart if you can believe that?! lol And it is a beauty! It does put off a pink hue though, so I kept the decorations on the tree to a minimum.  I didn’t want to fight with the pink and I didn’t want to add tons of pink to the decor in the rest of the space.  So I added a big iridescent bow topper, a lit tree topper above the bow…

Then I added silver beaded garland, and ornaments in silver, white, a few pink, and ornaments that were a very subtle green…

I put a white tree skirt on the floor and added a little lit church and tree and called it done. 🙂  It looks beautiful sitting in the bay window, I love to see the reflections of the tree in all of the windows.

And check it out from outside…wow!!

Here are some pictures of the rooms as a whole…I am quite pleased with how it all turned out. I have found myself walking in there and drinking in all of the memories that are conjured up while moving my eyes from one piece to the next.  Sweet, sweet, precious memories that I hold very close to my heart. ❤

I hope y’all have enjoyed seeing all of my creations for this Christmas, the only things that I have left to do are the big Christmas tree that will go up on Thanksgiving Day in the family room (the family will help to decorate that) and the outside.  I will be sure write a little blog about both things. Let me take a moment to thank those of you who have commented and those of you who come back and check to see what this silly crafter has been doing.  I’ve really enjoyed sharing my creations and home with you all…

Until next time, y’all take good care! ❤

**In crafting there are no mistakes just unique creations**