BrittanyMakes

This has been a mighty special year for me and my man.  At the beginning of the year, we were living like bachelors and saving money along the way.  After many conversations (and situations where we felt we just needed more space), we decided to take the plunge, spend a little more money each month, and move out! We moved to a beautiful loft, significantly closer to work, cutting our commuting time down from almost 2 hours each day to about ten minutes.  This was probably the best decision we ever made! Anyway, we pretty much started from scratch.  We needed furniture, kitchen supplies, storage solutions, a dining table, chairs, desks, etc etc.  To top it off, we also got engaged! Needless to say, we’re running a tight spending ship, and our budget for Christmas decorations was pretty much whatever we had on hand.

I wanted to join in on the fun today and share with you a quick tour of our holiday home.  I hope you’ll indulge with me :)

First up, our monogrammed stockings.  We hung these on the exposed beams in our loft, since we sadly don’t have a fire place to call our own.  Just below our stockings, you’ll find 2 little stockings for our pups.

My man made me promise that we deck our tree out in the old-school multicolored Christmas lights.  He’s not a fan of the “magazine” look, where, according to him, everything looks fake and no “way would people celebrate Christmas in those staged homes.”  He may have a point, and I didn’t want to ruin his Christmas so I obliged, all the while thinking in my head “but a red and gold tree looks so beautiful in photos!”  Men. Will they ever understand?  What’s the easy solution? Get 2 trees.

Anyway, I was on the hunt this year for a blown glass finial, but they were a bit pricey and would take ages to ship.  Our tree was “top-less” for about a week while I scoured the internet for a topper, but couldn’t find one I truly loved.  The following weekend I was off at the Alameda Antique fair and I came across 2 bronze finials (!!!!).  I quite literally almost died.  I could only afford one, so I cradled it and sang to it until I brought it home.  For the time being, I’m enjoying it’s bronze finish.  I have other plans for it though…. hehe.

We’re fairly new to the ornament hoarding game.  I expect once kiddos arrive and such we will have more crafty and sentimental ornaments, but for now we’re enjoying discounted ornaments we found from Home Depot, Target, and Cost Plus.  Win.

I’ve taken a liking to my sewing machine as of late.  We’re best buds (for now…) and I made some festive holiday pillows to throw across our sofa and chairs.  I posted a tutorial not too long ago on how to make this exact velvet trim pillow.

A final look at our holiday home tour takes us to our dining nook.  Our guest bedroom door swings open to the dining space, where we’ve hung a Trader Joe’s Boxwood wreath.  One of the first projects I did when we moved in was paint the guest bedroom door in Louis Blue.  I’m still in love with it.  The pop of color is so subtle and doesn’t take away from the flow of the room.

Our dining table is also in a festive state.  I’m loving silver, red and white this season, which made me decide to wrap each place setting with some simple striped ribbon I found at Michael’s.  I’m a classy gal at heart, so a simple table-scape is all I really need.

Well, that’s it! I’m sure I’ll continue sprucing up our place in holiday decor until Christmas day, and maybe even afterwards!  Who says it all has to end on Christmas?

Linking up at Nester’s holiday home tour party