Sunday, December 18, 2011

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...on my face...

It's that time of year again! Where we decorate our houses with garlands and wreaths, trim the fraser fir, elaborately wrap presents...ok, so this is actually the first year of my life doing any of these things...but this is my first (technically second, since I graduated Dec. 10th last year) Christmas since college and something about decorating your house for Christmas really makes you feel like an official adult. So, December 1st came along and I began to have all of these decorating ideas that I just couldn't help but try out. All of it was essentially inspired by a bird (you'll see below). Now here's a glimpse of my Christmas spirit :)

 The living room is pretty small so it was hard to fit a Christmas tree but after some furniture maneuvering we managed it.

This is one of the centerpieces I made. The sleigh was a gift "basket" filled with Ghirardelli chocolate but I ate all that up quickly and filled it with scented pinecones and silver and gold sparkly flowers from Michael's. Super inexpensive!

Pretttyyy!

This teacandle tree centerpiece is super pretty when it's all lit up

This poinsettia is from Home Goods (my favorite store ever!) I wish I could leave it out all year long!

Another Christmas tree :)

A Michael's find

Here's the cute bird ornament from Anthropologie that started it all. It was my original inspiration for all the Christmas decor I picked out and because of the sparkly silver and white bird, decorated the rest of the house with white, silver and gold. I wish I could have bought 20 of these ornaments but they're $15 each...maybe for an after Christmas sale? haha

F-L-O-R-I-D-A-S-T-A-T-E!
 
Chris' mom gave us these last year, they have our names on them AND light up!
 
Most of the ornaments on the tree are from Big Lots...it was like $10 for 50, pretty good deal.
 
Here's the whole tree :) we couldn't fit one in that was too full because, like I said, the livingroom could barely fit a tree at all, but we realized after bringing the tree home that it was super scraggly. Strategically placing the ornaments concealed most of it so the finished product looks ok.
 
I even coordinated all my wrapping paper with the rest of the decor! (Obviously, I am on my GAME this year haha) Home Goods has AWESOME fancy wrapping paper for $2.99 a roll and 2 rolls was more than enough for all my gifts. The fancy ribbon I found at Michael's for .99 cents a roll!
 
 This is probably my favorite present ;) fancy wrappings just makes presents look even more appealing

It's Chris' present!

I'll try to make this my last present picture :P

Even my wall plug-ins are festive!
 
Chris' stocking :)
 
Patton, Bella, Chris, and my stockings...we even have a real fireplace to hang them from! Haven't used it yet though, since it is Florida and all.
 
On to the snowflake doilies! This was a super inexpensive decorating idea. I read about it online, instead of using regular paper to cut out snow flakes I found silver, gold (which ended up being on clearance), and the usual white paper doilies at Michael's and cut out (probably over a hundred) snowflakes. I'm really happy with the finished product and hopefully can save them for next year! 

Here's a gold one

...and white

Above the kitchen entrance
 
 I wanted to share 2 of my favorite holiday scents from Bath and Body Works. The Holiday Gumdrop is a new one and absolutely delicious!

Now, what would a makeup blog be without some holiday makeup looks? I went with the whole silver and gold theme and played around with a cranberry color lipstick. Whenever December comes around I usually go crazy with the gold eyeshadow...something about the holiday's makes me think gold.
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The colors I used were a very metallic cream which I layered shimmery shadows over.

And there is my take on a holiday makeup! I usually do a few every year so I tried to come up with a new idea with this by taking inspiration from all my decorating ideas and using a cranberry lipstick instead of a bright red. It's fun to play around with inspiration!

Hope you enjoyed all my Christmas-ness as much as I did! Hope everyone has happy holidays and a great new year!

Merry Christmas :)

♥Rae


 
 

1 comment:

  1. Rachel, it all looks so beautiful. I even include the FSU stocking in that compliment. You have definitely brought the beautiful spirit of Christmas to your apartment. Ann W

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