Time to Decorate the Household!

Since this is my very first Christmas actually living here, I was so excited to begin decorating.  I must say, it took some convincing to get Joe to haul all the Christmas stuff out and begin decorating yesterday (he even googled when decorating is traditionally done), but in the end my enthusiasm prevailed and we started the festivities.

First we put up the tree, minus the decorations (this always takes more than one day for us, even when I'm not 9 months pregnant and practically worthless).

Joe Assembling Our Tree

Scooter Really Wanted to Help Out

Our Tree - Minus the Decorations

Then I began working on spreading out the household decorations and knocking out some holiday crafts I'd been dying to do. 

Our "Mantle"

I wanted to create some sort of mantle display, despite the fact that we do not have a mantle or a fireplace.  However, we have this cute little table right below our TV in the family room that works perfectly AND we have a "fireplace" DVD that crackles and pops and looks pretty damn real.  So we're set!  I found this sign on another blog, so I took to recreating it in Photoshop, but added in the line that reads "December 25th" because I wasn't digging the spacing without it.  Here it is up close:

I also created this paper ball from another blog, which took forever, but it ended up being perfectly cute for this display.  Can't seem to locate the tutorial, but will credit it once I do.  Here's the paper ball resting on top of our old vase:

It's basically just a foam ball that I bought at Hobby Lobby covered with little tissue paper circles that I bunched up and hot glued all over it.  It was tedious, but the end result is quite beautiful.

I also want to add some holiday spirit to our couch, which is currently sporting a "south-western-ish" vibe with red, brown, and brown accents.  So I decided I would sew some Christmasy slip covers for all the non-red pillows using the tutorial I found here. 

 I added the little flower rosette in the top corner because I felt like it was too much of one pattern (but wanted to make sure I could do the simple pillow cover before I attempt any fancier detailing). 

This is much easier than sewing a pillow because there's no hand-stitching the opening, it's just an envelope type closure that encases the pillow.  Here's a view of the back of the pillow where you can see the little flap.

I decided to steal another idea from the same blog that I got the subway art idea from, so I also bought some foam cone-shaped trees from Hobby Lobby and covered them with Modge Podge and glitter (one red, one silver) and set them near the pool room.  They are so pretty and festive!  Will take a pic of them when that whole display is complete.