Written by: Subi Shehaan
I was recently in one of my favourite stores that starts with Home and ends with Depot and a merry little magazine caught my eye. Labelled Christmas Ideas, I picked it up and scanned the pages of the Better Homes and Gardens special edition publication and I couldn’t help but bring it home with me and pour over it with a glass of fuzziness (I literally poured over it with a drop of the good red stuff. Ah well, a page got some holiday cheer). As I shifted through each page, my mind was overloaded with so many great ideas for mantles and trees and wreaths, I thought I would share some with you. So grab a vodka eggnog or something, sit back, and enjoy the most wonderful time of the year to get creative. After being awesomely inspired, you’d want to stamp every corner in the house with your personal style. Or spray paint everything you see, including your dog.
Front Door Splash of Merry
So let’s start with the first thing we see before we enter our home: our front door welcomes everyone and their grandmother without any prejudice or regret (debatable) so giving it some life with some creative wreaths only makes sense.
I love this picture for more than the beautiful untraditional wreath, I love it for the idea it gives me that you can totally paint your front door the color of the season. A random dose of Christmas.
Redefining Hugs
I love walking into homes and its foyer wraps you up in a big bear hug. How does a house hug feel like? It feels exactly like the warmth and coziness you get when everything is sprinkled with the household’s past holiday memories.
This tree of memories is a great idea for the largest or the smallest evergreen. The more memories you have to share, the larger your tree will be. One of my dear friends couldn’t decide between her white tree or the green one and decided to put up both. With so many tree decor possibilities, who says you can’t do more than one? It doesn’t even have to be a tree. I love this string art alternative:
No corners untouched.
This is your chance to have a different themed spruce in each floor of your home in a variety of sizes and colors, and personalize the ornaments out of it. Besides the framed photos in the particular tree above, the personalized labels jump out to squeeze at your heart.
Trash to Treasure
Speaking of ornaments, I am going to spray paint all my ornaments that are packed away in boxes because green or purple are no longer the ‘in’ colors of the year. And spray painting doesn’t have to be your metallic silver or gold either. Take a look at this elegant touch of black chalkboard paint further embellished with labels of handwritten names and designs.
Down Memory Lane
This one below is something I would definitely do next year. A few toothpicks, a styrofoam sphere, metallic spray paint, glue and some gold glitter. Now the question is, should I create memories out of this ornament by asking guests not to throw away their toothpicks after use?
Wrapping with Love
I don’t know about you, but the gifts that are never forgotten are the ones that are unique and caters to your needs rather than what is a popular gift to give. But what is even more precious is the way that gift is presented, wrapped, and personalized. This image below shows exactly that:
Everything about this shows class and elegance. Even if it’s a simple chocolate box the wrapping is hiding, the beautiful exterior intro to a simple interior has all its bells and whistles exposed and wrapped with love.
Heart Sweet Heart
Have you ever worn your heart on your sleeves and wanted the whole world to know the joy you feel? We all have at several points in our lives. Why not take gift wrapping to a whole new level and spell out the words of your heart even before they open the card or the gift? This can be done simply with any craft paper (black works best with metallic pens) and a few scribblings written across the paper. They sure wouldn’t want to throw away this particular wrapping. Ever.
Passing on the Joy
If you have young children in the house, you’d love seeing the world through their eyes. Take a stroll with them in a park or the woods and ask them to hunt for acorns, uniquely-shaped leaves and stones. Tell them to stay away from dog poo however. Experience the romance of the season by sitting down with them and painting all items you find in various metallic colors. A silver leaf can serve as a place card garnish with name tags atop a napkin on your holiday dinner table, the pebbles painted in gold and reds and greens can be housed in a few tall glass vases for centrepieces, and the painted acorns can be strewn along the runner in a splendid display of simple nature.
Christmastime is the perfect tradition to reflect how we proudly embrace the culture we live in. Children should know the traditions of all religion, no matter what they are born as. My dad used to send us to Sunday school to learn about Christianity and we went to a Catholic high school while our mother kept us anchored in Hinduism. I love asking my daughter to draw something just to see what she sees. What transpires on paper from her beautiful mind is a work of art like no other. I asked her to draw me something about Christmas (mainly to send her out of the room while I finish writing this up), and what she came up in five minutes has me inspired to ask her to decorate next year’s tree ornaments with her sense of colors and patterns.
Table Manners
I think we wait all year just for the perfect excuse to set our table with all the fine things we own and the holidays are one of the biggest occasions to show it all off. I’ve recently been in love with winter wonderland themes and absent of the traditional red and green colors doesn’t bother me much. If you are with me on that, you’ll love the following inspirations when it comes to setting it just right:
I never would have imagined using a picture frame as a charger but now this gets me looking around my home. My eyes first hit the floor and I immediately thought of the old tiles I have lying around in my basement. Next year, they are going to sit pretty on the dining table. The snowman arrangement makes me want to throw a dinner party and pretend it’s Christmas every day. The trunk charger in the image also makes me want to cut down the tree in my front yard.
Gather ‘Round
This holiday season, make spirits bright with some Christmas additions that are unique, fun and full of memories. Don’t neglect any dark corners of your home, tie mistletoes everywhere so that you are breathless for obvious reasons 😉 , wrap your curtain rods with festive bow ties, adorn your windows and doors with wreaths, and have more than one Christmas tree. And most importantly, let the small angels in your life help your create those memories with their hand and footprints in everything you do during this magical month. Happy holiday decorating!
Subi Shehaan is the award winning founder of Design Contours (DC Interiors) established in 2008 which specializes in interior designing, home staging, and renovations in Toronto. Her company is catered towards residential owners – simple residential room decor to large interior renovations and basement finishing. Apart from residential projects, she has completed commercial projects including law offices, restaurants, home builder’s sales offices, real estate offices, and college reception area. You can see more of her work on Design Contours or DC Interiors.
