#i wanna make it look nicer and add a few pops of green in it

[forbidding-souda]

Hi can I request shuichi, maki, miu and kokichi with a feminine GN!s/o who loves to dress up with them like skirts and matching dresses

shuichi saihara, miu iruma, and kokichi ouma with a feminine gender neutral s/o who dresses them up in skirts and dresses

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this one was really cute to write! maki is excluded because i don't write for her, but i hope you enjoy regardless! the headers were made by me!!!

[ also i now have searches for so many different articles of clothing in my history LMAO the joys of writing; research that's actually fun ]

-mod fuyuhiko

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🔍 – truth be told, shuichi likes when you dress him up!

🔍 – he doesn't have much variety in his own wardrobe, usually just sweaters and business casual wear, so when you put him in nicer clothes it makes him feel special.

🔍 – he'd get a bit flustered at first, especially if you give him a choice of what to wear, but seeing you smile is more than worth getting over his nervousness.

> "which one do you wanna wear, shu?" you asked, holding up two really nice outfits on hangers. one was a grass green sundress, it had spaghetti straps with little white flowers covering nearly every inch of it. the other was a combo of a plain white polo shirt and a dark blue pleated skirt that looked like it'd go down to shuichi's knees.

shuichi glanced between the two options carefully. he never really understood why you kept asking him, he knew you liked to give him a choice but it always ended up with him asking you, "which one do you think would look better on me?". both outfits he'd liked, but he knew you were more inclined to make an educated choice. something about one of the garments matching his hair, or bringing out his eyes.

you hummed in thought at the question, turning the fronts of the outfits toward yourself to get a good look at them. "i like the skirt, blue is a pretty color for you. makes your eyes pop." you told him honestly, pink blooming across his cheeks as he smiled shyly, "skirt it is, then."

🔍 – when you two match it makes him incredibly happy, even if he's not in a skirt or dress as well. one of his favorites is when you both have different outfits but in matching colors!

🔍 – it gives shuichi a big confidence boost to think that he looks so good with someone as stylish as you out in public. he usually only holds your hand or links your pinkies, but when you two are matching he'd be more than happy to be a bit more bold and keep an arm around your waist. maybe even kiss your cheek a few times, you never know, shuichi gets spontaneous when he gains confidence!

💡 – miu is definitely into dressing up with you!!! she's got incredible confidence in both her rockin' bod and yours, so she'd definitely hype up whatever choices you make!

💡 – miu's favorite dresses to wear are the ones with spaghetti straps that hug her tits and curves in all the right ways. she also really loves mid length skirts that flare out when she twirls. when you two match outfits, for the duality of it, miu likes to wear more revealing clothes while you wear longer stuff. or vice versa, as long as you both look and feel as great as you should!

💡 – miu definitely has a thing for adding her own accessories to outfits too! the gorgeous girl genius always finds a way to add thin metal trimmings to the end of your flowy garments, both to weigh them down and make them look nicer. she also adores seeing you add metal bangles and bracelets, her straps, or even her goggles to your outfits.

💡 – bonus points if you both match in pink, wearing pairs of her goggles. she'd definitely call everyone's attention to both of you to let everyone know how sexy you two look!

💡 – miu would make matching pins, bracelets, headbands, anklets, you name it! if you ask her to make something for an outfit she'd do it in a heartbeat, anything for her wonderful significant lover!

💡 – true to herself, one of her favorite things to do is tease you if you present her with anything short or tight that she didn't choose first. she'd mock you, call you a perv while asking if you're trying to get a view of her panties or expecting one of her tits to pop out.

💡 – all you have to do is tease her right back, ask her why she expects such dirty things from you if she wasn't imagining them first. miu will promptly dissolve into stutters and blushes before snatching the clothing from you and stomping away to change.

🎲 – kokichi is definitely the type to try to boss you around when it comes to clothes.

🎲 – he has a very particular taste in clothing, you know. everything has to be of the highest quality material, anything less than perfect will make his very sensitive skin break out! and whatever you present to him must be in the specific shade kokichi expects. if you give him a purple sweater instead of a royal violet one? he'll be so offended, he might just break up with you!

🎲 – … those are all lies, of course. truth is, kokichi's got little to no sense of style. he's the type to throw on whatever top is at the top of his drawer, grab the nearest pair of jeans and slip on whatever shoes he feels like for the day. he doesn't put that much thought into his everyday clothes, usually only going out of his way to look all spiffy if it's a special occasion.

🎲 – that doesn't mean he won't give his two cents for fashion advice though! kokichi does love when two can plan out and coordinate outfits with and for each other, it gives him prime opportunities to mess with you.

🎲 – it doesn't mean you don't mess with him back, of course. one time, kokichi suggested a mustard yellow shirt with a dark green skirt and blue jeans. with some obnoxious polka dot flip flops to top it all off. sure enough, you pulled all of those out and playfully pestered him to put it on until he finally caved and told you he was kidding.

🎲 – kokichi's favorite outfits are ones that are exactly the same. if he wears a purple dress, you have to wear one too. if he wears a tank top with an ankle length skirt, you have to wear the same. if you don't, he'll whine and cry his infamous crocodile tears until you say yes.

🎲 – once you start giving him some of your skirts and dresses to wear, kokichi will take it as an invitation to raid your closet whenever he feels like. you don't even have to suggest anything to him, he'll come walking out of your closet with your clothes and ask you which looks best on him.

🎲 – there was a time he tried to pull a prank on you by splattering a plain white dress with purple and black paint. kokichi will say he wasn't the slightest bit surprised that you asked him to do it to an identical dress, he obviously always had impeccable fashion taste and knew exactly what he was doing, but he'll get all flustered and giddy when you two go out in your matching paint splattered dresses.

[creepyalienghost]

People Of Creation

It was Henry’s first year in college. He, like many others going wasn’t really sure what path he wanted to choose for his life. He had decided on five classes for his first semester, to gather the skills. Art history, Business, Computer tech, chemistry and film. He chose a few for giving the knowledge he needed and the others for some fun.

Within a few months of college he film professor gave the them the months assignment. They were to make a documentary about anything they or there group choices.

In class, Henry turned to his friend behind him and Norman who was beside him. “Do you two wanna make a group together? Would be fun!” He offered

“Must definitely!” Shawn replied with a smile.

“Sure!” Norman agreed with them.

The rest of that class they shared topics on what each wants to do this documentary on while Henry writes them down and talk why they want that topic. Shawn suggestions were

Irish folklore or the world of toy markers. Norman thought of doing people who went missing or something on the future. Henry suggested holidays or war.

They discussed on what topic they should choose but none of them can all agree on one topic though. The end of the class Came and they agreed to meet at Henry dorm later to decide. All day they went through classes thinking about what they should do or looking up more topics on there free times to add

And waited.

When they did meet up at Henry’s dorm later that night, they all had some new topics of interest to share. “Maybe we could do the documentary on storms?” Shawn ask

Both Henry and Norman shook there heads.

“Nah.” Henry disagreed then went back to thinking.

Norman, who was Searching on his phone for ideas popped up. “What about the people of the creation?” Norman looked up from his phone for a second then back when he saw Shawn and Henry taking an interest. “Says here they all live off the land and vary happen people?”

“And?” Shawn ask “what’s so cool about that?”

“Also says the talk to the gods so I’m guessing this is a cult.” Norman shrugs then leans on the wall behind him.

“Let’s do that one. Maybe we go there, see how they live and interview the people there! That would be fun!” Henry replied

“I’m down with this one.” Norman said and looked at shawn. “What about you?”

Shawn thought for a moment then nodded “alright. Let do this.”

Henry looked up and emailed the owner of the land asking him if they could do there documentary on them for a week. They waited for a few hours before Henry’s phone signaled that there was a new email. Shawn and Norman ran to the sides of Henry as he got out his phone and checked it. “Hello Mr. stein! I have read your email and I accept your request for a documentary. We are excited to have your crew come to let us share our views with you three. We expect you tomorrow. Have a blessed day!”

Henry looked at shawn then Norman. “Looks Like we’re going on to the people of creation!”

Shawn and Norman went back to there dorms to start packing for the weeks trip. Henry booked three plan tickets then packed as well. They meet up after at the Uber Norman called and headed to the air port. By 11:30 there plan was off. By morning they landed, got there bags and took a taxi to closes it would take them to the gates of the people of the creation.

It was strange but they got out and grabbed there bags from the Trunk then walked the mile up to the gates of the people of creation. “Halt!” Called someone behind them, followed by the sound of a loading gun. They all froze in place Witt there hands up.

The man came around in View of them. “You people are?”

“H-Henry stain, sir.” Henry was the one to reply. “These are my friends Shawn Flynn and Norman Polk. We had p-permission t-to come and do a Documentary on you guys.” He was Hopping it was actually there leader he ask and not some troll.

The man gives them a nasty look. “Wait here!” He ordered then went off to the side and talk into a walkie-talkie while still keeping an eye on them. All three of them was nervous as hell of what could happen but none of them said anything.

The man came back to them a minute later. “My apologies. Follow me.” He turns and opened the gate. Henry looked at the others two before following the man, Shawn followed grant and Norman followed after.

They came upon a two story house away from the other buildings. The guy that escorted them knocked on the door and another man in a suit opened it. “Greets!” He smiled “you must be Henry stein!” He shook Henry’s hand. “I’m Joey drew!”

Henry nodded as he formerly shook joeys hand. “Yep that’s me! These are my friends and crew Shawn.” He pointed to his left. “And Norman.” He pointed to his right.

“Welcome you two.” Joey shakes and greats them as well. “Come. Let me show you around!”

He starts to lead them around before Henry turns to Joey. “Do you mind if one of us films the tour?”

Joey shakes his head. “No. Go right ahead! There’s nothing to hide here!” He Smiled in a way that makes Henry’s stomach flutter.

They stopped for a minute for Norman to dig in his bag and gets out his camera. He pressed to Record button and they proceed the tour.

The first stop was at the church. A few people were praying or reading the Bible. “We gather hear every night after dinner for a daily lesson on the Bible.” Joey announces into the Camera. “And every Sunday is the full mass.”

Norman films around the church and the praying people.

They move on from the crunch to walk the kitchen and eating area. “This is we’re we have our meals.” Joey explains. “We love to eat out side but we do have tables inside

Incase the weathers bad.” He informed them.

A blonde woman that was cleaning off a table comes over. “Hello Joey.” She bowed to him. “Are these those guys you told us about?”

Joey wrapped his arm around her. “Hello. Yes this is shawn, Henry and Norman.” He gestures to each as he said there names. “Guys this is my wife, Susie.” They all greeted her and then moved on from the area.

The next stop they came to was the garden. Rows and rows of there plants and It was fenced up to keep the wild life from eating there plants. “Here’s our family garden. The ones that maintain it are finish for the day.

They move on to the rest of the buildings and areas of the land. A school for the kids, an area for bomb fires, a farm for meet, dairy and eggs. There was horses also but Joey just told them it was for fun.

Lastly they come to a little green house. “Here is we’re you will be staying for the week.” Joey informed them. “I had my husbands cheek and make sure everything was nice and clean for arrival.” He opened the door to a living room nicer to any hotel room they ever stayed in.

“I’m sorry you said husbands?” Shawn ask joey. “I thought you said you had a wife?”

Joey looked at shawn. “ I do. I have Susie my wife. And Sammy and Grant my two husbands.” He replied. “I’ll let y’all meet them and everyone else as dinner. Your going to love it! Tell then I’ll let you settle and rest up.” He smiled and left.

The three of them walked into there Little home for the next week and looked around. There was a small kitchen with fridge and microwave but no stove. There wasn’t no tv or any books besides a Bible on the coffee table. Up stairs there was three rooms and a bathroom. They all chose there rooms and unpacked there bags and supplies.

Shawn finishes and goes to Henry’s room. “It’s a little odd how they have TVs huh?

Henry shrugged. “I donno. I mean.. the amish doesnt use electricity ether...maybe here they don’t ether for TVs.”

“Ya I guess you right.” Shawn nodded and went back to his room.

After they all finish unpacking there clothes and equipment they decided to rest form the long trip here. Henry went into his room for a nap. Shawn went into his room to watch a movie and Norman went to his room and pulled out his book he brought and started reading.

——-

Later that night, when they were getting ready for there first meal with these people someone knocked on there door. “I got it.” Henry said, walking down the stairs and opening the door to Joey snd two other man in white gowns.

“Hello again Henry!” Joey waved. “I hope you rest well?”

Henry nodded. “We did thank you. And the house is nice, again thank you.” Norman and Shawn Came up and nodded in agreement

“I’m glad to hear that.” Joey smiled. “Oh. This is Grant and Sammy. My two husbands.” He introduced them. They all said there greetings and started for the kitchen area. As they were walking and listening to Joey talk about how exciting he was they were doing there documentary here, Norman noticed one of the husbands had a limp. He wondered if he was alright but didn’t think much to it though.

When they arrived it was Swarming with everyone coming here to sit down at the long table and the cooks bringing over the dishes of good. “You guys can sit in these three chairs at the end.” Joey waved them over. Henry came over and sat at the vary end, Shawn sat in the middle of then him and Norman. Grant got the end on the other side, Susie sat beside him. Sammy sat beside her everyone else got to chose where. Joey sits on the end watching the everyone.

Once they were all sat down everyone bows there heads and placed there Palms together for prayer. Joey looked at the three visitors. “Please would you join us in prayer.” He smiled.

Henry looked at Norman and Shawn then shrugs. “Sure.” They all three bowed there heads and placed the palms then Joey announced the prayer and everyone finished it with an “amen.” And begins to scoop there serving and eat.

Joey turn to the visitors. “I appreciate you fellas praying with us. Means the world to us.” He spoke then took a bite of his role.

“It’s not a problem, Joey.” Henry replied and Shawn nodded.

“You joining us for bible lessen tonight, right ?” Joey ask them took a bite of chicken. “I mean you should. It’s fun!”

Henry finishes his sip of water and nodded. “Yea. We’re be there to film it. That’s ok right?”

Joey nodded. “That’s alright.”

Shawn stoped eating to watch everyone of them for a minute. They all were so happy here. Smiles on there faces, talking with there friends around them, eating this delicious food they make on there own. Plus living here deep in the woods! It paradise!

Norman glances at Joey as everyone was eating there food and talking to each other. He didn’t like the way Joey was asking these questions to them. He had a weird feeling from him and many of these people. One of joey’s husbands kept looking at him Shawn and Henry strangely. He was on guard of everyone and everything right now, watching everyone.

——

When everyone was finish with their dinner and the table was cleaned everyone headed down to the church building for bible lessees. Norman had set up his camera earlier in the day so he just push record once Joey started his lesson.

Shawn sat beside Grant and watching everyone fellow the words of there bibles as Joey reads. Grant looked at shawn before scooting closer and held the book to him to share. Shawn looked at Grant and smiled at him. Grant gave a smile back at him and they listen to the lesson.

Henry watched Joey and listen to everything he spoke. He wanted to understand what Joey was saying and why someone would want to join one of these. He couldn’t wait to interview Joey and these people tomorrow. Couldn’t wait to hear what they would say.

Once Joey was finish with the lesson he dismiss everyone and sat next to Henry. “It looked like you were vary interested in this Mr.stain”

Henry nodded. “It was interesting. I can’t wait for our interview tomorrow morning.”

Joey chuckles. “Sounds like a plan then. You three have a good night now.” Joey smiled at him as he got up and went to his wife and husbands. Together all four walked out of the church together. Once again Norman noticed the blonde man limping.

Henry got up and turned to Shawn and Norman. “Ready to go back now?”

Shawn and Henry went to the house and went to there rooms for the night. Norman went back with them but snuck out once they went in there rooms.

There was something going on with this place. He didn’t know what, but he knew something wasn’t right. Joey drew voice when he was asking Henry questions, they way the brown haired husband looked at them at dinner the fact they they lived in a the woods, The curfew thing and having guards walk around with guns.

Norman hide in the shadows as he moved around the place, dodging the guards with guns. He stopped and looked up at the church in front of him and notice it was a two story. He opened the door and peaked inside before going inside.

The church was empty. No one was sitting in the rows of benches. Norman walked slowly down the ally to the strange and picked up

The Bible that was on the table. He flipped though it and read the notes for a minute. He put it back down where it was and looked around. He noticed there was a way to back stage from the side so he went back there.

There was chairs stacked together in one corner, a few boxes full of bibles, and table With some junk on it. Then Norman noticed the was stairs in one corner going both up and down. Norman slowly approaches the stairs for the basement. One he got to the them he saw a door at the vary bottom. He took slow step down, making sure it didn’t creek. Then another. And another. He got down them and reaches for the door nob and twisted it.

“What are you doing?”

Norman nearly jumped out of his skin and turn around to the voice. It was the blonde husband, Sammy. He was standing at the top of the stairs. “I was....” Norman tried to think of something but his heart was beating to fast to think.

“Don’t you know it’s pass curfew?” Sammy simply ask.

Norman climbed the top of the stairs. “Ya. But I couldn’t sleep. I could ask the same thing to you though. This is your home after all.”

Sammy looked at Norman. “I was on my way home when I saw the door to the church opened. Thought I see what was going on.” He answered. “Come on. I’ll lead you home.”

Norman nodded and followed the short blonde out of the church. As they made there way to the house he again noticed Sammy was limping. “Are you alright?..” he asked. “I seen you limp all day.”

“I -I fine.” Sammy replied. Norman definitely noticed his voice was different here. Shaky almost. “It’s just a .. sprained. That’s all.”

Norman looked at him. “Well. Shouldn’t you put ice on it?”

Sammy nodded. “I will..I do..w-when I’m home.” He smiled up at him.

They walk in silence for the rest of the way and soon came to the house Norman was staying at. “Well. Goodnight Mr. Polk.” Sammy said. Norman watched the man as he limped away for a while. Then he went inside and got ready for bed.

[axel-fics]

Can I request an axel/reader with your fav trope?? Your stories are very sweet and I'm curious what your fav trope is ;w;

Aww, thanks nonnie! :D Can I just say… that I felt really silly that I didn’t know what a trope was? And then after I did my research and realized I knew what a trope was, I felt even sillier. The 5th grade version of myself is kicking my ass right now. Anyways, I chose The Great Gatsby since it’s one of my favorite books of all time, and the allegories in it are so deep and meaningful. I hope I did the book justice with this! 

Rainy Days and Bookstores

To you, bookstores were a safe haven. If you ever felt down about life or even just a bit more adventurous, you always found yourself skimming through the shelves for new stories to get lost in. It was always a place where you felt free to be yourself, where no one could judge you for sitting in the small reading nook for hours on end reading to your heart’s content. At the end of each trip, you always ended up buying a few books to add to your ever-expanding collection at home; pretty soon you knew you had to stop investing in books and buy a second bookshelf. 

It was a cold and rainy fall afternoon when you decided to pop into your favorite bookstore in Twilight Town. For the first time in a week, you actually had a day off of work and decided to spend it doing all of your favorite things around town. You had wished the weather would be nicer, but a day is a day off, and you were happy to take it. Walking into the bookstore, the bell above the door rang a familiar tune as it dinged above your head, quickly ringing a second time as you shut the door behind you to prevent the cold air from getting in. The bookstore was small and cramped with multiple bookshelves that left narrow passageways throughout the store, but it led to a larger back area with a few couches and chairs, and of course your favorite reading nook. The nook was in the back corner of the store with a large stained glass window of the town’s clock tower that usually glowed on sunny days. Today, however, the colors were slightly muted thanks to the gloominess of the sky. 

The store’s owner gave you a nod as you smiled and gave a small wave before continuing on your merry way of searching for something new to read. You decided today to go down the fiction aisle, which was a change from the mystery novels you were currently divulging into. Running your fingers along the spines of the books, you came across one of your all-time favorite novels: The Great Gatsby. You remembered it being a required text in your junior year of high school and everyone dreaded reading something so outdated. But you? You couldn’t be more excited. Every day you’d volunteer to read aloud, getting lost in the story so quickly that you never noticed all the other kids barely paying attention. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway; F. Scott Fitzgerald was in your top three favorite writers, and nothing would have distracted you from his famous stories. 

Although you were pretty sure you had a copy at home, you couldn’t help but pick up the book and take it with you to your usual spot on the nook along with a few other text you’ve picked up. Instantly diving into the story, you found yourself getting lost once again amongst the classic story of the doomed relationship of Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan and the observations that Nick Carraway described in his first-person narrative. 

‘But I didn’t call to him, for he gave a sudden intimation that he was content to be alone — he stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and, far as I was from him, I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I glanced seaward — and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock. When I looked once more for—’

“When I looked once more for Gatsby he had vanished, and I was alone in the unquiet darkness.”

A man stretched out on a couch not too far from you was looking in your direction, smirking as he finished the exact line you were just reading. How could he have possibly known??

“You were reading out loud. Actually, it was more like whispering pretty loudly,” he chuckled. 

“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disrupt you,” you bowed your head completely embarrassed. 

“Nah, you didn’t. I just sat down to get out of the storm, haven’t decided what to look at yet.” He pointed at the book you were now clenching in your hand. “Gatsby. Great book.” 

“You’ve read F. Scott Fitzgerald?”

“You sound surprised.”

“No, no! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that—”

“Relax, I’m just messing with you. And yes, I’ve read Fitzgerald. Almost all of his works. That one there is my favorite.”

“Mine too! The symbolism and depth of the entire story, how people’s lives are intertwined so easily and yet it’s never fully known to them. It just makes you think about how every thing in life has a result, a consequence.”

The man stood up from the couch and started walking over towards you. He was taller than he looked, probably because he was slouching on the couch, and had spiky red hair that went almost in every direction like a fireball. His eyes were a piercing green hue that looked simultaneously looked soft and sincere. He hovered above you for a second before you quickly moved your legs to clear some space for him to sit down. 

“The green light is one of my favorite allegories in literature. Being so close to something so dear to your heart but ever so far away. How he was hoping to bring his past and present together to form a suitable future with Daisy. I mean, everyone has a green light in their lives, right? It comes in different forms, but there’s always something that you’ll always desire and hope to have in your future.” You continued pouring your theories over to the man as he silently listened to you. He didn’t say much, but you could tell in his eyes that he actually was listening, and not just showing off to make it seem like he was slightly interested. 

Somewhere in between talking about the Valley of Ashes and Tom Buchanan’s mistress Myrtle Wilson, you caught yourself talking way too much and stopped. “I’m rambling, aren’t I?” 

“No, no, you’re fine. I like hearing your theories. It’s been a while since I read this, so it makes me wanna read it again.”

Blushing you closed the book and held it out to him. He raised an eyebrow at you in confusion. “I thought you were going to buy this?”

“I have a copy at home. I just couldn’t resist re-reading it today.”

The man gladly accepted the book and started carefully flipping through the pages before looking back up at you. “Maybe… after I finish reading this, we can compare notes?”

“Depends, are you asking me out?”

The man laughed. “Yes, I’m asking you out. Although I’m pretty sure I never got your name.”

“And I’m pretty sure I never got yours,” you smirked. 

“Fair enough. Name’s Axel, got it memorized?”

“It’s nice to meet you, Axel. I’m [Y/N].”

“[Y/N], huh? Pretty name for a pretty girl.” You instantly felt your cheeks burn as he gave you a wink. “Think I can get that number of yours?”

“Oh, right.” You took a pen and a piece of paper from your notebook that you stashed in your small backpack and wrote your name and number down before handing it to Axel. 

“Alright then, take a guess at how long it’ll take me to finish.” Axel stood up from his spot on the nook and started walking backwards to the cash register. 

“I’d say… three days.”

“You’d bet on it?” 

“Sure. If I win, uhm… you’ll have to buy me some sea-salt ice cream.”

“‘Kay, and if I win, I get a kiss on the first date.”

“Wait, what??”

“Catch ya later, [Y/N].” 

“But you never wagered how long you’d take!”

By then Axel had already purchased the book and was exiting the door, giving you a devilish smirk once again that made your heart skip a beat. A few hours later, while you were finishing up your day at the bookstore, you felt your phone vibrate in your pocket. An unknown number showed up on your screen. The text was of a picture of a notebook, lined with notes and observations from The Great Gatsby. Axel, that sly fox. 

A: Finished, sweetheart. Looks like you owe me a kiss :*

[sohayal]

Holiday Fashion Trends To Copy

Looking fashionable in winter is actually easier than you think. We all rely on our sweats and puffy coats help us survive the cold winter, but when it comes to the holidays we may want to dress up a bit. With so many fashion trends popping this winter, you’ll be able to stay warm, on-trend and festive for the holiday season.

Velvet Everything

Velvet is one of the most on-trend fabrics for the past few years, and thankful it hasn’t gone out of trend yet; because it is one of my absolute favorite trends. Velvet can dress up any look, a velvet top with jeans makes your entire outfit chic and dressed up while still being comfortable. Velvet dresses are perfect for Christmas dinner or date night out. And as an added bonus, velvet is a very warm fabric that will help you to stay warm even when it’s below zero. Adding a little accessory of a velvet belt or a velvet bow in your hair, not only is it practical but also will help you have a more put-together look. One of my most worn items during the holiday season is a black velvet skirt. It matches literally everything I own and makes my outfit stand out more than just a traditional black skirt. I also love the fact that it’s so soft and cozy.

Corduroy Comeback

Corduroy is making a serious comeback from the seventies and we cannot get enough. From overall corduroy dresses to matching corduroy skirts and jackets; we are seeing so many amazing fashion trends with this fabric. Corduroy is a thicker fabric so it’s ideal for winter when you want to stay warm and still look nice. It’s thicker than jeans and a bit nicer, but can also be dressed casually the way you would jeans. My favorite look has been corduroy overall dresses with a turtleneck underneath. It’s warm, cute and is a great transitional outfit between casual and dressy. Perfect for Thanksgiving dinner or a work meeting. Pair it with your warmest tights and boots and you have the perfect holiday fashion trend.

Sweater Weather

Let’s be honest, everyone’s favorite fashion trend in winter is sweaters. They are just the coziest look you could ever come by and they go with everything; jeans, dress pants, skirts, overtop of dresses. It keeps you warm but also looking very fashionable. I have a sweater in almost every color imaginable because it’s such a simple thing to throw on when running to the grocery to stay warm or catching a movie with a friend. Sweaters with boots are the easiest and most fashionable way to stay warm during winter. A red sweater with a bright red lip is a great way to be festive but also a quick and easy way to look nice. And sweaters come in so many different styles, cardigans, pullovers, chunky turtlenecks; the options are endless so stock up on a few of these so you stay cozy and cute this winter.

Blazer Boss

The other way to stay warm but look a bit more professional this winter is blazers. Layering up with a blazer gives you a business bitch look and I am absolutely here for it. It’s the easiest way to dress up jeans. It’s perfect for when you have to grab drinks right after work with friends. You can layer it with a long sleeve tee for extra warmth. These come in all kinds of fabrics and patterns and are one of the most versatile fashion pieces you can own. I am a firm believer that everyone can benefit from a good blazer. A plaid blazer with a matching skirt can be used for both the office and for going out to see the Nutcracker with your family. You will feel so chic and grown-up strutting in your blazer.

Patterned Tights

I’ll admit it, I actually love pantyhose. It may sound weird but I do. I love how dressy I feel in them, I love that they come so high up and I love how soft and stretchy they are. When your entire outfit is basically a dress and pantyhose, patterned tights can add a little more flair to what would be an otherwise boring outfit. I love a monochromatic black outfit with black polka dot tights, it adds just a little individuality without being over the top. And peaking out from under your boots, you’ll love the subtle look.

Suede Babe

Another beloved winter fabric that’s both warm and fashionable. Suede is probably the most popular of winter fabrics, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t own something that suede. From shoes to jackets, suede can be used on any clothing item. Suede skirts have been taking over college girls’ Instagrams by a storm, but even if you’re not a college girl, suede can still be your go-to fabric for winter fashion. Like velvet, it’s softer and you’ll love wearing it for comfort but you’ll also really like the fact that it is a nicer fabric to wear for your holiday gatherings. Suede loafers are an absolute must for me for winter, unlike a flat, it covers more of your foot and give more support but they are also a great transitional piece for any occasion.

Trendy Trench Coats

I am not talking about the taupe trench coats you find on detectives, I’m talking about long trench coats either in wool or another warm fabric that makes your outfit stand out. Coats can often take away from what would be a cute outfit, so why not have a cute coat to go along with it. One that hits right above the knees will ensure you stay warm but also shows off a little bit more of your outfit than a traditional full-length coat. These look so much nicer with your holiday dresses than a big puffy coat that swallows you and hides the rest of your outfit. Getting a black one is a safe bet to match more outfits, but opting for a bright pink or emerald green will make you stand out in the snow.

Over The Knee Boots

I’ll be honest, I didn’t like the one the knee boot trend at first, I’m 5’2, can you blame me? But I saw how amazing these looked for holiday fashion and knew I had to try it. And I was not disappointed. Over the knee boots are everyone’s friend, regardless of height. They actually made me look taller because it elongated my legs. It was also an added layer aka more warmth. I loved that I could put this on over skinny jeans, pantyhose or even just bare legs and be warm regardless. It’s perfect for the looks that you don’t want to put pantyhose on because it still gives you some warmth without that layer when it just doesn’t look right with pantyhose. These come in heeled options for if you wanna dress it up even more or flat options for being able to practically walk across the layers of ice on the sidewalk.

Snuggly Sherpa

Sherpa has become popular in fashion thanks to the rising trend in casual clothing. Stores that typically sell more sports or loungewear also sell sherpa because it’s just that versatile. Wearing sherpa is basically like wearing a blanket, but not looking like you just rolled out of bed. It looks better with sweats than your trench coat does but can also be worn with jeans for a semi-casual look.

Faux Fur

Let’s be real, faux fur is way more practical than real fur. Faux fur is less expensive and is better for our environment and the wellbeing of all animals. Faux fur can be just as warm as real fur and you will feel just as chic as if you were wearing real fur but, less guilty than if you were wearing real fur. You can pair this with a dress or black pants and a sweater. Top this look off with heeled booties and you’ll think you’re a model walking a runway, not the snowy streets of your hometown.

[cutiesaeran]

A Day to Be Reckless

Based off the first bad end, featuring trans M!MC.

Word count: 1937

Pairing: Unknown/MC

Rating: T for some “strong language”

I’m not sure what drove me to download the mysterious app that popped up as ‘recommended for you’ on fakebook. I don’t usually make sure impulsive decisions, especially not ones that could be potentially dangerous. After all, it could’ve been anything from the simple messaging app it claimed to be up to a way for some creep to track me and possibly kidnap me. For whatever reason, I tapped on it and downloaded it, following the prompts to create a username (McOllie, a nickname I’d earned based on my Irish last name) and set up my own little profile. Because I still had at least a little of my sanity, I opted to use a picture of one of my favorite characters from a beloved book series - Lunar Lovegreat - rather than one of my own, just in case. Once it was all done, I poked around the rest of the app to try to see what else there was to do, but most of it seemed foreign to me at that particular moment. So I just kind of shrugged it off and closed it, finishing my lunch break before heading back to class.

The rest of the day went by as normal, with me chatting occasionally to my cousin and a few of my friends until classes were over. It was a Wednesday, one of the nights I reserved during the week for studying, so I packed up my stuff and headed home. The bus was crowded, like usual, and I stood in the middle, making sure to leave any open seats for someone who needed it more than me. With one hand on the strap to keep myself secure, I used the other to open my phone to tripter and flip through the most recent updates of my friends. Many of them were planning to go out tonight to various events, including a musical production that was pretty popular among the students of the university. I actually had tickets to go see it that weekend with my cousin; Soomin was a very big fan of the lead actor and had begged me to go with her for quite a while before I finally caved. Musicals… aren’t really my thing.

I was in the middle of reading a rather amusing thread between two of my friends holding a conversation entirely in music quotes when the new app beeped at me, drawing my attention to the notification flashing at the top of my screen. Most apps don’t do that, so I tapped it curiously to find that someone was messaging me. I didn’t know how to take that, exactly, since I hadn’t done anything to add any friends. How strange…?

Unknown: …Hello…?

Should I answer? Not only is this a stranger messaging me, but they apparently decided the best username would be something as ambiguous as “Unknown.”  Maybe… it wouldn’t hurt, just to see what they want.

McOllie: Hello?

Unknown: Can you see this?

McOllie: Um, I answered, so yeah, that’s a safe assumption to make.

The stranger started up a conversation about having found a missing phone that supposedly only had this messenger app on it - something I found to be highly unlikely, but okay, I’ll bite for now. I let them talk about wanting to return the phone and being unable to, raising an eyebrow at how strange the tale sounded. When I tried to inquire more into their identity, they deflected it fairly easily with excuses of being ‘just a student studying abroad’ and that they’re Korean… as though that’s supposed to placate me, somehow. They asked me to help them find the owner of the phone by going to an address (the only one, in theory) that was saved in the device, and, for the third time that day, I found myself doing something that I normally wouldn’t do.

I said yes.

When I input the address into my GPS, I found it to be in one of the nicer portions of town. Well, that was either a good sign… or a very, very bad one. I’d already passed the stop to get there easily, so I just hopped off at the next one and rode another bus back to the area. It didn’t take me too long to get there, and on the way I sent my cousin a text letting her know what I was doing. May as well warn someone about my recklessness, right?

Ollie [17:23] Hey, I’m trying to help someone return a lost phone. I don’t know either of the parties personally, so… if you don’t hear from me in an hour or so, try to reach me, okay?

Ollie [17:24] This is the address:

Soomin [17:25] K… this is rly weird for u. stay safe plz

The apartment door I stopped at was plain, the only thing making it stand out from the rest being the rather large password lock on the handle. The sight of that, as well as the engraved ‘RFA’ right above it, made me feel even more uneasy about the whole situation.

Unknown: Are you there? ^^ See. Nothing strange.

Unknown: Is there a password lock on the door?

I… don’t know what to do. How should I answer? This is just so strange, a situation I’d never thought I’d find myself in. Well, I was supposed to be returning a phone, so I rang the doorbell. No one answered, so I knocked, shifting uneasily from one foot to the other and glancing down the hallway. The more time that passed, the more the dread in the pit of my stomach grew.

McOllie: Uh… no. I don’t see one. Maybe I’m at the wrong place?

Unknown: That’s strange.

Unknown: There’s really nothing?

Unknown: There’s nothing to put in the password?

I sucked in a breath; no going back now. Typing out my answer, I chewed on the inside of my cheek while I waited.

McOllie: Nope, nothing here. Could you have sent me the wrong address?

Unknown: …

Unknown: You sure?

Oh my god, why did they keep asking? It’s like they knew I was lying. My eyes widened as it dawned on me that they probably did. Shit. I gotta get out of here.

McOllie: No, there’s nothing here. I’m sorry, I don’t think I’ll be able to help so I’m just… gonna go now.

Unknown: Really?

Unknown: That’s strange.

Unknown: I see with my own eyes that…

Unknown: You are standing in front of a password door lock.

Unknown: Are you going to continue lying?

My blood ran cold as I read those words; fuck, what had I gotten myself into? This was the exact reason I’d always stuck to the straight and narrow path in the past, for fear of danger or ruining my carefully planned future.

Shutting off my phone and shoving it in my pocket, I pulled the hood from my sweater over my head, glancing both ways before quickly turning on my heel to head back to the elevator. My reflexes aren’t particularly quick, so I didn’t have a chance to stop my forward momentum before I crashed into his chest. Jerking back a little too quickly, I pin wheeled my arms to try to catch my balance. He reached out one hand, placing it on my shoulder and quirking an eyebrow at me. A black mask obscured the lower half of his face yet I could tell he was smirking at me by the way one of his eyes was slightly crinkled. His hair was bleached to the point that it was nearly white, excluding the tips, which were a very pale pink. Bright red eyebrows drew attention to his eyes, which were a very unusual shade of green - something I’d almost call a mint color. He was taller than me, though not by more than an inch. Our frames were similar but he was much skinnier than I, something that made his strength somewhat unexpected. The grip on my shoulder was tight, almost to the point of hurting, and he didn’t release me when I regained my footing.

“Well, that plan failed,” he murmured under his breath, his eyes raking over my body in a manner that made me feel very self-conscious. Subconsciously I crossed my arms over my chest, though I had nothing to hide, it was just reflexive. “I’ll have to find someone else. Although,” he continued thoughtfully, tilting his head to the side and reaching forward to lower my hood. Running a hand through my shaggy dark brown hair, he continued the movement down to pinch my chin between his thumb and forefinger, tilting my head to the side and staring at me. My eyes flickered down the hall, silently praying for someone, anyone to find us and save me.

“You’re rather handsome. I could get rid of you, but that’d be a shame. What should I do with you?” Retracting his hand, he pulled down his mask, smiling at me coldly. “What do you think, Ollie?”

I recoiled from the use of my name; that meant something I hadn’t wanted to admit even as all signs pointed to it: this was planned for me from the beginning. “I suppose it’s too much to ask for you to let me go?” I asked weakly, already knowing the answer. Should I be fighting him right now? Honestly, I probably should, and god knows I’ve taken my fair share of self-defense classes, but for some reason I can’t bring myself to raise my hand to him.

High-pitched laughter rang out, echoing in the empty corridor to form a weird playback effect that left my ears ringing. “You’ve seen me, so that’s not an option. Hmm. You know, he has an assistant; I think I deserve one as well.” The pause seemed pointed, as though he was waiting for me to say something, but I stayed silent. His eye twitched in annoyance before he said in a bored tone, “that would be you, Ollie. You’d be my assistant.” Moving his hand from my shoulder down my arm to grasp my wrist, he pulled me closer, his black leather jacket falling off of one shoulder to reveal a rather creepy looking eye tattoo. His eyes were trained on mine, an intensity swirling deep inside of them as he narrowed them. “What do you say? Wanna come with me to paradise, where you’ll find true happiness, and be my assistant? I promise I won’t hurt you… if you listen.” He cackled again and I flinched at how loud it was this close in proximity, my hand shaking at my side. I was scared shitless, but I was also… fascinated. Intrigued. I felt drawn to him in a manner I couldn’t comprehend.

Was this it? The end for me? Had I spent all those years at home, working so hard at school so I could be accepted into SKY University and travel to the country my mother was from to study, only to throw it all away? So far I had managed to achieve every single goal I had laid out for myself and my life was going the way I had planned, up until that moment. But I wasn’t happy. Not at all.

Maybe I needed something different. This was my chance to completely change everything.

Taking a deep breath, I nodded curtly. “Yes, I’ll do it.”

A flash of surprise rippled across his face before it was replaced with glee, and he spun around, pulling me toward the elevator. “Wonderful. Let’s not waste another moment then. A man like you deserves to enter paradise immediately.”

[truereviewpage]

Holiday House Tour 2018 & How We Decorated The Beach House!

Wanna see how we decorated our house (and the beach house) for Christmas? We have a ton of photos for you, so let’s get right into it. Since we got an entirely new exterior for Christmas (literally all I wanted for Christmas was a white brick house, ha!) we had so much fun trying some new things out front.

We did some simple warm white exterior LEDs (why are those so hard to find?!) on the trees on each side of the door. Remember I upgraded those to these larger faux ones because I can’t kill them and the taller height looks nicer on the porch with all the white brick. Those pots are actually the same ones we have had for 4+ years… I just spray painted them “Copper Rose” by Rustoleum (built in primer for the win – took about 30 minutes tops). Oh and we switched out the lights by the door for these slightly wider & bigger ones.

And of course I added my magnolia wreath that I make at this fun Wine & Wreath event that I go to with some of my favorite ladies every year (and every year my wreath gets bigger… I’m learning to let go you guys). This year we also added two fresh 14′ evergreen garlands from Trader Joe’s (just $7.99 each!) and I gotta say, we love the real greenery so much that I think that’ll be an annual tradition right along with my wreath-making pilgrimage (John strung up some more of the same warm white LEDs in there and we put the garland lights and the potted plants on the same automatic timer so they switch on and off every night on their own).

Other than that we just have our favorite LED battery candles in all of the front windows (more timers for the win! no running around turning them on and off every night – they’re completely autopilot!). We debated adding some more lights to the bushes and I’m not gonna lie, I campaigned hard for these white deer for the porch… but John was just not that into them. So while the exterior decorations don’t exactly rival the Griswolds, we do have FOUR CHRISTMAS TREES INSIDE (!!!) so our Christmas spirit is still alive and well.

I can’t wait to take a picture of the house all covered in the ultimate holiday decoration… snow! I might just lose my mind when I see it blanketed in fluffy white stuff for the first time. So, picture of that to come!

We also grabbed one more of those fresh 14′ garlands from Trader Joe’s to hang around the windows in the kitchen, which only took a few minutes (we just tapped a small picture nail into the top of the molding on each side of the window – which is also how we hung the one outside around the door surround). They’re such small nails that we put into the very top of the trim in both cases, so they’re basically invisible. So lazy me is debating just leaving them there year-round so they’re ready to hold garland each December.

I also tucked a few of my favorite little holiday things around the house, like these pink wooden trees that I got a few years back, which I stuck together in a group on our living room built-ins.

I kept the mantel simple this year with one of my favorite big pink bottle brush trees (it’s from Target years ago but here’s a similar one). I also added a pink mercury glass tree that I picked up (one of my only holiday buys this year – they’re just so sweet I couldn’t resist – and they have little lights inside that glow thanks to two small batteries in the base).

On the other side of the mantel is a little faux flower pot that I got maybe 6 months ago at Target (they didn’t sell them as holiday decor – I think they were actually out in the spring) but they look so festive with their red & green (and pink – ha!) tones to me. And then I dragged in this pink vase I got maybe a year ago (sadly no longer sold) and added a little strand of battery lights to the inside because DANG IT’S SO CUTE balancing out the glowing pink tree on the other side of the mantel.

This is the exact tree we have (I think, they keep moving the link & changing the name) and it hasn’t had a “theme” in years. We just pile it full of handmade ornaments from the kids and friends and things we have made ourselves (like these silhouette & handprint ornaments and these made from kid-art along with ornaments we’ve collected over the years, or during our travels. Viva la mish-mash!

The kids’ stockings are the same ones I got a few years back (here are some similar ones). Each year I add little elephant chains (random alert!) just because it’s a fun pop of color and hey, if I can’t get John to go for leopard print stockings, at least I can get some sassy little elephants in there.

Over in the dining room I grouped my remaining bottle brush trees (all collected over the years – here are some similar ones) on our old green sideboard and called it good.

But about those four Christmas trees I mentioned… while we’re pretty minimal with most holidays (like zero decor for Saint Patrick’s Day or Valentine’s Day or Thanksgiving) I think Christmas is just our fav. And I can’t tell you how much we enjoy seeing this little tree glowing in the bonus room window at the end of the hall. We spend movie nights in here and can even see it glowing in the window when we pull into the garage, so it’s a nice spot for a little tree. And the kids love hanging the mostly felt & plush stuffed ornaments all over it – complete with the abominable snowman on top.

Oh and just like we do downstairs, we use a faux sheepskin rug around the base. We only need one for this little tree, and our main tree in the living room gets three.

Another tree lives in our son’s room, and it’s a retro feeling green tinsel one (here’s a similar one) with colorful lights that our boy picked out himself last year. It looks really fun with his bright green closet door (it’s Irish Moss by Benjamin Moore). Also that sequin banana ornament is from Target and he loves it. Oh and the wooden reindeer next to the tree was made by John’s grandpa many decades ago.

Before bed each of our kids walk into the hallway and ask Alexa to turn off their tree and it magically goes off, which thrills them to no end. Speaking of which, John “Lover Of Smart Tech” Petersik made a quick video to show you how a smart plug can make turning a tree on and off whenever you want a LOT easier (especially one with the plug in an annoying spot). You don’t need Alexa or some other hub for this plug, by the way – you can just control it from your phone, which is nice. Sure, we could put this tree – or any of our other trees – on a basic timer like our exterior lights, but we love that we can turn on all the trees in the morning with one command (you can bulk multiple actions to happen at once). And similarly, we can turn all four of our trees off at once if we’re running out the door to a meeting or dinner. Note: You may need to click through from your blog reader to view the video player. And you can watch it on YouTube here.

Our daughter has also loved having a tree in her room for a few years now (here’s a similar one) and she takes great joy in redecorating it pretty much every morning. I like sticking her tree into a colorful basket that I painted (it’s a fun deviation from having a tree skirt – and it looks cute with her bold closet door, which is painted Cinco De Mayo by Benjamin Moore).

If you listened to our latest podcast, you know we thinned out our decorations in an attempt to keep things simpler this holiday season (since I’ve been working on simplifying the house in general over the past year, I didn’t want to undo all my efforts by cramming every surface with holiday decor). And thanks to that paring down session, we ended up with a bunch of “overflow” holiday decorations that we could bring to the beach house! We’ll be spending some time there with family over the holidays too, so we were really excited to decorate it for the first time. So three cheers for not spending a ton of money throwing all the things into my cart at Target, and getting to basically decorate this entire house with leftover stuff (aka: free!!!). I did purchase one tree – but literally even the ornaments on it are things we already had, so I’m calling it a win.

You probably remember seeing these red boots with faux evergreen branches all over our house (both out on the porch and inside under the console table, depending on the year) and now they’re living it up at the beach house, along with these little faux trees that used to be on our porch before we upsized them.

The wreath on the door is one that we bought last year but they still sell it (I LOVE the little gold bells with the gold transom numbers over them). Everything was so simple to plop down on the porch, and I love the bright red color of the boots with the pink siding (see this barn for more on my love of pink & red together for the holidays).

Inside you’ll probably remember this faux magnolia garland as the one I used last year on the mantel. I liked keeping the fireplace mantel more cleared off next to the big green tree this year – and adding our garland to this table was a nice way to bring some rich green color into our mostly-white-and-gray entryway. Plus I was able to double it up so it looks extra thick on that marble top (more on that amazing dresser here).

Over in the living room is the tree we bought – the single solitary purchase we made for the entire beach house decorating effort. I’ve always wanted one of these “Charlie Brown Christmas Trees” with charmingly sparse branches – and they had a big pre-holiday sale so I got this 6.5′ one for around $160.

All of the ornaments are ones that we already had from trees we did ages ago (we did a pink and green tree waaaay back in the day, and have also done a citrus one which is where the little green pear is from – oy, don’t mind those horrible photos from like a decade ago). We’ve found as we add more collected and homemade ornaments to our main tree in the living room of our house, the themed ornaments from those older trees have been used less, just because we don’t need 10 pink balls when we can have 10 random preschool masterpieces – ha! But I’m so glad we saved them because they’re perfect for this little tree here! Especially since it’s the pink house ;)

Oh wait, but we did buy the garland! I love that little yarn pom-pom stuff. It took three of them to do our 6.5′ tree and honestly if there had been four that would have been even better, but I got the last three.

Over in the back wall of the kitchen are a few other things I’m sure you’ll recognize if you’ve seen past holiday tours. Like these red reindeer that I painted seven whole years ago (how does time fly that fast?!?!) and a hammered bowl full or ornaments I’ve had forever on all sorts of surfaces. I also added a few feather trees to the kitchen and the pantry and in about 4.5 seconds it was feeling pretty jolly. My favorite thing is the letter board my girl did for me. I gave her free reign and just said “how about a holiday quote?” You can tell we watch a lot of Home Alone around here.

The funny thing is that John later remembered that I put that same quote on a black letter board last year. Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. And I like her spacing better than mine.

Over by My Favorite Pink Stove Of All Time (yes, that’s its proper name), I leaned up a little plate I got a few years back (here’s a similar one) and two white ceramic nutcrackers I’ve had for years. It’s so sweet how just a few things can make the entire kitchen feel ready to host a whole group of friends and family. I love that it doesn’t take much!

So there it is, a tour of our house all decked out for Christmas, along with some sweet stuff that we mostly repurposed for the beach house. We’d love to hear what you guys are doing to decorate for the holidays over on Facebook or Instagram, and if you’d like to see last year’s holiday tour, and the one from 2016, here are those links. We also have a few other holiday ideas for you below:

How to make a little Christmas village

Hosting Christmas dinner

Making kids silhouette ornaments  

How we made 38 simple & cheap holiday ornaments 

Making small glass boxes full of little winter scenes

How to make ornaments with kid art

Making ornament magnets for the fridge 

How we pack up & store our Christmas decorations

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post Holiday House Tour 2018 & How We Decorated The Beach House! appeared first on Young House Love.

Holiday House Tour 2018 & How We Decorated The Beach House! published first on https://aireloomreview.tumblr.com/

[statusreview]

Holiday House Tour 2018 & How We Decorated The Beach House!

Wanna see how we decorated our house (and the beach house) for Christmas? We have a ton of photos for you, so let’s get right into it. Since we got an entirely new exterior for Christmas (literally all I wanted for Christmas was a white brick house, ha!) we had so much fun trying some new things out front.

We did some simple warm white exterior LEDs (why are those so hard to find?!) on the trees on each side of the door. Remember I upgraded those to these larger faux ones because I can’t kill them and the taller height looks nicer on the porch with all the white brick. Those pots are actually the same ones we have had for 4+ years… I just spray painted them “Copper Rose” by Rustoleum (built in primer for the win – took about 30 minutes tops). Oh and we switched out the lights by the door for these slightly wider & bigger ones.

And of course I added my magnolia wreath that I make at this fun Wine & Wreath event that I go to with some of my favorite ladies every year (and every year my wreath gets bigger… I’m learning to let go you guys). This year we also added two fresh 14′ evergreen garlands from Trader Joe’s (just $7.99 each!) and I gotta say, we love the real greenery so much that I think that’ll be an annual tradition right along with my wreath-making pilgrimage (John strung up some more of the same warm white LEDs in there and we put the garland lights and the potted plants on the same automatic timer so they switch on and off every night on their own).

Other than that we just have our favorite LED battery candles in all of the front windows (more timers for the win! no running around turning them on and off every night – they’re completely autopilot!). We debated adding some more lights to the bushes and I’m not gonna lie, I campaigned hard for these white deer for the porch… but John was just not that into them. So while the exterior decorations don’t exactly rival the Griswolds, we do have FOUR CHRISTMAS TREES INSIDE (!!!) so our Christmas spirit is still alive and well.

I can’t wait to take a picture of the house all covered in the ultimate holiday decoration… snow! I might just lose my mind when I see it blanketed in fluffy white stuff for the first time. So, picture of that to come!

We also grabbed one more of those fresh 14′ garlands from Trader Joe’s to hang around the windows in the kitchen, which only took a few minutes (we just tapped a small picture nail into the top of the molding on each side of the window – which is also how we hung the one outside around the door surround). They’re such small nails that we put into the very top of the trim in both cases, so they’re basically invisible. So lazy me is debating just leaving them there year-round so they’re ready to hold garland each December.

I also tucked a few of my favorite little holiday things around the house, like these pink wooden trees that I got a few years back, which I stuck together in a group on our living room built-ins.

I kept the mantel simple this year with one of my favorite big pink bottle brush trees (it’s from Target years ago but here’s a similar one). I also added a pink mercury glass tree that I picked up (one of my only holiday buys this year – they’re just so sweet I couldn’t resist – and they have little lights inside that glow thanks to two small batteries in the base).

On the other side of the mantel is a little faux flower pot that I got maybe 6 months ago at Target (they didn’t sell them as holiday decor – I think they were actually out in the spring) but they look so festive with their red & green (and pink – ha!) tones to me. And then I dragged in this pink vase I got maybe a year ago (sadly no longer sold) and added a little strand of battery lights to the inside because DANG IT’S SO CUTE balancing out the glowing pink tree on the other side of the mantel.

This is the exact tree we have (I think, they keep moving the link & changing the name) and it hasn’t had a “theme” in years. We just pile it full of handmade ornaments from the kids and friends and things we have made ourselves (like these silhouette & handprint ornaments and these made from kid-art along with ornaments we’ve collected over the years, or during our travels. Viva la mish-mash!

The kids’ stockings are the same ones I got a few years back (here are some similar ones). Each year I add little elephant chains (random alert!) just because it’s a fun pop of color and hey, if I can’t get John to go for leopard print stockings, at least I can get some sassy little elephants in there.

Over in the dining room I grouped my remaining bottle brush trees (all collected over the years – here are some similar ones) on our old green sideboard and called it good.

But about those four Christmas trees I mentioned… while we’re pretty minimal with most holidays (like zero decor for Saint Patrick’s Day or Valentine’s Day or Thanksgiving) I think Christmas is just our fav. And I can’t tell you how much we enjoy seeing this little tree glowing in the bonus room window at the end of the hall. We spend movie nights in here and can even see it glowing in the window when we pull into the garage, so it’s a nice spot for a little tree. And the kids love hanging the mostly felt & plush stuffed ornaments all over it – complete with the abominable snowman on top.

Oh and just like we do downstairs, we use a faux sheepskin rug around the base. We only need one for this little tree, and our main tree in the living room gets three.

Another tree lives in our son’s room, and it’s a retro feeling green tinsel one (here’s a similar one) with colorful lights that our boy picked out himself last year. It looks really fun with his bright green closet door (it’s Irish Moss by Benjamin Moore). Also that sequin banana ornament is from Target and he loves it. Oh and the wooden reindeer next to the tree was made by John’s grandpa many decades ago.

Before bed each of our kids walk into the hallway and ask Alexa to turn off their tree and it magically goes off, which thrills them to no end. Speaking of which, John “Lover Of Smart Tech” Petersik made a quick video to show you how a smart plug can make turning a tree on and off whenever you want a LOT easier (especially one with the plug in an annoying spot). You don’t need Alexa or some other hub for this plug, by the way – you can just control it from your phone, which is nice. Sure, we could put this tree – or any of our other trees – on a basic timer like our exterior lights, but we love that we can turn on all the trees in the morning with one command (you can bulk multiple actions to happen at once). And similarly, we can turn all four of our trees off at once if we’re running out the door to a meeting or dinner. Note: You may need to click through from your blog reader to view the video player. And you can watch it on YouTube here.

Our daughter has also loved having a tree in her room for a few years now (here’s a similar one) and she takes great joy in redecorating it pretty much every morning. I like sticking her tree into a colorful basket that I painted (it’s a fun deviation from having a tree skirt – and it looks cute with her bold closet door, which is painted Cinco De Mayo by Benjamin Moore).

If you listened to our latest podcast, you know we thinned out our decorations in an attempt to keep things simpler this holiday season (since I’ve been working on simplifying the house in general over the past year, I didn’t want to undo all my efforts by cramming every surface with holiday decor). And thanks to that paring down session, we ended up with a bunch of “overflow” holiday decorations that we could bring to the beach house! We’ll be spending some time there with family over the holidays too, so we were really excited to decorate it for the first time. So three cheers for not spending a ton of money throwing all the things into my cart at Target, and getting to basically decorate this entire house with leftover stuff (aka: free!!!). I did purchase one tree – but literally even the ornaments on it are things we already had, so I’m calling it a win.

You probably remember seeing these red boots with faux evergreen branches all over our house (both out on the porch and inside under the console table, depending on the year) and now they’re living it up at the beach house, along with these little faux trees that used to be on our porch before we upsized them.

The wreath on the door is one that we bought last year but they still sell it (I LOVE the little gold bells with the gold transom numbers over them). Everything was so simple to plop down on the porch, and I love the bright red color of the boots with the pink siding (see this barn for more on my love of pink & red together for the holidays).

Inside you’ll probably remember this faux magnolia garland as the one I used last year on the mantel. I liked keeping the fireplace mantel more cleared off next to the big green tree this year – and adding our garland to this table was a nice way to bring some rich green color into our mostly-white-and-gray entryway. Plus I was able to double it up so it looks extra thick on that marble top (more on that amazing dresser here).

Over in the living room is the tree we bought – the single solitary purchase we made for the entire beach house decorating effort. I’ve always wanted one of these “Charlie Brown Christmas Trees” with charmingly sparse branches – and they had a big pre-holiday sale so I got this 6.5′ one for around $160.

All of the ornaments are ones that we already had from trees we did ages ago (we did a pink and green tree waaaay back in the day, and have also done a citrus one which is where the little green pear is from – oy, don’t mind those horrible photos from like a decade ago). We’ve found as we add more collected and homemade ornaments to our main tree in the living room of our house, the themed ornaments from those older trees have been used less, just because we don’t need 10 pink balls when we can have 10 random preschool masterpieces – ha! But I’m so glad we saved them because they’re perfect for this little tree here! Especially since it’s the pink house ;)

Oh wait, but we did buy the garland! I love that little yarn pom-pom stuff. It took three of them to do our 6.5′ tree and honestly if there had been four that would have been even better, but I got the last three.

Over in the back wall of the kitchen are a few other things I’m sure you’ll recognize if you’ve seen past holiday tours. Like these red reindeer that I painted seven whole years ago (how does time fly that fast?!?!) and a hammered bowl full or ornaments I’ve had forever on all sorts of surfaces. I also added a few feather trees to the kitchen and the pantry and in about 4.5 seconds it was feeling pretty jolly. My favorite thing is the letter board my girl did for me. I gave her free reign and just said “how about a holiday quote?” You can tell we watch a lot of Home Alone around here.

The funny thing is that John later remembered that I put that same quote on a black letter board last year. Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. And I like her spacing better than mine.

Over by My Favorite Pink Stove Of All Time (yes, that’s its proper name), I leaned up a little plate I got a few years back (here’s a similar one) and two white ceramic nutcrackers I’ve had for years. It’s so sweet how just a few things can make the entire kitchen feel ready to host a whole group of friends and family. I love that it doesn’t take much!

So there it is, a tour of our house all decked out for Christmas, along with some sweet stuff that we mostly repurposed for the beach house. We’d love to hear what you guys are doing to decorate for the holidays over on Facebook or Instagram, and if you’d like to see last year’s holiday tour, and the one from 2016, here are those links. We also have a few other holiday ideas for you below:

How to make a little Christmas village

Hosting Christmas dinner

Making kids silhouette ornaments  

How we made 38 simple & cheap holiday ornaments 

Making small glass boxes full of little winter scenes

How to make ornaments with kid art

Making ornament magnets for the fridge 

How we pack up & store our Christmas decorations

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post Holiday House Tour 2018 & How We Decorated The Beach House! appeared first on Young House Love.

Holiday House Tour 2018 & How We Decorated The Beach House! published first on https://ssmattress.tumblr.com/

[endlessarchite]

Holiday House Tour 2018 & How We Decorated The Beach House!

Wanna see how we decorated our house (and the beach house) for Christmas? We have a ton of photos for you, so let’s get right into it. Since we got an entirely new exterior for Christmas (literally all I wanted for Christmas was a white brick house, ha!) we had so much fun trying some new things out front.

We did some simple warm white exterior LEDs (why are those so hard to find?!) on the trees on each side of the door. Remember I upgraded those to these larger faux ones because I can’t kill them and the taller height looks nicer on the porch with all the white brick. Those pots are actually the same ones we have had for 4+ years… I just spray painted them “Copper Rose” by Rustoleum (built in primer for the win – took about 30 minutes tops). Oh and we switched out the lights by the door for these slightly wider & bigger ones.

And of course I added my magnolia wreath that I make at this fun Wine & Wreath event that I go to with some of my favorite ladies every year (and every year my wreath gets bigger… I’m learning to let go you guys). This year we also added two fresh 14′ evergreen garlands from Trader Joe’s (just $7.99 each!) and I gotta say, we love the real greenery so much that I think that’ll be an annual tradition right along with my wreath-making pilgrimage (John strung up some more of the same warm white LEDs in there and we put the garland lights and the potted plants on the same automatic timer so they switch on and off every night on their own).

Other than that we just have our favorite LED battery candles in all of the front windows (more timers for the win! no running around turning them on and off every night – they’re completely autopilot!). We debated adding some more lights to the bushes and I’m not gonna lie, I campaigned hard for these white deer for the porch… but John was just not that into them. So while the exterior decorations don’t exactly rival the Griswolds, we do have FOUR CHRISTMAS TREES INSIDE (!!!) so our Christmas spirit is still alive and well.

I can’t wait to take a picture of the house all covered in the ultimate holiday decoration… snow! I might just lose my mind when I see it blanketed in fluffy white stuff for the first time. So, picture of that to come!

We also grabbed one more of those fresh 14′ garlands from Trader Joe’s to hang around the windows in the kitchen, which only took a few minutes (we just tapped a small picture nail into the top of the molding on each side of the window – which is also how we hung the one outside around the door surround). They’re such small nails that we put into the very top of the trim in both cases, so they’re basically invisible. So lazy me is debating just leaving them there year-round so they’re ready to hold garland each December.

I also tucked a few of my favorite little holiday things around the house, like these pink wooden trees that I got a few years back, which I stuck together in a group on our living room built-ins.

I kept the mantel simple this year with one of my favorite big pink bottle brush trees (it’s from Target years ago but here’s a similar one). I also added a pink mercury glass tree that I picked up (one of my only holiday buys this year – they’re just so sweet I couldn’t resist – and they have little lights inside that glow thanks to two small batteries in the base).

On the other side of the mantel is a little faux flower pot that I got maybe 6 months ago at Target (they didn’t sell them as holiday decor – I think they were actually out in the spring) but they look so festive with their red & green (and pink – ha!) tones to me. And then I dragged in this pink vase I got maybe a year ago (sadly no longer sold) and added a little strand of battery lights to the inside because DANG IT’S SO CUTE balancing out the glowing pink tree on the other side of the mantel.

This is the exact tree we have (I think, they keep moving the link & changing the name) and it hasn’t had a “theme” in years. We just pile it full of handmade ornaments from the kids and friends and things we have made ourselves (like these silhouette & handprint ornaments and these made from kid-art along with ornaments we’ve collected over the years, or during our travels. Viva la mish-mash!

The kids’ stockings are the same ones I got a few years back (here are some similar ones). Each year I add little elephant chains (random alert!) just because it’s a fun pop of color and hey, if I can’t get John to go for leopard print stockings, at least I can get some sassy little elephants in there.

Over in the dining room I grouped my remaining bottle brush trees (all collected over the years – here are some similar ones) on our old green sideboard and called it good.

But about those four Christmas trees I mentioned… while we’re pretty minimal with most holidays (like zero decor for Saint Patrick’s Day or Valentine’s Day or Thanksgiving) I think Christmas is just our fav. And I can’t tell you how much we enjoy seeing this little tree glowing in the bonus room window at the end of the hall. We spend movie nights in here and can even see it glowing in the window when we pull into the garage, so it’s a nice spot for a little tree. And the kids love hanging the mostly felt & plush stuffed ornaments all over it – complete with the abominable snowman on top.

Oh and just like we do downstairs, we use a faux sheepskin rug around the base. We only need one for this little tree, and our main tree in the living room gets three.

Another tree lives in our son’s room, and it’s a retro feeling green tinsel one (here’s a similar one) with colorful lights that our boy picked out himself last year. It looks really fun with his bright green closet door (it’s Irish Moss by Benjamin Moore). Also that sequin banana ornament is from Target and he loves it. Oh and the wooden reindeer next to the tree was made by John’s grandpa many decades ago.

Before bed each of our kids walk into the hallway and ask Alexa to turn off their tree and it magically goes off, which thrills them to no end. Speaking of which, John “Lover Of Smart Tech” Petersik made a quick video to show you how a smart plug can make turning a tree on and off whenever you want a LOT easier (especially one with the plug in an annoying spot). You don’t need Alexa or some other hub for this plug, by the way – you can just control it from your phone, which is nice. Sure, we could put this tree – or any of our other trees – on a basic timer like our exterior lights, but we love that we can turn on all the trees in the morning with one command (you can bulk multiple actions to happen at once). And similarly, we can turn all four of our trees off at once if we’re running out the door to a meeting or dinner. Note: You may need to click through from your blog reader to view the video player. And you can watch it on YouTube here.

Our daughter has also loved having a tree in her room for a few years now (here’s a similar one) and she takes great joy in redecorating it pretty much every morning. I like sticking her tree into a colorful basket that I painted (it’s a fun deviation from having a tree skirt – and it looks cute with her bold closet door, which is painted Cinco De Mayo by Benjamin Moore).

If you listened to our latest podcast, you know we thinned out our decorations in an attempt to keep things simpler this holiday season (since I’ve been working on simplifying the house in general over the past year, I didn’t want to undo all my efforts by cramming every surface with holiday decor). And thanks to that paring down session, we ended up with a bunch of “overflow” holiday decorations that we could bring to the beach house! We’ll be spending some time there with family over the holidays too, so we were really excited to decorate it for the first time. So three cheers for not spending a ton of money throwing all the things into my cart at Target, and getting to basically decorate this entire house with leftover stuff (aka: free!!!). I did purchase one tree – but literally even the ornaments on it are things we already had, so I’m calling it a win.

You probably remember seeing these red boots with faux evergreen branches all over our house (both out on the porch and inside under the console table, depending on the year) and now they’re living it up at the beach house, along with these little faux trees that used to be on our porch before we upsized them.

The wreath on the door is one that we bought last year but they still sell it (I LOVE the little gold bells with the gold transom numbers over them). Everything was so simple to plop down on the porch, and I love the bright red color of the boots with the pink siding (see this barn for more on my love of pink & red together for the holidays).

Inside you’ll probably remember this faux magnolia garland as the one I used last year on the mantel. I liked keeping the fireplace mantel more cleared off next to the big green tree this year – and adding our garland to this table was a nice way to bring some rich green color into our mostly-white-and-gray entryway. Plus I was able to double it up so it looks extra thick on that marble top (more on that amazing dresser here).

Over in the living room is the tree we bought – the single solitary purchase we made for the entire beach house decorating effort. I’ve always wanted one of these “Charlie Brown Christmas Trees” with charmingly sparse branches – and they had a big pre-holiday sale so I got this 6.5′ one for around $160.

All of the ornaments are ones that we already had from trees we did ages ago (we did a pink and green tree waaaay back in the day, and have also done a citrus one which is where the little green pear is from – oy, don’t mind those horrible photos from like a decade ago). We’ve found as we add more collected and homemade ornaments to our main tree in the living room of our house, the themed ornaments from those older trees have been used less, just because we don’t need 10 pink balls when we can have 10 random preschool masterpieces – ha! But I’m so glad we saved them because they’re perfect for this little tree here! Especially since it’s the pink house ;)

Oh wait, but we did buy the garland! I love that little yarn pom-pom stuff. It took three of them to do our 6.5′ tree and honestly if there had been four that would have been even better, but I got the last three.

Over in the back wall of the kitchen are a few other things I’m sure you’ll recognize if you’ve seen past holiday tours. Like these red reindeer that I painted seven whole years ago (how does time fly that fast?!?!) and a hammered bowl full or ornaments I’ve had forever on all sorts of surfaces. I also added a few feather trees to the kitchen and the pantry and in about 4.5 seconds it was feeling pretty jolly. My favorite thing is the letter board my girl did for me. I gave her free reign and just said “how about a holiday quote?” You can tell we watch a lot of Home Alone around here.

The funny thing is that John later remembered that I put that same quote on a black letter board last year. Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. And I like her spacing better than mine.

Over by My Favorite Pink Stove Of All Time (yes, that’s its proper name), I leaned up a little plate I got a few years back (here’s a similar one) and two white ceramic nutcrackers I’ve had for years. It’s so sweet how just a few things can make the entire kitchen feel ready to host a whole group of friends and family. I love that it doesn’t take much!

So there it is, a tour of our house all decked out for Christmas, along with some sweet stuff that we mostly repurposed for the beach house. We’d love to hear what you guys are doing to decorate for the holidays over on Facebook or Instagram, and if you’d like to see last year’s holiday tour, and the one from 2016, here are those links. We also have a few other holiday ideas for you below:

How to make a little Christmas village

Hosting Christmas dinner

Making kids silhouette ornaments  

How we made 38 simple & cheap holiday ornaments 

Making small glass boxes full of little winter scenes

How to make ornaments with kid art

Making ornament magnets for the fridge 

How we pack up & store our Christmas decorations

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post Holiday House Tour 2018 & How We Decorated The Beach House! appeared first on Young House Love.

Holiday House Tour 2018 & How We Decorated The Beach House! published first on https://bakerskitchenslimited.tumblr.com/

[interiorstarweb]

Holiday House Tour 2018 & How We Decorated The Beach House!

Wanna see how we decorated our house (and the beach house) for Christmas? We have a ton of photos for you, so let’s get right into it. Since we got an entirely new exterior for Christmas (literally all I wanted for Christmas was a white brick house, ha!) we had so much fun trying some new things out front.

We did some simple warm white exterior LEDs (why are those so hard to find?!) on the trees on each side of the door. Remember I upgraded those to these larger faux ones because I can’t kill them and the taller height looks nicer on the porch with all the white brick. Those pots are actually the same ones we have had for 4+ years… I just spray painted them “Copper Rose” by Rustoleum (built in primer for the win – took about 30 minutes tops).

And of course I added my magnolia wreath that I make at this fun Wine & Wreath event that I go to with some of my favorite ladies every year (and every year my wreath gets bigger… I’m learning to let go you guys). This year we also added two fresh 14′ evergreen garlands from Trader Joe’s (just $7.99 each!) and I gotta say, we love the real greenery so much that I think that’ll be an annual tradition right along with my wreath-making pilgrimage (John strung up some more of the same warm white LEDs in there and we put the garland lights and the potted plants on the same automatic timer so they switch on and off every night on their own).

Other than that we just have our favorite LED battery candles in all of the front windows (more timers for the win! no running around turning them on and off every night – they’re completely autopilot!). We debated adding some more lights to the bushes and I’m not gonna lie, I campaigned hard for these white deer for the porch… but John was just not that into them. So while the exterior decorations don’t exactly rival the Griswolds, we do have FOUR CHRISTMAS TREES INSIDE (!!!) so our Christmas spirit is still alive and well.

I can’t wait to take a picture of the house all covered in the ultimate holiday decoration… snow! I might just lose my mind when I see it blanketed in fluffy white stuff for the first time. So, picture of that to come!

We also grabbed one more of those fresh 14′ garlands from Trader Joe’s to hang around the windows in the kitchen, which only took a few minutes (we just tapped a small picture nail into the top of the molding on each side of the window – which is also how we hung the one outside around the door surround). They’re such small nails that we put into the very top of the trim in both cases, so they’re basically invisible. So lazy me is debating just leaving them there year-round so they’re ready to hold garland each December.

I also tucked a few of my favorite little holiday things around the house, like these pink wooden trees that I got a few years back, which I stuck together in a group on our living room built-ins.

I kept the mantel simple this year with one of my favorite big pink bottle brush trees (it’s from Target years ago but here’s a similar one). I also added a pink mercury glass tree that I picked up (one of my only holiday buys this year – they’re just so sweet I couldn’t resist – and they have little lights inside that glow thanks to two small batteries in the base).

On the other side of the mantel is a little faux flower pot that I got maybe 6 months ago at Target (they didn’t sell them as holiday decor – I think they were actually out in the spring) but they look so festive with their red & green (and pink – ha!) tones to me. And then I dragged in this pink vase I got maybe a year ago (sadly no longer sold) and added a little strand of battery lights to the inside because DANG IT’S SO CUTE balancing out the glowing pink tree on the other side of the mantel.

This is the exact tree we have (I think, they keep moving the link & changing the name) and it hasn’t had a “theme” in years. We just pile it full of handmade ornaments from the kids and friends and things we have made ourselves (like these silhouette & handprint ornaments and these made from kid-art along with ornaments we’ve collected over the years, or during our travels. Viva la mish-mash!

The kids’ stockings are the same ones I got a few years back (here are some similar ones). Each year I add little elephant chains (random alert!) just because it’s a fun pop of color and hey, if I can’t get John to go for leopard print stockings, at least I can get some sassy little elephants in there.

Over in the dining room I grouped my remaining bottle brush trees (all collected over the years – here are some similar ones) on our old green sideboard and called it good.

But about those four Christmas trees I mentioned… while we’re pretty minimal with most holidays (like zero decor for Saint Patrick’s Day or Valentine’s Day or Thanksgiving) I think Christmas is just our fav. And I can’t tell you how much we enjoy seeing this little tree glowing in the bonus room window at the end of the hall. We spend movie nights in here and can even see it glowing in the window when we pull into the garage, so it’s a nice spot for a little tree. And the kids love hanging the mostly felt & plush stuffed ornaments all over it – complete with the abominable snowman on top.

Oh and just like we do downstairs, we use a faux sheepskin rug around the base. We only need one for this little tree, and our main tree in the living room gets three.

Another tree lives in our son’s room, and it’s a retro feeling green tinsel one (here’s a similar one) with colorful lights that our boy picked out himself last year. It looks really fun with his bright green closet door (it’s Irish Moss by Benjamin Moore). Also that sequin banana ornament is from Target and he loves it. Oh and the wooden reindeer next to the tree was made by John’s grandpa many decades ago.

Before bed each of our kids walk into the hallway and ask Alexa to turn off their tree and it magically goes off, which thrills them to no end. Speaking of which, John “Lover Of Smart Tech” Petersik made a quick video to show you how a smart plug can make turning a tree on and off whenever you want a LOT easier (especially one with the plug in an annoying spot). You don’t need Alexa or some other hub for this plug, by the way – you can just control it from your phone, which is nice. Sure, we could put this tree – or any of our other trees – on a basic timer like our exterior lights, but we love that we can turn on all the trees in the morning with one command (you can bulk multiple actions to happen at once). And similarly, we can turn all four of our trees off at once if we’re running out the door to a meeting or dinner. Note: You may need to click through from your blog reader to view the video player. And you can watch it on YouTube here.

Our daughter has also loved having a tree in her room for a few years now (here’s a similar one) and she takes great joy in redecorating it pretty much every morning. I like sticking her tree into a colorful basket that I painted (it’s a fun deviation from having a tree skirt – and it looks cute with her bold closet door, which is painted Cinco De Mayo by Benjamin Moore).

If you listened to our latest podcast, you know we thinned out our decorations in an attempt to keep things simpler this holiday season (since I’ve been working on simplifying the house in general over the past year, I didn’t want to undo all my efforts by cramming every surface with holiday decor). And thanks to that pairing down session, we ended up with a bunch of “overflow” holiday decorations that we could bring to the beach house! We’ll be spending some time there with family over the holidays too, so we were really excited to decorate it for the first time. So three cheers for not spending a ton of money throwing all the things into my cart at Target, and getting to basically decorate this entire house with leftover stuff (aka: free!!!). I did purchase one tree – but literally even the ornaments on it are things we already had, so I’m calling it a win.

You probably remember seeing these red boots with faux evergreen branches all over our house (both out on the porch and inside under the console table, depending on the year) and now they’re living it up at the beach house, along with these little faux trees that used to be on our porch before we upsized them.

The wreath on the door is one that we bought last year but they still sell it (I LOVE the little gold bells with the gold transom numbers over them). Everything was so simple to plop down on the porch, and I love the bright red color of the boots with the pink siding (see this barn for more on my love of pink & red together for the holidays).

Inside you’ll probably remember this faux magnolia garland as the one I used last year on the mantel. I liked keeping the fireplace mantel more cleared off next to the big green tree this year – and adding our garland to this table was a nice way to bring some rich green color into our mostly-white-and-gray entryway. Plus I was able to double it up so it looks extra thick on that marble top (more on that amazing dresser here).

Over in the living room is the tree we bought – the single solitary purchase we made for the entire beach house decorating effort. I’ve always wanted one of these “Charlie Brown Christmas Trees” with charmingly sparse branches – and they had a big pre-holiday sale so I got this 6.5′ one for around $160.

All of the ornaments are ones that we already had from trees we did ages ago (we did a pink and green tree waaaay back in the day, and have also done a citrus one which is where the little green pear is from – oy, don’t mind those horrible photos from like a decade ago). We’ve found as we add more collected and homemade ornaments to our main tree in the living room of our house, the themed ornaments from those older trees have been used less, just because we don’t need 10 pink balls when we can have 10 random preschool masterpieces – ha! But I’m so glad we saved them because they’re perfect for this little tree here! Especially since it’s the pink house ;)

Oh wait, but we did buy the garland! I love that little yarn pom-pom stuff. It took three of them to do our 6.5′ tree and honestly if there had been four that would have been even better, but I got the last three.

Over in the back wall of the kitchen are a few other things I’m sure you’ll recognize if you’ve seen past holiday tours. Like these red reindeer that I painted seven whole years ago (how does time fly that fast?!?!) and a hammered bowl full or ornaments I’ve had forever on all sorts of surfaces. I also added a few feather trees to the kitchen and the pantry and in about 4.5 seconds it was feeling pretty jolly. My favorite thing is the letter board my girl did for me. I gave her free reign and just said “how about a holiday quote?” You can tell we watch a lot of Home Alone around here.

The funny thing is that John later remembered that I put that same quote on a black letter board last year. Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. And I like her spacing better than mine.

Over by My Favorite Pink Stove Of All Time (yes, that’s its proper name), I leaned up a little plate I got a few years back (here’s a similar one) and two white ceramic nutcrackers I’ve had for years. It’s so sweet how just a few things can make the entire kitchen feel ready to host a whole group of friends and family. I love that it doesn’t take much!

So there it is, a tour of our house all decked out for Christmas, along with some sweet stuff that we mostly repurposed for the beach house. We’d love to hear what you guys are doing to decorate for the holidays over on Facebook or Instagram, and if you’d like to see last year’s holiday tour, and the one from 2016, here are those links. We also have a few other holiday ideas for you below:

How to make a little Christmas village

Hosting Christmas dinner

Making kids silhouette ornaments  

How we made 38 simple & cheap holiday ornaments 

Making small glass boxes full of little winter scenes

How to make ornaments with kid art

Making ornament magnets for the fridge 

How we pack up & store our Christmas decorations

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post Holiday House Tour 2018 & How We Decorated The Beach House! appeared first on Young House Love.

Holiday House Tour 2018 & How We Decorated The Beach House! published first on https://novaformmattressreview.tumblr.com/

[vincentbnaughton]

Holiday House Tour 2018 & How We Decorated The Beach House!

Wanna see how we decorated our house (and the beach house) for Christmas? We have a ton of photos for you, so let’s get right into it. Since we got an entirely new exterior for Christmas (literally all I wanted for Christmas was a white brick house, ha!) we had so much fun trying some new things out front.

We did some simple warm white exterior LEDs (why are those so hard to find?!) on the trees on each side of the door. Remember I upgraded those to these larger faux ones because I can’t kill them and the taller height looks nicer on the porch with all the white brick.  Those pots are actually the same ones we have had for 3+ years and I just spray painted them “Copper Rose” by Rustoleum (built in primer for the win – took about 30 mins tops).

And of course I added my magnolia wreath that I make at this fun Wine & Wreath event that I go to with some of my favorite ladies every year (and every year my wreath gets bigger… I’m learning to let go you guys). This year we also added two fresh 14′ evergreen garlands from Trader Joe’s (just $7.99 each!) and I gotta say, we love the real greenery so much that I think that’ll be an annual tradition right along with my wreath-making pilgrimage (John strung up some more of the same warm white LEDs in there and we put the garland lights and the potted plants on the same automatic timer so they switch on and off every night on their own).

Other than that we just have our favorite LED battery candles in all of the front windows (more timers for the win! no running around turning them on and off every night – they’re completely autopilot!). We debated adding some more lights to the bushes and I’m not gonna lie, I campaigned hard for these white deer for the porch… but John was just not that into them. So while the exterior decorations don’t exactly rival the Griswolds, we do have FOUR CHRISTMAS TREES INSIDE (!!!) so our Christmas spirit is still alive and well.

I can’t wait to take a picture of the house all covered in the ultimate holiday decoration… snow! I might just lose my mind when I see it blanketed in fluffy white stuff for the first time. No really, just thinking about it gives me involuntary jazz hands.

We also grabbed one more of those fresh 14′ garlands from Trader Joe’s to hang around the windows in the kitchen, which only took a few minutes (we just tapped a small picture nail into the top of the molding on each side of the window – which is also how we hung the one outside around the door surround). They’re such small nails that we put into the very top of the trim in both cases, so they’re basically invisible. So lazy me is debating just leaving them there year-round so they’re ready to hold garland each December.

I also tucked a few of my favorite little holiday things around the house, like these pink wooden trees that I got a few years back, which I stuck together in a group on our living room built-ins.

I kept the mantel simple this year with one of my favorite big pink bottle brush trees (it’s from Target years ago but here’s a similar one). I also added a pink mercury glass tree that I picked up (one of my only holiday buys this year – they’re just so sweet I couldn’t resist – and they have little lights inside that glow thanks to two small batteries in the base).

On the other side of the mantel is a little faux flower pot that I got maybe 6 months ago at Target (they didn’t sell them as holiday decor – I think they were actually out in the spring) but they look so festive with their red & green (and pink – ha!) tones to me. And then I dragged in this pink vase I got maybe a year ago (sadly no longer sold) and added a little strand of battery lights to the inside because DANG IT’S SO CUTE balancing out the glowing pink tree on the other side of the mantel.

This is the exact tree we have (I think, they keep moving the link & changing the name) and it hasn’t had a “theme” in years. We just pile it full of handmade ornaments from the kids and friends and things we have made ourselves (like these silhouette & handprint ornaments and these made from kid-art along with ornaments we’ve collected over the years, or during our travels. Viva la mish-mash!

The kids’ stockings are the same ones I got a few years back (here are some similar ones). Each year I add little elephant chains (random alert!) just because it’s a fun pop of color and hey, if I can’t get John to go for leopard print stockings, at least I can get some sassy little elephants in there.

Over in the dining room I grouped my remaining bottle brush trees (all collected over the years – here are some similar ones) on our old green sideboard and called it good.

But about those four Christmas trees I mentioned… while we’re pretty minimal with most holidays (like zero decor for Saint Patrick’s Day or Valentine’s Day or Thanksgiving) I think Christmas is just our fav. And I can’t tell you how much we enjoy seeing this little tree glowing in the bonus room window at the end of the hall. We spend movie nights in here and can even see it glowing in the window when we pull into the garage, so it’s a nice spot for a little tree. And the kids love hanging the mostly felt & plush stuffed ornaments all over it – complete with the abominable snowman on top.

Oh and just like we do downstairs, we use a faux sheepskin rug around the base. We only need one for this little tree, and our main tree in the living room gets three.

Another tree lives in our son’s room, and it’s a retro feeling green tinsel one (here’s a similar one) with colorful lights that our boy picked out himself last year. It looks really fun with his bright green closet door (it’s Irish Moss by Benjamin Moore). Also that sequin banana ornament is from Target and he loves it. Oh and the wooden reindeer next to the tree was made by John’s grandpa many decades ago.

Before bed each of our kids walk into the hallway and ask Alexa to turn off their tree and it magically goes off, which thrills them to no end. Speaking of which, John “Lover Of Smart Tech” Petersik made a quick video to show you how a smart plug can make turning a tree on and off whenever you want a LOT easier (especially one with the plug in an annoying spot). You don’t need Alexa or some other hub for this plug, by the way – you can just control it from your phone, which is nice. Sure, we could put this tree – or any of our other trees – on a basic timer like our exterior lights, but we love that we can turn on all the trees in the morning with one command (you can bulk multiple actions to happen at once). And similarly, we can turn all four of our trees off at once if we’re running out the door to a meeting or dinner. Note: You may need to click through from your blog reader to view the video player. And you can watch it on YouTube here.

Our daughter has also loved having a tree in her room for a few years now (here’s a similar one) and she takes great joy in redecorating it pretty much every morning. I like sticking her tree into a colorful basket that I painted (it’s a fun deviation from having a tree skirt – and it looks cute with her bold closet door, which is painted Cinco De Mayo by Benjamin Moore).

If you listened to our latest podcast, you know we thinned out our decorations in an attempt to keep things simpler this holiday season (since I’ve been working on simplifying the house in general over the past year, I didn’t want to undo all my efforts by cramming every surface with holiday decor). And thanks to that pairing down session, we ended up with a bunch of “overflow” holiday decorations that we could bring to the beach house! We’ll be spending some time there with family over the holidays too, so we were really excited to decorate it for the first time. So three cheers for not spending a ton of money throwing all the things into my cart at Target, and getting to basically decorate this entire house with leftover stuff (aka: free!!!). I did purchase one tree – but literally even the ornaments on it are things we already had, so I’m calling it a win.

You probably remember seeing these red boots with faux evergreen branches all over our house (both out on the porch and inside under the console table, depending on the year) and now they’re living it up at the beach house, along with these little faux trees that used to be on our porch before we upsized them.

The wreath on the door is one that we bought last year but they still sell it (I LOVE the little gold bells with the gold transom numbers over them). Everything was so simple to plop down on the porch, and I love the bright red color of the boots with the pink siding (see this barn for more on my love of pink & red together for the holidays).

Inside you’ll probably remember this faux magnolia garland as the one I used last year on the mantel. I liked keeping the fireplace mantel more cleared off next to the big green tree this year – and adding our garland to this table was a nice way to bring some rich green color into our mostly-white-and-gray entryway. Plus I was able to double it up so it looks extra thick on that marble top (more on that amazing dresser here).

Over in the living room is the tree we bought – the single solitary purchase we made for the entire beach house decorating effort. I’ve always wanted one of these “Charlie Brown Christmas Trees” with charmingly sparse branches – and they had a big pre-holiday sale so I got this 6.5′ one for around $160.

All of the ornaments are ones that we already had from trees we did ages ago (we did a pink and green tree waaaay back in the day, and have also done a citrus one which is where the little green pear is from – oy, don’t mind those horrible photos from like a decade ago). We’ve found as we add more collected and homemade ornaments to our main tree in the living room of our house, the themed ornaments from those older trees have been used less, just because we don’t need 10 pink balls when we can have 10 random preschool masterpieces – ha! But I’m so glad we saved them because they’re perfect for this little tree here! Especially since it’s the pink house ;)

Oh wait, but we did buy the garland! I love that little yarn pom-pom stuff. It took three of them to do our 6.5′ tree and honestly if there had been four that would have been even better, but I got the last 3.

Over in the back wall of the kitchen are a few other things I’m sure you’ll recognize if you’ve seen past holiday tours. Like these red reindeer that I painted seven whole years ago (how does time fly that fast?!?!) and a hammered bowl full or ornaments I’ve had forever on all sorts of surfaces. I also added a few feather trees to the kitchen and the pantry and in about 4.5 seconds it was feeling pretty jolly. My favorite thing is the letter board my girl did for me. I gave her free reign and just said “how about a holiday quote?” You can tell we watch a lot of Home Alone around here.

The funny thing is that John later remembered that I put that same quote on a black letter board last year. Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. And I like her spacing better than mine.

Over by My Favorite Pink Stove Of All Time (yes, that’s its proper name), I leaned up a little plate I got a few years back at Target (here’s a similar one) and two white ceramic nutcrackers I’ve had for years. It’s so sweet how just a few things can make the entire kitchen feel ready to host a whole group of friends and family. I love that it doesn’t take much!

So there it is, a tour of our house all decked out for Christmas, along with some sweet stuff that we mostly repurposed for the beach house. We’d love to hear what you guys are doing to decorate for the holidays over on Facebook or Instagram, and if you’d like to see last year’s holiday tour, and the one from 2016, here are those links. We also have a few other holiday ideas for you below:

How to make a little Christmas village

Hosting Christmas dinner

Making kids silhouette ornaments  

How we made 38 simple & cheap holiday ornaments 

Making small glass boxes full of little winter scenes

How to make ornaments with kid art

Making ornament magnets for the fridge 

How we pack up & store our Christmas decorations

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post Holiday House Tour 2018 & How We Decorated The Beach House! appeared first on Young House Love.

[reddit-lpt]

LPT: How to fight, win or lessen your traffic citations.

LPT: How to fight, win or lessen your traffic citations.

I wanna thank this thread from back in the day and build upon it.

Here's my experience with THREE traffic citations I got in ONE month. For the record, I have a fairly clean traffic record. No accidents in 14 years of driving and a handful of speeding / parking tickets, an average of about 1 ticket every 2 years or so. The three I got in one month amounted to frequent driving and bad luck. I got 1 ticket for running a red light, 1 ticket for being in a park after closure, and 1 ticket for running a stop sign. Also, I'm a grad student not a law student so I don't know jack about the law but I do know a thing or two about research. Finally, I'd like to remind everyone that this should in no way should substitute for legal advice.

First the park after hours ticket. Surprisingly the trial took place until 2.5 months down the road which is long. If you are wondering why it takes so long, it's because the law tries to work in a bunch of defendants into one day. So they schedule something that is convenient for them which may act as a deterrent for you. So 99% of the time, the cop will show up and there will be anywhere from 1 to 5 other defendants there. At that point, the cop will talk to each defendant before the trial and offer them a plea bargain. What's a plea bargain? It's when they give you a lesser sentence in order to avoid the entire trial. The law is honestly lazy and will show you a bit of leniency if you are nice because trials can take a while (anywhere from 5 mins to hours) and people want to get home. That day it was just me and someone else - a kid who was caught doing donughts in the parking lot. I overheard his fine was something like $400 dollars plus 3 points (careless driving I believe although I might be mistaken). He got a plea bargain NOT from the cop but from the judge right before his trial. Kid took the deal ($400 but 0 points). Might have something to do with the cop being a park ranger.

Next was me. So a bit of a backstory. My gf and I went to the park on a weekday after work. Parks normally close at sundown (and neither one of us knew about). We pulled up just after 9 for some "cardio." The gates were open and the park was big so we drove around until we found a nice parking spot (and I'm anal with my car). As soon as I parked and turned off my lights, I see the park ranger (I'll refer to him as just cop) pull up in front of us. We didn't even get a chance to get out of the car. The guy was cool and I was nice back. Answered him truthfully and honestly. No drugs or liquor in the car. That's the first thing he asked. Both of us were dressed up. Nothing shady at all. He goes to his car, sits a while, and comes back with a $280 fine. I was upset because it's $280. Plead non-guilty and here we are.

So the judge offers me a pea bargain. He'll take $50 off the ticket and no points OR I could go for it - win the entire amount back. If I'm found guilty, I lose it all. I decided to go for it. I did a bit of research beforehand and noticed that there were NO signs anywhere in the park entrance but there were some much further into the park by the parking lot which are hard to notice at night. Additionally the gates were open and the traffic lights were green and conducted traffic into the park. Right before the trial, I talked to the cop and he told me one of the gates were broken so they kept all of them open. I saw my chance and went for it. You know that phrase "anything can and will be used against you?" It works in both directions including against the cop. At the trial, the prosecutor (aka park ranger) presents his evidence (video footage, photo footage, signs, etc) and then asks questions until he is satisfied. Then it's your turn. Again I answered truthfully and honestly like where I was and what I was doing. After which it was my turn. I presented a video of my car dash cam entering the park with no signs of park hours anywhere. Then I started bombarding the cop with a bunch of questions such as - why he didn't pull me over by the entrance, why there were other cars traveling nearby, why there wasn't a sign by the entrance (a DUI driver knocked it down from earlier and it was never replaced), and why the gate wasn't closed. His eyes lit up and he knew he fell into a trap from talking too much. He replied they were broken. The judge bought it, told me I should have been a lawyer, and dismissed the case. I got my money back. I also wanna add I enjoyed the whole court experience. Something everyone should do win or lose just to get an idea of how the process works should they be faced with a serious charge later on. Also, the park's gates are now closed because of me. I checked a week later.

Second, the red light. I was driving my family home after celebrating my mom's birthday. It was snowy / wet that day so I was doing about 40mph in a 45mph zone. The light turned yellow and it was fairly late to stop so I ran it. I could have possibly stopped and come skidding to a halt but I didn't want to risk it due to the weather conditions. A few seconds later I see the lights behind me and I pull over. Both of my parents, whom are normally quick to snap at my mistakes, said I ran the yellow and the cop was riding the line and just trying to fill his end of the month quota. Once again, I was nice to the guy, gave him my ID, insurance, and he gave me a $180 ticket for a red light related citation. Normally it is 3 points but he caught me a break with just the fine. I plead not guilty as I wanted to fight it in court. Since I was driving my mom's car, she didn't have a dash cam. Additionally, both of my parents wanted to be "witnesses" but couldn't call out of work. I also could only get an hour off that day so I showed up, saw if I could get a plea deal but it was already as low as it could go. I ended up pleading guilty and running off to work. However I noticed something. There were 5 other defendants before me. Each of the defendants were faced with VERY expensive tickets and/or points. Each time they were bumped down to around $180 and zero points which is the bare minimum. My only real loss but hey no points and experienced gained.

Lastly, the stop sign. I was coming back home from the gym late for work and ran a stop sign at a T intersection. In one of the directions, the road led towards a dead end and that direction doesn't get any traffic. Hence if you are coming from one direction, you either take a left. If you are coming from the other, you take a right. The cop was camping the dead end. A cheap move but I got caught. I was pulled over seconds later. This is the last ticket I got in the month so naturally I was pretty pissed about having to go to court for the third time. Thus I became reserved and answered pretty neutral. Wasn't outright rude but very blunt "yes" "no" "yes" "no." The officer asked me if something was wrong and I replied back "no." Halfway through she asked me if I was carrying (my conceal carry must have popped up in her computer) and I said not at that time. Grabbed the ticket and almost peeled off out of anger. The ticket was $140 and 3 points (which I didn't find out til I got to court). I plead not guilty once again. When the court date appeared, I showed up and acted a lot nicer. The officer noticed or maybe she didn't care. She cut me a deal. A different ticket for $180 (that's $40 more) but 0 points. I took it, plead guilty, paid the reminder, and wished her the best. DONE.

So 2 wins and a loss. Not bad.

MY SUGGESTIONS TO YOU:

1.) You are not talking your way out of a ticket. Hell will freeze over before you do. Instead, if you plan on pleading not guilty, the battle begins when the officer approaches your window. Turn your music off. Take your sunglasses off. Roll your window down all the way. Have your license and registration in your hand. You don't have to call them "your royal highness" or kiss ass but "yes officer" or "no officer" is enough. Don't argue. Don't talk back. Be nice. If you have questions about the ticket, ask at the end. If they ask you "do you know why I'm pulling you over?" Either say no or "sorry i'm not sure officer but I don't want to incriminate myself" or something to that end. DON'T ADMIT TO ANYTHING. The majority of officers are nice OR AT THE VERY LEAST, neutral. Don't make their job anymore difficult or they will come after you. But remember, they have a very good memory, even as much as 3 months later.

2.) You are probably not going to win in court. It's an uphill battle if you want to go to trial. You are there first and foremost for the plea bargain. If they get the cop or judge to DROP the points or lower the fine, TAKE THE DEAL AND RUN. Otherwise you are gambling against the odds.

3.) If you want to go to trial, depending on what you get a ticket for, you MUST do research. Read the ticket front page and back. Look for mistakes. Bring in pictures, videos, diagrams, charts, use google maps for distance, or whatever applicable to prove your side of the story even if it is simple. Witnesses if need be. When it's your turn to ask the cop questions, ask as MANY QUESTIONS AS POSSIBLE trying to catch them in, not necessarily a lie, but a fib or mistake and then milk it as much as you can. In my park ticket, I brought in a Webster dictionary definition of "sundown" and argued technicalities such as astronomical and nautical twilight which the judge loved. Also if you aren't a public speaker, write down a small script on note cards and questions you plan on asking. In another unrelated case, my dad hired a lawyer to sue a business and I went with him. The lawyer bombarded the defendant with a bunch of questions trying to catch him in a lie or just make him look bad. That's the main mechanism behind it all. At the end of the day, the cop is still a person and persons make mistakes although they probably have more experience than you.

4.) Dress up in slacks and a suit. The average person will be wearing a white tee and jeans and barely speak English (depending on your neighborhood) so it will be nice for the judge to meet a member of the community who finally looks presentable. Also be as nice as you can to the judge. "Thank you for taking the time to see me, your honor." You don't have to kiss ass but give respect. Remember the police and the judge is a brotherhood. They have each other's back. You are the outsider. You have to go above and beyond to prove your side of the story. They just have to find something they don't like about you and it's game over. After the trial, thank the judge and the cop for their time and wish them the best with the most sincere look on your face whether you win or lose. You don't wanna piss off someone who has more power than you because of your pride. Also you might be seeing them again like in my case.

5.) Be a unique person not a random. Also be charming. Chances are you'll meet a judge who isn't good or bad but neutral. Still try and get them to loosen up a bit by showing him you are fun - introduce yourself and tell him what you were doing that day. The judge probably sees a bunch of people each day and they are exactly the same. "I didn't do it." "This system is corrupt." "Please cut me a break just this once." etc. They get use to it. I really felt like I brightened the judge's day because towards the end he had a smile on his face. The park ranger tried hitting me with "the defendant parked in the shady corner where I couldn't see him" and I replied with "force of habit, I love my car." Judge goes "o hey me too."

6.) You pay for your court fees up front. So if you lose the trial, you lose nothing but the plea bargain and your time. I recommend everyone go to trial at least once to learn how the process works just for experience even if you aren't into law. It's valuable life experience.

Tl;dr - If you get a ticket >$200 or points on your license, plead not guilty, go to court, and accept the plea bargain.

That's about it. Lemme know if you guys have any questions. Hope it helps someone.

by Schwaggaccino via reddit

[truereviewpage]

Holiday House Tour 2018 & How We Decorated The Beach House!

Wanna see how we decorated our house (and the beach house) for Christmas? We have a ton of photos for you, so let’s get right into it. Since we got an entirely new exterior for Christmas (literally all I wanted for Christmas was a white brick house, ha!) we had so much fun trying some new things out front.

We did some simple warm white exterior LEDs (why are those so hard to find?!) on the trees on each side of the door. Remember I upgraded those to these larger faux ones because I can’t kill them and the taller height looks nicer on the porch with all the white brick. Those pots are actually the same ones we have had for 4+ years… I just spray painted them “Copper Rose” by Rustoleum (built in primer for the win – took about 30 minutes tops). Oh and we switched out the lights by the door for these slightly wider & bigger ones.

And of course I added my magnolia wreath that I make at this fun Wine & Wreath event that I go to with some of my favorite ladies every year (and every year my wreath gets bigger… I’m learning to let go you guys). This year we also added two fresh 14′ evergreen garlands from Trader Joe’s (just $7.99 each!) and I gotta say, we love the real greenery so much that I think that’ll be an annual tradition right along with my wreath-making pilgrimage (John strung up some more of the same warm white LEDs in there and we put the garland lights and the potted plants on the same automatic timer so they switch on and off every night on their own).

Other than that we just have our favorite LED battery candles in all of the front windows (more timers for the win! no running around turning them on and off every night – they’re completely autopilot!). We debated adding some more lights to the bushes and I’m not gonna lie, I campaigned hard for these white deer for the porch… but John was just not that into them. So while the exterior decorations don’t exactly rival the Griswolds, we do have FOUR CHRISTMAS TREES INSIDE (!!!) so our Christmas spirit is still alive and well.

I can’t wait to take a picture of the house all covered in the ultimate holiday decoration… snow! I might just lose my mind when I see it blanketed in fluffy white stuff for the first time. So, picture of that to come!

We also grabbed one more of those fresh 14′ garlands from Trader Joe’s to hang around the windows in the kitchen, which only took a few minutes (we just tapped a small picture nail into the top of the molding on each side of the window – which is also how we hung the one outside around the door surround). They’re such small nails that we put into the very top of the trim in both cases, so they’re basically invisible. So lazy me is debating just leaving them there year-round so they’re ready to hold garland each December.

I also tucked a few of my favorite little holiday things around the house, like these pink wooden trees that I got a few years back, which I stuck together in a group on our living room built-ins.

I kept the mantel simple this year with one of my favorite big pink bottle brush trees (it’s from Target years ago but here’s a similar one). I also added a pink mercury glass tree that I picked up (one of my only holiday buys this year – they’re just so sweet I couldn’t resist – and they have little lights inside that glow thanks to two small batteries in the base).

On the other side of the mantel is a little faux flower pot that I got maybe 6 months ago at Target (they didn’t sell them as holiday decor – I think they were actually out in the spring) but they look so festive with their red & green (and pink – ha!) tones to me. And then I dragged in this pink vase I got maybe a year ago (sadly no longer sold) and added a little strand of battery lights to the inside because DANG IT’S SO CUTE balancing out the glowing pink tree on the other side of the mantel.

This is the exact tree we have (I think, they keep moving the link & changing the name) and it hasn’t had a “theme” in years. We just pile it full of handmade ornaments from the kids and friends and things we have made ourselves (like these silhouette & handprint ornaments and these made from kid-art along with ornaments we’ve collected over the years, or during our travels. Viva la mish-mash!

The kids’ stockings are the same ones I got a few years back (here are some similar ones). Each year I add little elephant chains (random alert!) just because it’s a fun pop of color and hey, if I can’t get John to go for leopard print stockings, at least I can get some sassy little elephants in there.

Over in the dining room I grouped my remaining bottle brush trees (all collected over the years – here are some similar ones) on our old green sideboard and called it good.

But about those four Christmas trees I mentioned… while we’re pretty minimal with most holidays (like zero decor for Saint Patrick’s Day or Valentine’s Day or Thanksgiving) I think Christmas is just our fav. And I can’t tell you how much we enjoy seeing this little tree glowing in the bonus room window at the end of the hall. We spend movie nights in here and can even see it glowing in the window when we pull into the garage, so it’s a nice spot for a little tree. And the kids love hanging the mostly felt & plush stuffed ornaments all over it – complete with the abominable snowman on top.

Oh and just like we do downstairs, we use a faux sheepskin rug around the base. We only need one for this little tree, and our main tree in the living room gets three.

Another tree lives in our son’s room, and it’s a retro feeling green tinsel one (here’s a similar one) with colorful lights that our boy picked out himself last year. It looks really fun with his bright green closet door (it’s Irish Moss by Benjamin Moore). Also that sequin banana ornament is from Target and he loves it. Oh and the wooden reindeer next to the tree was made by John’s grandpa many decades ago.

Before bed each of our kids walk into the hallway and ask Alexa to turn off their tree and it magically goes off, which thrills them to no end. Speaking of which, John “Lover Of Smart Tech” Petersik made a quick video to show you how a smart plug can make turning a tree on and off whenever you want a LOT easier (especially one with the plug in an annoying spot). You don’t need Alexa or some other hub for this plug, by the way – you can just control it from your phone, which is nice. Sure, we could put this tree – or any of our other trees – on a basic timer like our exterior lights, but we love that we can turn on all the trees in the morning with one command (you can bulk multiple actions to happen at once). And similarly, we can turn all four of our trees off at once if we’re running out the door to a meeting or dinner. Note: You may need to click through from your blog reader to view the video player. And you can watch it on YouTube here.

Our daughter has also loved having a tree in her room for a few years now (here’s a similar one) and she takes great joy in redecorating it pretty much every morning. I like sticking her tree into a colorful basket that I painted (it’s a fun deviation from having a tree skirt – and it looks cute with her bold closet door, which is painted Cinco De Mayo by Benjamin Moore).

If you listened to our latest podcast, you know we thinned out our decorations in an attempt to keep things simpler this holiday season (since I’ve been working on simplifying the house in general over the past year, I didn’t want to undo all my efforts by cramming every surface with holiday decor). And thanks to that paring down session, we ended up with a bunch of “overflow” holiday decorations that we could bring to the beach house! We’ll be spending some time there with family over the holidays too, so we were really excited to decorate it for the first time. So three cheers for not spending a ton of money throwing all the things into my cart at Target, and getting to basically decorate this entire house with leftover stuff (aka: free!!!). I did purchase one tree – but literally even the ornaments on it are things we already had, so I’m calling it a win.

You probably remember seeing these red boots with faux evergreen branches all over our house (both out on the porch and inside under the console table, depending on the year) and now they’re living it up at the beach house, along with these little faux trees that used to be on our porch before we upsized them.

The wreath on the door is one that we bought last year but they still sell it (I LOVE the little gold bells with the gold transom numbers over them). Everything was so simple to plop down on the porch, and I love the bright red color of the boots with the pink siding (see this barn for more on my love of pink & red together for the holidays).

Inside you’ll probably remember this faux magnolia garland as the one I used last year on the mantel. I liked keeping the fireplace mantel more cleared off next to the big green tree this year – and adding our garland to this table was a nice way to bring some rich green color into our mostly-white-and-gray entryway. Plus I was able to double it up so it looks extra thick on that marble top (more on that amazing dresser here).

Over in the living room is the tree we bought – the single solitary purchase we made for the entire beach house decorating effort. I’ve always wanted one of these “Charlie Brown Christmas Trees” with charmingly sparse branches – and they had a big pre-holiday sale so I got this 6.5′ one for around $160.

All of the ornaments are ones that we already had from trees we did ages ago (we did a pink and green tree waaaay back in the day, and have also done a citrus one which is where the little green pear is from – oy, don’t mind those horrible photos from like a decade ago). We’ve found as we add more collected and homemade ornaments to our main tree in the living room of our house, the themed ornaments from those older trees have been used less, just because we don’t need 10 pink balls when we can have 10 random preschool masterpieces – ha! But I’m so glad we saved them because they’re perfect for this little tree here! Especially since it’s the pink house ;)

Oh wait, but we did buy the garland! I love that little yarn pom-pom stuff. It took three of them to do our 6.5′ tree and honestly if there had been four that would have been even better, but I got the last three.

Over in the back wall of the kitchen are a few other things I’m sure you’ll recognize if you’ve seen past holiday tours. Like these red reindeer that I painted seven whole years ago (how does time fly that fast?!?!) and a hammered bowl full or ornaments I’ve had forever on all sorts of surfaces. I also added a few feather trees to the kitchen and the pantry and in about 4.5 seconds it was feeling pretty jolly. My favorite thing is the letter board my girl did for me. I gave her free reign and just said “how about a holiday quote?” You can tell we watch a lot of Home Alone around here.

The funny thing is that John later remembered that I put that same quote on a black letter board last year. Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. And I like her spacing better than mine.

Over by My Favorite Pink Stove Of All Time (yes, that’s its proper name), I leaned up a little plate I got a few years back (here’s a similar one) and two white ceramic nutcrackers I’ve had for years. It’s so sweet how just a few things can make the entire kitchen feel ready to host a whole group of friends and family. I love that it doesn’t take much!

So there it is, a tour of our house all decked out for Christmas, along with some sweet stuff that we mostly repurposed for the beach house. We’d love to hear what you guys are doing to decorate for the holidays over on Facebook or Instagram, and if you’d like to see last year’s holiday tour, and the one from 2016, here are those links. We also have a few other holiday ideas for you below:

How to make a little Christmas village

Hosting Christmas dinner

Making kids silhouette ornaments  

How we made 38 simple & cheap holiday ornaments 

Making small glass boxes full of little winter scenes

How to make ornaments with kid art

Making ornament magnets for the fridge 

How we pack up & store our Christmas decorations

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post Holiday House Tour 2018 & How We Decorated The Beach House! appeared first on Young House Love.

Holiday House Tour 2018 & How We Decorated The Beach House! published first on https://aireloomreview.tumblr.com/

[endlessarchite]

Holiday House Tour 2018 & How We Decorated The Beach House!

Wanna see how we decorated our house (and the beach house) for Christmas? We have a ton of photos for you, so let’s get right into it. Since we got an entirely new exterior for Christmas (literally all I wanted for Christmas was a white brick house, ha!) we had so much fun trying some new things out front.

We did some simple warm white exterior LEDs (why are those so hard to find?!) on the trees on each side of the door. Remember I upgraded those to these larger faux ones because I can’t kill them and the taller height looks nicer on the porch with all the white brick. Those pots are actually the same ones we have had for 4+ years… I just spray painted them “Copper Rose” by Rustoleum (built in primer for the win – took about 30 minutes tops). Oh and we switched out the lights by the door for these slightly wider & bigger ones.

And of course I added my magnolia wreath that I make at this fun Wine & Wreath event that I go to with some of my favorite ladies every year (and every year my wreath gets bigger… I’m learning to let go you guys). This year we also added two fresh 14′ evergreen garlands from Trader Joe’s (just $7.99 each!) and I gotta say, we love the real greenery so much that I think that’ll be an annual tradition right along with my wreath-making pilgrimage (John strung up some more of the same warm white LEDs in there and we put the garland lights and the potted plants on the same automatic timer so they switch on and off every night on their own).

Other than that we just have our favorite LED battery candles in all of the front windows (more timers for the win! no running around turning them on and off every night – they’re completely autopilot!). We debated adding some more lights to the bushes and I’m not gonna lie, I campaigned hard for these white deer for the porch… but John was just not that into them. So while the exterior decorations don’t exactly rival the Griswolds, we do have FOUR CHRISTMAS TREES INSIDE (!!!) so our Christmas spirit is still alive and well.

I can’t wait to take a picture of the house all covered in the ultimate holiday decoration… snow! I might just lose my mind when I see it blanketed in fluffy white stuff for the first time. So, picture of that to come!

We also grabbed one more of those fresh 14′ garlands from Trader Joe’s to hang around the windows in the kitchen, which only took a few minutes (we just tapped a small picture nail into the top of the molding on each side of the window – which is also how we hung the one outside around the door surround). They’re such small nails that we put into the very top of the trim in both cases, so they’re basically invisible. So lazy me is debating just leaving them there year-round so they’re ready to hold garland each December.

I also tucked a few of my favorite little holiday things around the house, like these pink wooden trees that I got a few years back, which I stuck together in a group on our living room built-ins.

I kept the mantel simple this year with one of my favorite big pink bottle brush trees (it’s from Target years ago but here’s a similar one). I also added a pink mercury glass tree that I picked up (one of my only holiday buys this year – they’re just so sweet I couldn’t resist – and they have little lights inside that glow thanks to two small batteries in the base).

On the other side of the mantel is a little faux flower pot that I got maybe 6 months ago at Target (they didn’t sell them as holiday decor – I think they were actually out in the spring) but they look so festive with their red & green (and pink – ha!) tones to me. And then I dragged in this pink vase I got maybe a year ago (sadly no longer sold) and added a little strand of battery lights to the inside because DANG IT’S SO CUTE balancing out the glowing pink tree on the other side of the mantel.

This is the exact tree we have (I think, they keep moving the link & changing the name) and it hasn’t had a “theme” in years. We just pile it full of handmade ornaments from the kids and friends and things we have made ourselves (like these silhouette & handprint ornaments and these made from kid-art along with ornaments we’ve collected over the years, or during our travels. Viva la mish-mash!

The kids’ stockings are the same ones I got a few years back (here are some similar ones). Each year I add little elephant chains (random alert!) just because it’s a fun pop of color and hey, if I can’t get John to go for leopard print stockings, at least I can get some sassy little elephants in there.

Over in the dining room I grouped my remaining bottle brush trees (all collected over the years – here are some similar ones) on our old green sideboard and called it good.

But about those four Christmas trees I mentioned… while we’re pretty minimal with most holidays (like zero decor for Saint Patrick’s Day or Valentine’s Day or Thanksgiving) I think Christmas is just our fav. And I can’t tell you how much we enjoy seeing this little tree glowing in the bonus room window at the end of the hall. We spend movie nights in here and can even see it glowing in the window when we pull into the garage, so it’s a nice spot for a little tree. And the kids love hanging the mostly felt & plush stuffed ornaments all over it – complete with the abominable snowman on top.

Oh and just like we do downstairs, we use a faux sheepskin rug around the base. We only need one for this little tree, and our main tree in the living room gets three.

Another tree lives in our son’s room, and it’s a retro feeling green tinsel one (here’s a similar one) with colorful lights that our boy picked out himself last year. It looks really fun with his bright green closet door (it’s Irish Moss by Benjamin Moore). Also that sequin banana ornament is from Target and he loves it. Oh and the wooden reindeer next to the tree was made by John’s grandpa many decades ago.

Before bed each of our kids walk into the hallway and ask Alexa to turn off their tree and it magically goes off, which thrills them to no end. Speaking of which, John “Lover Of Smart Tech” Petersik made a quick video to show you how a smart plug can make turning a tree on and off whenever you want a LOT easier (especially one with the plug in an annoying spot). You don’t need Alexa or some other hub for this plug, by the way – you can just control it from your phone, which is nice. Sure, we could put this tree – or any of our other trees – on a basic timer like our exterior lights, but we love that we can turn on all the trees in the morning with one command (you can bulk multiple actions to happen at once). And similarly, we can turn all four of our trees off at once if we’re running out the door to a meeting or dinner. Note: You may need to click through from your blog reader to view the video player. And you can watch it on YouTube here.

Our daughter has also loved having a tree in her room for a few years now (here’s a similar one) and she takes great joy in redecorating it pretty much every morning. I like sticking her tree into a colorful basket that I painted (it’s a fun deviation from having a tree skirt – and it looks cute with her bold closet door, which is painted Cinco De Mayo by Benjamin Moore).

If you listened to our latest podcast, you know we thinned out our decorations in an attempt to keep things simpler this holiday season (since I’ve been working on simplifying the house in general over the past year, I didn’t want to undo all my efforts by cramming every surface with holiday decor). And thanks to that paring down session, we ended up with a bunch of “overflow” holiday decorations that we could bring to the beach house! We’ll be spending some time there with family over the holidays too, so we were really excited to decorate it for the first time. So three cheers for not spending a ton of money throwing all the things into my cart at Target, and getting to basically decorate this entire house with leftover stuff (aka: free!!!). I did purchase one tree – but literally even the ornaments on it are things we already had, so I’m calling it a win.

You probably remember seeing these red boots with faux evergreen branches all over our house (both out on the porch and inside under the console table, depending on the year) and now they’re living it up at the beach house, along with these little faux trees that used to be on our porch before we upsized them.

The wreath on the door is one that we bought last year but they still sell it (I LOVE the little gold bells with the gold transom numbers over them). Everything was so simple to plop down on the porch, and I love the bright red color of the boots with the pink siding (see this barn for more on my love of pink & red together for the holidays).

Inside you’ll probably remember this faux magnolia garland as the one I used last year on the mantel. I liked keeping the fireplace mantel more cleared off next to the big green tree this year – and adding our garland to this table was a nice way to bring some rich green color into our mostly-white-and-gray entryway. Plus I was able to double it up so it looks extra thick on that marble top (more on that amazing dresser here).

Over in the living room is the tree we bought – the single solitary purchase we made for the entire beach house decorating effort. I’ve always wanted one of these “Charlie Brown Christmas Trees” with charmingly sparse branches – and they had a big pre-holiday sale so I got this 6.5′ one for around $160.

All of the ornaments are ones that we already had from trees we did ages ago (we did a pink and green tree waaaay back in the day, and have also done a citrus one which is where the little green pear is from – oy, don’t mind those horrible photos from like a decade ago). We’ve found as we add more collected and homemade ornaments to our main tree in the living room of our house, the themed ornaments from those older trees have been used less, just because we don’t need 10 pink balls when we can have 10 random preschool masterpieces – ha! But I’m so glad we saved them because they’re perfect for this little tree here! Especially since it’s the pink house ;)

Oh wait, but we did buy the garland! I love that little yarn pom-pom stuff. It took three of them to do our 6.5′ tree and honestly if there had been four that would have been even better, but I got the last three.

Over in the back wall of the kitchen are a few other things I’m sure you’ll recognize if you’ve seen past holiday tours. Like these red reindeer that I painted seven whole years ago (how does time fly that fast?!?!) and a hammered bowl full or ornaments I’ve had forever on all sorts of surfaces. I also added a few feather trees to the kitchen and the pantry and in about 4.5 seconds it was feeling pretty jolly. My favorite thing is the letter board my girl did for me. I gave her free reign and just said “how about a holiday quote?” You can tell we watch a lot of Home Alone around here.

The funny thing is that John later remembered that I put that same quote on a black letter board last year. Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. And I like her spacing better than mine.

Over by My Favorite Pink Stove Of All Time (yes, that’s its proper name), I leaned up a little plate I got a few years back (here’s a similar one) and two white ceramic nutcrackers I’ve had for years. It’s so sweet how just a few things can make the entire kitchen feel ready to host a whole group of friends and family. I love that it doesn’t take much!

So there it is, a tour of our house all decked out for Christmas, along with some sweet stuff that we mostly repurposed for the beach house. We’d love to hear what you guys are doing to decorate for the holidays over on Facebook or Instagram, and if you’d like to see last year’s holiday tour, and the one from 2016, here are those links. We also have a few other holiday ideas for you below:

How to make a little Christmas village

Hosting Christmas dinner

Making kids silhouette ornaments  

How we made 38 simple & cheap holiday ornaments 

Making small glass boxes full of little winter scenes

How to make ornaments with kid art

Making ornament magnets for the fridge 

How we pack up & store our Christmas decorations

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post Holiday House Tour 2018 & How We Decorated The Beach House! appeared first on Young House Love.

Holiday House Tour 2018 & How We Decorated The Beach House! published first on https://bakerskitchenslimited.tumblr.com/

[statusreview]

Holiday House Tour 2018 & How We Decorated The Beach House!

Wanna see how we decorated our house (and the beach house) for Christmas? We have a ton of photos for you, so let’s get right into it. Since we got an entirely new exterior for Christmas (literally all I wanted for Christmas was a white brick house, ha!) we had so much fun trying some new things out front.

We did some simple warm white exterior LEDs (why are those so hard to find?!) on the trees on each side of the door. Remember I upgraded those to these larger faux ones because I can’t kill them and the taller height looks nicer on the porch with all the white brick.  Those pots are actually the same ones we have had for 3+ years and I just spray painted them “Copper Rose” by Rustoleum (built in primer for the win – took about 30 mins tops).

And of course I added my magnolia wreath that I make at this fun Wine & Wreath event that I go to with some of my favorite ladies every year (and every year my wreath gets bigger… I’m learning to let go you guys). This year we also added two fresh 14′ evergreen garlands from Trader Joe’s (just $7.99 each!) and I gotta say, we love the real greenery so much that I think that’ll be an annual tradition right along with my wreath-making pilgrimage (John strung up some more of the same warm white LEDs in there and we put the garland lights and the potted plants on the same automatic timer so they switch on and off every night on their own).

Other than that we just have our favorite LED battery candles in all of the front windows (more timers for the win! no running around turning them on and off every night – they’re completely autopilot!). We debated adding some more lights to the bushes and I’m not gonna lie, I campaigned hard for these white deer for the porch… but John was just not that into them. So while the exterior decorations don’t exactly rival the Griswolds, we do have FOUR CHRISTMAS TREES INSIDE (!!!) so our Christmas spirit is still alive and well.

I can’t wait to take a picture of the house all covered in the ultimate holiday decoration… snow! I might just lose my mind when I see it blanketed in fluffy white stuff for the first time. No really, just thinking about it gives me involuntary jazz hands.

We also grabbed one more of those fresh 14′ garlands from Trader Joe’s to hang around the windows in the kitchen, which only took a few minutes (we just tapped a small picture nail into the top of the molding on each side of the window – which is also how we hung the one outside around the door surround). They’re such small nails that we put into the very top of the trim in both cases, so they’re basically invisible. So lazy me is debating just leaving them there year-round so they’re ready to hold garland each December.

I also tucked a few of my favorite little holiday things around the house, like these pink wooden trees that I got a few years back, which I stuck together in a group on our living room built-ins.

I kept the mantel simple this year with one of my favorite big pink bottle brush trees (it’s from Target years ago but here’s a similar one). I also added a pink mercury glass tree that I picked up (one of my only holiday buys this year – they’re just so sweet I couldn’t resist – and they have little lights inside that glow thanks to two small batteries in the base).

On the other side of the mantel is a little faux flower pot that I got maybe 6 months ago at Target (they didn’t sell them as holiday decor – I think they were actually out in the spring) but they look so festive with their red & green (and pink – ha!) tones to me. And then I dragged in this pink vase I got maybe a year ago (sadly no longer sold) and added a little strand of battery lights to the inside because DANG IT’S SO CUTE balancing out the glowing pink tree on the other side of the mantel.

This is the exact tree we have (I think, they keep moving the link & changing the name) and it hasn’t had a “theme” in years. We just pile it full of handmade ornaments from the kids and friends and things we have made ourselves (like these silhouette & handprint ornaments and these made from kid-art along with ornaments we’ve collected over the years, or during our travels. Viva la mish-mash!

The kids’ stockings are the same ones I got a few years back (here are some similar ones). Each year I add little elephant chains (random alert!) just because it’s a fun pop of color and hey, if I can’t get John to go for leopard print stockings, at least I can get some sassy little elephants in there.

Over in the dining room I grouped my remaining bottle brush trees (all collected over the years – here are some similar ones) on our old green sideboard and called it good.

But about those four Christmas trees I mentioned… while we’re pretty minimal with most holidays (like zero decor for Saint Patrick’s Day or Valentine’s Day or Thanksgiving) I think Christmas is just our fav. And I can’t tell you how much we enjoy seeing this little tree glowing in the bonus room window at the end of the hall. We spend movie nights in here and can even see it glowing in the window when we pull into the garage, so it’s a nice spot for a little tree. And the kids love hanging the mostly felt & plush stuffed ornaments all over it – complete with the abominable snowman on top.

Oh and just like we do downstairs, we use a faux sheepskin rug around the base. We only need one for this little tree, and our main tree in the living room gets three.

Another tree lives in our son’s room, and it’s a retro feeling green tinsel one (here’s a similar one) with colorful lights that our boy picked out himself last year. It looks really fun with his bright green closet door (it’s Irish Moss by Benjamin Moore). Also that sequin banana ornament is from Target and he loves it. Oh and the wooden reindeer next to the tree was made by John’s grandpa many decades ago.

Before bed each of our kids walk into the hallway and ask Alexa to turn off their tree and it magically goes off, which thrills them to no end. Speaking of which, John “Lover Of Smart Tech” Petersik made a quick video to show you how a smart plug can make turning a tree on and off whenever you want a LOT easier (especially one with the plug in an annoying spot). You don’t need Alexa or some other hub for this plug, by the way – you can just control it from your phone, which is nice. Sure, we could put this tree – or any of our other trees – on a basic timer like our exterior lights, but we love that we can turn on all the trees in the morning with one command (you can bulk multiple actions to happen at once). And similarly, we can turn all four of our trees off at once if we’re running out the door to a meeting or dinner. Note: You may need to click through from your blog reader to view the video player. And you can watch it on YouTube here.

Our daughter has also loved having a tree in her room for a few years now (here’s a similar one) and she takes great joy in redecorating it pretty much every morning. I like sticking her tree into a colorful basket that I painted (it’s a fun deviation from having a tree skirt – and it looks cute with her bold closet door, which is painted Cinco De Mayo by Benjamin Moore).

If you listened to our latest podcast, you know we thinned out our decorations in an attempt to keep things simpler this holiday season (since I’ve been working on simplifying the house in general over the past year, I didn’t want to undo all my efforts by cramming every surface with holiday decor). And thanks to that pairing down session, we ended up with a bunch of “overflow” holiday decorations that we could bring to the beach house! We’ll be spending some time there with family over the holidays too, so we were really excited to decorate it for the first time. So three cheers for not spending a ton of money throwing all the things into my cart at Target, and getting to basically decorate this entire house with leftover stuff (aka: free!!!). I did purchase one tree – but literally even the ornaments on it are things we already had, so I’m calling it a win.

You probably remember seeing these red boots with faux evergreen branches all over our house (both out on the porch and inside under the console table, depending on the year) and now they’re living it up at the beach house, along with these little faux trees that used to be on our porch before we upsized them.

The wreath on the door is one that we bought last year but they still sell it (I LOVE the little gold bells with the gold transom numbers over them). Everything was so simple to plop down on the porch, and I love the bright red color of the boots with the pink siding (see this barn for more on my love of pink & red together for the holidays).

Inside you’ll probably remember this faux magnolia garland as the one I used last year on the mantel. I liked keeping the fireplace mantel more cleared off next to the big green tree this year – and adding our garland to this table was a nice way to bring some rich green color into our mostly-white-and-gray entryway. Plus I was able to double it up so it looks extra thick on that marble top (more on that amazing dresser here).

Over in the living room is the tree we bought – the single solitary purchase we made for the entire beach house decorating effort. I’ve always wanted one of these “Charlie Brown Christmas Trees” with charmingly sparse branches – and they had a big pre-holiday sale so I got this 6.5′ one for around $160.

All of the ornaments are ones that we already had from trees we did ages ago (we did a pink and green tree waaaay back in the day, and have also done a citrus one which is where the little green pear is from – oy, don’t mind those horrible photos from like a decade ago). We’ve found as we add more collected and homemade ornaments to our main tree in the living room of our house, the themed ornaments from those older trees have been used less, just because we don’t need 10 pink balls when we can have 10 random preschool masterpieces – ha! But I’m so glad we saved them because they’re perfect for this little tree here! Especially since it’s the pink house ;)

Oh wait, but we did buy the garland! I love that little yarn pom-pom stuff. It took three of them to do our 6.5′ tree and honestly if there had been four that would have been even better, but I got the last 3.

Over in the back wall of the kitchen are a few other things I’m sure you’ll recognize if you’ve seen past holiday tours. Like these red reindeer that I painted seven whole years ago (how does time fly that fast?!?!) and a hammered bowl full or ornaments I’ve had forever on all sorts of surfaces. I also added a few feather trees to the kitchen and the pantry and in about 4.5 seconds it was feeling pretty jolly. My favorite thing is the letter board my girl did for me. I gave her free reign and just said “how about a holiday quote?” You can tell we watch a lot of Home Alone around here.

The funny thing is that John later remembered that I put that same quote on a black letter board last year. Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. And I like her spacing better than mine.

Over by My Favorite Pink Stove Of All Time (yes, that’s its proper name), I leaned up a little plate I got a few years back at Target (here’s a similar one) and two white ceramic nutcrackers I’ve had for years. It’s so sweet how just a few things can make the entire kitchen feel ready to host a whole group of friends and family. I love that it doesn’t take much!

So there it is, a tour of our house all decked out for Christmas, along with some sweet stuff that we mostly repurposed for the beach house. We’d love to hear what you guys are doing to decorate for the holidays over on Facebook or Instagram, and if you’d like to see last year’s holiday tour, and the one from 2016, here are those links. We also have a few other holiday ideas for you below:

How to make a little Christmas village

Hosting Christmas dinner

Making kids silhouette ornaments  

How we made 38 simple & cheap holiday ornaments 

Making small glass boxes full of little winter scenes

How to make ornaments with kid art

Making ornament magnets for the fridge 

How we pack up & store our Christmas decorations

*This post contains affiliate links*

The post Holiday House Tour 2018 & How We Decorated The Beach House! appeared first on Young House Love.

Holiday House Tour 2018 & How We Decorated The Beach House! published first on https://ssmattress.tumblr.com/