Design With What You Have - Holiday Decorating

When you are starting out in a new house you might not have too many decorations for the holidays. Instead of going out and buying everything in sight why not start with what you already own? At Jace Interiors we call it  "Design With What You Have" or "shop your home"!

As I wrote in today's Monday Morning Happy, I was over at Vog's house and decided to do a quick mantelscape with a few pieces around the house. This is what it looked like before the "designer" took hold of it!! Here is what I found:

I knew we he had these sparkly ornaments in 2 sizes large and small (you can get them at Target right now for $1 a pack!!) so all I needed was to find something to display them in. The key was to find a piece that was tall enough but still narrow enough to fit on the mantel. This tall hurricane worked perfectly!

Next I asked for a pair of cutters and took hold of the fern tree in the front yard. Snip Snip Snip and there I had some greens for the mantel top and to add to the hurricane.

First I wanted to create a little nest with the greens as a bed for the first ornament to sit in. This meant my pieces needed to be small and bendable.

Next I layered in one ornament at a time than a layer of greens, a few smaller ornaments, a green one to add unexpected color (working with what we had..) than I continued with the greens. Towards the top I placed a few smaller bulbs which went in the opposite direction! The layering created some depth and textured. If I just threw in the ornaments, it would have looked to sparse for me.

Once I placed it on the mantel and stepped back I realized I needed to fill it in a bit more and add some sprigs coming from the top for a more natural feel. Than I placed the remaining greens around the mantel and nestled in the extra ornaments. I also added a little fire station I found on a bookshelf by propping it up with a few natural colored coasters to give it height. Just make sure to camouflage the "lift" with your extra ferns!!

This is the other side of the mantel. I am going to sift through my own stash of holiday decorations and fill in the empty spots but this is a good start, especially since we started with a blank slate!!

Do you shop your own house for the holidays?

(images from Jace Interiors)