alamodeus

From our home to yours ... Merry Christmas! I know you have a lot going on during the holidays, but if you have a few minutes, I'd like to welcome you into my home so we can share the spirit of Christmas together.

This is my sparkle year, with a color palette of gold, silver, graphite, and metallics in pearl and champagne.

Remember my daughter Kathryn's handmade acorn wreath I posted a couple of weeks back? Here it is (above) at the front door along with our small Welcome Tree in the entry.




Remember this hideous little chest (above left) that I transformed over the summer? It was one of my Before & After blog posts. Well, now I love it, and the drawers hold oodles of napkins and napkin rings in a corner of my dining room. It's fun dressing it up for the holidays, too.

On the dining room table, you might recognize my holiday project from last week's post, a zippy-quick handsewn tablerunner. The graphite linen and gold trim works well with the casual elegance of my centerpiece. Evergreen stems, ribbon and bows, ornament balls, a glass compote and some gold-leaf leaves in my holiday color palette dress the table for dinner.


Merry Christmas to me! I couldn't resist adding these '4 Calling Birds' dessert plates by Rosanna (above left) to my dishware collection. So, I'm using them for my holiday tablesetting. The lovely gold birds are so festive, yet they can be used year-round since they do not shout Christmas.

I love the way my wrapped guest favors pick up the golden scheme. I like to add a special collected trinket to the bow. This year, I'm using clock parts I purchased at the Marche aux Puces de Clignancourt (flea market) in Paris.


Here's a helpful hint. I love to use votive candles throughout my house during the holidays, but digging the wax out of the holders afterward used to be a pesky task. I started pouring salt into the candleholder as a base and nestling the candle into the salt. It looks like snow, and as the candle burns down the wax drips onto the salt. Easy to pour out and no scraping or cleanup!