I love Christmas time! I love getting all my Christmas stuff out. I love it for two reasons. 1) I have just always loved a decorated house during Christmas. 2) All my decorations are from my wedding. It's just a fun way to be reminded of the best day of my life every year! Any way, I pulled all of my decorations out the Friday after Thanksgiving since Manny was working and I was home alone. Since this is our first Christmas in our new house, I did feel a little overwhelmed but I am very happy with the way it turned out.
This is our tree. We bought a new taller skinnier one this year. The tree skirt was made by my grandmother. She is coming to our house for Christmas this year and I hope she loves seeing that I am using it.
Our mantle. Last year our mantle didn't have the
TV on it. So that was a new challenge. I feel like it came out well.
This is the button/brooch tree that my mom and
BethAnn made for us last year. It's one of my favorite Christmas decorations. I wish it could stay out all year.
I have this bird apothecary jar out year round but it usually has some cream feathers in it. I stuck some ornaments in it for a little glitz.
The piano was something new to decorate this year. I have to say that I love the way it came out.
This is our dining room centerpiece. I usually have a bird under that glass dome. I took the bird out and added some ornaments to it. Then I put some ornaments in another apothecary jar and then put a bird down at the bottom. I added some greenery and a little bit of white bead garland.
This is our front door. Next year, I definitely would like to do a lot more but it will have to wait until next year. I am dying to get a little table to put to the left of the door to decorate year round but I haven't found one yet. Anyway, I have been obsessed with
pinterest and I decided to make my own Christmas wreath this year.
Here is a close up of the wreath. I wrapped a
Styrofoam wreath with white muslin. I also wrapped the end of the wreath hanger in the muslin so you couldn't see the black. I glued some snowflakes, a mercury glass ornament, and a bird ornament on there. I love it. I love that it's soft and
Christmasy!
This is sitting on my bar. It's a bread bowl filled with mercury glass and glittery ornaments.
This is it from the other side. I need to get a shade for my back door. The sunlight was out of control.
Here is my little silver tree with our wedding ornaments on them. My mom gave us these ornaments. Each one represents something for your marriage.
This next picture was so hard to take. We put up lights on our house too. It was really fun to do this. Manny did a really good job. I like the plain and simple look when it comes to Christmas lights.
Haha! I took this picture of
Mija under the tree. She's not very photogenic!
Merry Christmas from The
Pina's!!!
We have been doing a few updates around our house lately. My mom made our bedroom curtains and I am so in love with how they came out. The white just pops off the grey walls. They make the room feel complete. They were inspired by curtains at Anthropologie but, there was no way that we would ever spend that kind of money on curtains. Of course my mom takes one look at them and says "I can make that!" So I placed my order and she more than came through.
Remember my apothecary that I got off of Craigslist for a steal!!! I loved it when I first bought it but, I knew that I wanted to jazz it up a bit. I hated the handles and the color wasn't really working for me. So of course my mother steps in to help me. I wanted to paint it but, since I'm expecting a baby painting isn't really in the cards for me. So my mom painted it for me. Isn't she great?! She used chalk paint which turned out amazing.
Here's how it turned out. Such a difference, huh? On top of painting it with Abusson Blue chalk paint and then waxing it with the dark wax, we also changed out the handles. The handles were part of my Christmas gift and I love how it looks.
We bought this piece of furniture last year at the City Wide Garage Sale in Austin. Originally we had it in our bedroom for our tv to go on. Unfortunately, when I'm laying down in the bed, the bedpost blocked my tv viewing. So we have decided to hang the television. That meant that this little beauty could move up to the front of the house! Manny swore up and down that it wouldn't fit on this wall. I waited until he was out of the house one day and tried it. I believe I was right on this one. My mom bought the mirror for herself and hadn't hung it up yet. She's slowly running out of wall space too. So I'm hanging it until she decides that she has found the perfect place for it.
This niche in my kitchen has really been a headache for me. I did make a picture to go in there. It just always seemed to be missing something. I got the fabulous stacked apothecary jar from who else, my mother, for my birthday. I still need to put something in the apothecary jar. I bought the wood and metal piece at Round Top. It really fills up that space nicely. I still need to get one more thing to go to the right of the cookbooks and that niche can be crossed off the list.
I am really excited about our new chairs. We used to have a huge overstuffed chair in our living room. I really wanted to put the chair that would be for rocking, nursing, etc. in my living room. That meant the big chair had to go. We gave it to my mom and it looks awesome in her bedroom. Plus it was hers originally! Manny had been asking to get a recliner and I began my search for the perfect "baby/fit-for-my-living room-chair." I found this one on Target.com. I loved the pattern and knew it would fit in nicely with our furniture. I crossed my fingers that it would be comfy and it is. My dad and step-mom bought this for me and I love it. It glides, swivels, and reclines. I'm sure the baby and I will get a lot of use out of this chair. I'm already breaking it in so it's perfect once the baby makes his or her big arrival. We will finally know if Baby Pina is a boy or girl on the 21st. We both are so anxious to find out!!! I'm definitely looking pregnant these days. Sometimes I look down and can't believe that there is actually a baby growing inside me. It has been such a miracle and I am loving reading about the baby's development. I felt the flutters for the first time the other day. I woke Manny up to tell him!
