Share & Win Holiday Decorations for the Home

I have discovered amazing ideas and how-to articles on Pinterest.com! I strongly encourage anyone with a DIY or home decorating interest to visit this site. My favorite candle brand/scent for the holidays is Winter by Slatkin & Co.

Christmas is such a special time!! My husband puts icicle lights on our back fence (there is a canyon behind our house) Our fence is really, really long and everyone in the area comments on how nice and "christmasey"" it looks. He puts them up the day after Thanksgiving. Bummer is when January comes and they have to come down :( I'm going to try sprucing up my pilar candles with the craft idea in this post (I'm not crafty enough to some up with ideas but can implement those I see!) Thanks for the ideas!!

I love the create shows. I see many things on those shows that inspire me to make my home better.

If you have certain colors you prefer when decorating (I like silver and Christmas red), buy inexpensive ornament balls of different sizes (Hobby Lobby is a great place to buy- find them 50% off), and arrange them in clear vases of different sizes and use on a side table or as a centerpiece on your table.

Our tradition has been to set up a Christmas village. We started collecting them when I was quiet young, and it is the best part of the holiday.

I love to get ideas from magazines and sales brochures. I then go but materials and make it myself.

I like to space decorating out so its not so overwelming. The secret to that is ti label your boxes as you put things away. I also like to have ornaments as table labels for my guests at the holiday meals. It adds to the table decor and sends everyone home with a gift for that year.

I love to decorate for thanks giving and christmas I make glittered table linens I buy my materials at michaels at start right after hollween then I go to yankee candle and buy the latest holiday frangrance candles like deck the halls,cherries on snow,and be jolly candles for a warm frangrance throughout the house. and finally the wreaths, I make several there is the golden-cedar wreath,pepperberry wreath,glass ball wreath,and a mistletoe wreath. and have family members hang them around the house.

I love to use fabrics all over. Curtains and throws that coordinate with accents on pillows!

during the holidays I like to make use of all the fruits I use. I boil a pot of water with the peels of oranges , apples and some rosemary, it has a great fragrance in the air.

I have always loved the holidays..... and no matter how bittersweet memories and pain of the love ones I lost, I know that I am celebrating life with happiness. There is nothing like a cold, winter Saturday morning when my husband goes out to find the biggest tree with our children. I always stay behind baking cookies, pies and decorating the house. But it is the joy of the entire family getting together to decorate the huge tree while listening to our favorite Christmas CD. It is even more special afterwards as we sit back with the fireplace crackling, sipping hot chocolate as we enjoy the beauty of the tree. I just love it!

I put up the tree and then I let my 7 year old grand daughter help me decorate it and decorate the house. She already has very good ideas and if I do something she doesn't like she will redo it. We do this the day after Thanksgiving and it is the best time.

My favorite decorations for the holidays came from my grandmothers house. As a child we would all gather at grandma's one the day after thanksgiving and help put away all of the things she kept out during the year, and then decorate the house. Over the years I memorized where every piece belonged. As our family grew up the job shifted from all of the grandkids, to just me and grandma. Decorating with her has become one of my fondest memories, even as it progressed to me decorating and her "supervising" . I am fortunate to still have her, but when I had my daughter a few years ago, she offered me to choose some of my favorite decorations from her collection to begin my own. Those always get a very special place around my home every year. I can't wait to have the same tradition with my daughter.

It's all about the sparkle...everything looks great by Christmas light, so I try to make sure I have shiny things everywhere that will reflect it!

My holiday decorating secret is to have fun and be creative. If I see a decorating item I would like to try or at least build on I will take a picture with my phone and then recreate it with a few tweaks here and there to reflect my own style.