I sincerely hope you guys aren’t tired of seeing my front porch. As you know, I change it out every season, and I was really looking forward to decorating for Christmas this year.
My daughter and I don’t shop on “Black Friday.” Instead, we put our decorations up. We follow a strict schedule (set by her) that starts with her room and tiny tree, and then we move on to the rest of the house. She loses interest before we get to her big brother’s room!
I pulled out my standard evergreen lighted roping to swag over the front door. Last year I wove in some red mesh to give it a little color. The “Merry” banner was one that I made a few years ago. The cardboard letters were spray painted, then I drilled holes in the top and wove ribbon through. I also made two that say “Joy” and “Noel”. Joy is white, and I sprinkled white glitter on the letters during the last coat of paint and added a pale green ribbon. Noel is gold, and ditto with gold glitter (but a vanilla ribbon). Merry is just plain red, but I love the red and white gingham ribbon. It added a nice pop of red to the top of the door.
If you follow us on Facebook, then chances are you saw a few posts about how I snagged this beautiful greenery. If you don’t follow us on Facebook, then you’re missing out, because we go into WAY too much detail! Let’s just say that all my fabulous greenery was salvaged from a pile of leaves and lawn clippings, and that my sweet golden retriever “discovered” it all for me while we were walking on Thanksgiving morning. Yes, that sounds like a nice, sanitized version of the story {wink wink}.
So, I arranged the holly, evergreen, and boxwood into this door bucket, and then I tossed a little more into my leaky old watering can:
The Dutch wooden shoes were a thrift store find. We had two pairs when I was growing up, but they got lost somehow when my dad remarried and moved out of my childhood home. I was happy to find a replacement pair!
I had enough greenery left to make a swag for the lamppost and tied it with more red mesh.
The sitting area on the porch doesn’t get much sitting done on it at this time of year–Halloween is pretty much the last night we’re out there–but I put out my red pillows and red candles, and added a new pillow that I made using the same method I used for my numbered chair cushions.
If you don’t believe, you get underwear. Really!
I had enough greenery to poke a few pieces into the grapevine wreath that’s been on my front door all year (I love that burlap bow!). It’s gracing my garage entry for the Christmas season.
There is more boxwood sitting in 5 gallon buckets in my backyard, so I think I’m going to try my hand at preserving it, as soon as I can find glycerin. The dog really did me right when he found my Christmas decor, didn’t he? Click below to follow us on Facebook–that way you’ll always know the rest of the story!
How are your decorations coming along?