The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

Thanksgiving is over and the Christmas season is officially upon us!  The tree is up, and I have finished my wreath for the Festival of Wreaths.  We went to Raleigh for the Holiday weekend, and found a North Carolina Fraser Fir we just couldn't pass up.  In all our excitement about finding the perfect tree, we failed to put any thought into the logistics of getting an eight foot tree home in a 5 Series BMW.  Let's just say there were a lot of stops, including one at a Food Lion in small-town North Carolina where string from the butcher counter was used to secure the tree again.  It's laughable now, but not really that funny at the time!  After the roughly seven hour car ride, the tree made it with plenty of needles intact, and it is now standing tall in the living room. 

But first, here is my wreath, "Yuletide Eucalyptus", temporarily hanging on our front door.  The fresh Eucalyptus smells amazing and the bow was fashioned out of Schumacher's "Caribou Embroidery" from the new Luxe Lodge collection. 

Behold our tree!  The house smells of Fraser Fir, and I love it! It feels so cozy in the living room now, and of course, I love the furniture arranged better this way.  Now, when the tree goes down, I'm going to have to find something to put in that space, so I can leave the furniture this way.  Go figure! 

As I mentioned, there was quite a bit of shifting and rearranging pieces of furniture.  One chair was moved into the kitchen, and I didn't think its pink velvet was quite the right look, so of course that had to change.  I quickly recovered that chair earlier today, and am really pleased with the outcome!  I love to move pieces around the house for this very reason - keeps things looking fresh!

While in Raleigh, Boyfriend's Mom and I took a trip into Chapel Hill to visit South, a shop I have mentioned on the blog before.  Look how fabulous and festive the seating arrangement is that greets you as you walk in the doors of the shop!

There were so many gorgeous items, and an incredible selection of holiday candles, which are always a favorite of mine.  I caved and bought myself one of the NEST candles, and even some for gifts (great gifts by the way!).  Look at the gorgeous collection of NEST red velvet and gold boxes on display above.  Below, is the candle that I just couldn't resist.  If you are looking for the perfect pine scent, search no more!

And I have to show off this gorgeous decanter.  I love decanters for the bar, and I have recently started a collection.  This is random, I know, in relation to decorating for the Holidays, but the boyfriend's Mom gave this to me while we were in town.  She had mentioned to a friend that I was starting a collection, so her friend picked this one up at an estate sale with matching glasses.  How sweet was that?!  (Thank you Julie!)

I hope all of you had a nice Thanksgiving as well! 

I would love to see your Holiday decorations, so send them my way.





Festival of Wreaths

The Holidays sneak up on me every year.  November seemed to fly by and here we are, the day before Thanksgiving!  This month evidently flew so quickly for me that I forgot my obligation to make a wreath for this year's Festival of Wreaths at the Charleston Place hotel.  Each year a handful of local Charleston designers put their talented design efforts into making a wreath for the annual Festival of Wreaths, which are then auctioned off at the cocktail party.  However, they are due in November so each one can hang on a door of one of The Shops at Charleston Place to be on display for a couple weeks.  I completely forgot that they were due last week, and now I have to create some wondrous masterpiece of a wreath ASAP.  So yesterday I thought I would go take a sneak peek at the other wreaths that are now hanging.  My aplogies to the lonely store that doesn't have their wreath on Black Friday because of me!  I didn't get photos of every one, but I got shots of quite a few and they are all super original and amazing!  It's interesting to see each designer's style present in their wreath.  Oh, and the other part about the wreaths in this festival is it has to have a theme, whatever you like, but it has to have a theme and a title to go along.

Look at the gorgeous detail of how this wreath hangs!

Now the hard part - figuring out the design for my wreath.  I have my work cut out for me over Thanksgiving!  Stay tuned for photos of mine.  I will post as soon as I finish.

Also, if any of you are interested in attending this fabulous holiday cocktail party and auction, here is the link for info and tickets.

http://www.charlestonplace.com/web/ocha/festival_of_wreaths.jsp

And lastly, I hope all of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday, and hopefully these fabulous wreaths were a nice little dose of Holiday spirit for you.  I always need something like this to jumpstart the Holidays for me, which is why I enjoy designing a wreath for this event (that is, if I can remember).