2017 Merry & Bright Holiday Home Tour–Part 1

Welcome to the Merry & Bright Holiday Home Tour.  I’m so excited for this year’s home tour and all of the fabulous bloggers that are participating. Plus we have two awesome brand sponsors for this year’s tour, Amara and SmithHonig.  I’ll share more about these great brands throughout the home tour series.

p.s. You’ll find links to all of the participating bloggers holiday home tours at the bottom of the blog post.

If you’re coming over from M. Jones Style, welcome!  My friend Marsha is a southern girl at heart so entertaining comes naturally to her.  Her holiday drink station is beautiful and makes me want to sit down and have a hot toddy.  I can’t wait to see more of her holiday decor in the coming weeks.

Every year I start my holiday home tour by sharing the inspiration for my decor.  If you recall, my theme this year was using my favorite colors, pink and red  along with touches of white and green.  I wanted our decor to be classic and playful at the same time and my original vision came to life just as I imagined.

Here’s a look at the inspiration boards I created earlier this year.

And here’s how it all turned out…

My Holiday Home

The foundation of my Christmas decor is always our tree and if I must say so myself, she’s a beauty.

I’ve been so busy these days that when my friend Don offered to help decorate my tree, I squealed with joy.  Don worked for me when I had my store and is one of the most creative people I know.  He came over one afternoon and we got to work adding honeycomb balls, deco mesh and close to 400 ornaments to the tree.

I topped the tree with a big silver star that I purchased over 25 years ago on a buying trip to San Francisco when I worked for Eddie Bauer.

I used a variety of ornaments on the tree including some beautiful blush pink ones from Amara.  Amara is a UK-based home and interiors brand.  The company sells a variety of decor and gift items from over 300 of the world’s more luxurious home fashion brands. And while based in the UK, Amara ships all across the globe making their product available to everyone.

Amara has a great selection of Christmas ornaments and decor and the blush pink set was perfect for my theme.  The set includes 4 styles of round ornaments– shiny solid, solid matt and two glitter styles.  I love the quality of the ornaments, and the variety of styles added to the whimsy of my tree.

My Favorite Colors:  Hot Pink & Red

 In addition to ornaments, I used a red and pink striped deco mesh instead of ribbon and love the wow factor it gave the tree.

decor mesh

And for even more WOW, check out these paper honeycomb balls that are nestled at the top and throughout the tree.  How fun!

med & large paper honeycomb balls  // small honeycomb ball from Ikea

red mercury glass trees from HomeGoods

Now let’s move over to the fireplace. Since we haven’t had our mantel installed yet, I draped my garland around the fireplace using Command Hooks to hold it in place.   I hug a small wreath in the center and added clusters of ornaments to each corner of the garland.  holiday decorating tip:  clustering ornaments in groups of three is a great way to add impact on a tree or garland.

I also embellished the corners with bows made of pink and red ribbon from PaperMart.

1 1/2″ wide red ribbon // 7/8″ wide pink ribbon 

 I didn’t do much decorating on the bookshelves that flank the fireplace.  I filled a couple of vintage bowls with ornaments and added a small mercury glass tree to one shelf.

You can learn how I made my rolling holiday giftwrap crate here.

blush pink ornaments from Amara

I absolutely love my Christmas decor and wish I could keep it up year round. It’s definitely beginning to look a lot like Christmas at my house but there’s still more to see.  Come back next Wednesday, 12/6 for part 2 of the Merry & Bright Holiday Home tour.  I’ll be sharing my dining room along with more of my holiday decor throughout the house.

Next on the tour is Love Your Abode.  I had the pleasure of finally meeting Yuni a few weeks ago and she is such a doll.  You all are going to love her holiday home…it so fun and festive.  Hop over to Love Your Abode and show Yuni some love.

And be sure to stop by the other bloggers in the tour for more holiday decor and inspiration.

Merry & Bright Holiday Home Tour Participants:

Yuni @ Love Your Abode

Kate @ Chic On A Shoestring Decorating

Melanie @ Rover At Home

Tamyra @ Positively Southern

Meg @ Green With Decor

Marsha @ M. Jones Style

 

disclosure:  I received products from Amara to use in my Christmas Decor.  I am a big fan of the company and only share products and brands that I love. All opinions are my own.