41 Happy Holidays: Our Holiday Display

Although many go straight to the fireplace mantel when it comes to decorating for the holidays, this last two years I have been turning to our dining room shelving instead.

Our mantle is in our lower level family room, which for over a year has been the holding room for all of the remaining reno projects such as new stairs and remaining trim work.  It's not the coziest place to be setting up for the holidays, so the dining room has made much more sense for us and our family.

{yes, that is totally a Nerf bullet under the buffet...}

Last year, I challenged myself to use what I had and to get crafty with my decorating.  Here is what I had come up with:

In the spirit of using what I had, this year's display was slightly inspired by last years.  However, I wanted to inject even MORE color!

Surprised?  Me either...

Here is where I found the color inspiration....

Simply magical.  Blues, teals, greens, reds, pinks, purples and a side of silver.

Ready to see what that inspiration got me this year?

Definitely some similarities.  But also some switcharoos... Here is a quick run down of what I did to achieve this look.

The pretty box sitting there on the end of the buffet is our Holiday Countdown project.  You can read more about that here.

The poinsettias were placed in a couple of cheapo white lace planters I had gotten at IKEA awhile back. 

I used my Silhouette to cut some vinyl deer to adhere to the front of the planters.  Just to give them a little something extra...

I also used my Silhouette to cut the AWESOME sparkle letters!

Which I just hot glued to a piece of sparkle twine....

I love that scalloped looking ornament....

Fifty cents at the dollar store.  I know I could have made it... but it probably would have cost me more and taken me forever.

For the main focal point of it all, I framed our family's 2011 holiday card {sneak peek for those who haven't gotten it in the mail yet, which is everyone since I haven't sent them yet...}

And just to the right, more splashes of color.

I found that sparkle flower thingy at Target.  I didn't know what to do with it, I just loved it.  So into some Epsom salt it went {the salt sparkles kind of like snow}.

The upper shelf of the entire display is exactly like last years.  With the exception of the cones.  The colors didn't match this years theme, so I wrapped them all in boatloads of colorful yarn.

They are not wrapped perfectly.  I tried.  REALLY really tried.  If you are going to attempt to wrap paper cones in yarn, aim for imperfection right off the bat and you will be much happier working on the project.  I learned this after the first one....  And when it was all said and done, I liked that they weren't perfect, it added a little extra texture!

At this point, Parker was asking me why I was standing on the buffet taking photos.... try explaining that to a five year old who is always being asked not to climb.... I quickly hopped over to the table to snap one more and got down before I got into any more trouble....

And a final look at the after:

We love it.  It really makes the main living area feel all bright and cheery!  Mission accomplished!

Where did you find your holiday decor inspiration this year?  Did anyone switch things up, or have you been sticking with the same decorating tradition year after year?