Christmas Vignette No 3 - The Powder Room

Some people will tell you that decorating your powder room for the holidays is a bit over the top.
Clearly, I disagree.

Think about it - this is quite possibly your most captive audience. Why not give them a little something to enjoy as well?

It doesn't take a lot - some seasonal towels and bit of greenery to dress up your mirror.

I used fresh greens, red berries and attached the whole thing to the mirror with a gold ribbon.

Easy enough - and so festive!

I recently found this shelf at HomeGoods. I'd been looking for something similar in every vintage store I came across, but HomeGoods came through again! Have I mentioned how much I love that store?

The perfect new home for my pinecone berry tree (if you'd like a refresher on how this was made, click here). A beautifully scented candle and a decorative soap box round out my seasonal display.

Check this one off the list as another easy Christmas vignette.

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Pinecone and Berry Tree - the tutorial

This Christmas craft is going down in the books in the labor of love category.

What do I mean by that, exactly?

Just that what I thought it would be is not at all what it turned out to be.

It was seriously touch and go and I almost abandoned ship, but with a mid-way change of plans and a little flexibility on my part - it all came together in the end. Thankfully.

I've seen about a million and one pine cone trees, so I figured it wouldn't be too hard to make.

I picked up the form from Michael's and the pinecones (about 100) from a local nursery.

I envisioned a simple, rustic, totally pinecone covered tree.

So, I started at the base and hot glued my little heart out, until I reached the top.

Seriously, I must have gone through 10 glue sticks, at a minimum.

This is where it all started to fall apart - my tree looked more like a cylinder than a tree and it was full of gaps where the form was showing through.

Add more pinecones, you say?

Tried that - they wouldn't stick together and I was running short on supplies.

Enter plan B.

First I added a burlap skirt tied with a gold ribbon to give the base more presence.

Then I started adding red berries.

I was fortunate to have these lying around (otherwise, I would never have finished for today's post!), but unfortunately, they were in garland form. This meant I needed to cut them off the garland and reform them into clusters; Attention, now entering the labor of love category!



But, as you can see, it was all worth it!

So maybe she's a bit more mound-esque, than tree- esque...she's still cute!

And festive.

And if this hadn't taken me the whole of nap time today, I would be showing you a picture of her in a lovely Christmas vignette somewhere. Ah, well, there is always tomorrow.

Lesson learned: plan for the right amount of material and do a bit of research in advance!

(I'm sure more strategically placed pinecones in the beginning would lead to a more pleasing shape in the end.)

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