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A French-Inspired Garden and Home by Judith Stringham

Easy Christmas Decor

Saturday, December 19, 2015

Christmas is just days away.  Less than a week away, there is still time to do some easy Christmas decorating.  With just a few changes, including using some of your existing decor, you can quickly take a room from its ordinary everyday look to a room that celebrates the season.





Greenery in Special Pots 


The easiest way to add a little Christmas to the house is to add a plant, fresh flowers, or even a dried botanical. Botanicals do not have to be the usual traditional Christmas flowers of poinsettias, paperwhites, or amaryllises. The plants and flowers shown can be found at a grocery store, and the two round botanicals can be found at a craft store.



Choosing a special container adds a seasonal touch.  Compare how the lemon cypress tree in the small black plastic pot looks with how the same size lemon cypress looks in the French design gray vase with its floral garland. The floral swag on the vase is a traditional Christmas look and dresses up the lemon cypress tree.

The little green ceramic pot holds a gold painted botanical wooden ball nestled in a bed of moss. Fill the bottom of the pot with shredded paper so that only a little moss is needed at the top of the pot to hold the round wooden ball.



Adding a little bit of gold, such as the small crown, also dresses up a little green ceramic pot and gives an unexpected special look to a group of plants and botanicals. 



A gold filigree-edged wired ribbon takes a small rustic pot from an everyday look to a holiday look. Adding a wooden tag with a Christmas greeting adds even more holiday cheer to an existing potted plant/botanical. 


Moss Filled Crown


You may not have a crown like this one, but you probably have an unusual bowl, basket, tray, or box that you can fill with moss and create a similar look that fits your decorating style. Since I love French Country, I use pieces with a French look like the fleur de lis that tops the gray metal crown. If you love American Country, you could use a vintage or rustic box as your container. 



Fill the bottom of the container with "mood moss", a type of moss that is mounded, not flat sheets. Add a single small faux plant like the snowdrop.  Finish by adding a small figure such as the concrete bird whose gray color goes well with the gray crown. A small reclining deer would be a good Christmas figure to use instead of a bird.



I like the snowdrop because it is white, but another possible small faux plant to use is a grape hyacinth, also called a muscari. Both snowdrops and grape hyacinths bloom in the midst of winter which means the little moss container would look good all the way into spring. 


Pine Cone Filled Urn


 Another container that has a French Country design is a pedestal urn. Nothing is easier to use to fill a container than pine cones.  Oversized Sugar pine cones are perfect for large containers.  There are only four pine cones in this large urn.  The dried vines shaped in a loose wild circle provide a transition from the urn to the pine cones.



The pine cones in the white urn go well with the French bergère chair that has fruitwood finished carved curvy legs and white and beige striped linen upholstery. The best part is no watering needed. 


Gold Birds and Boxwood Balls 


Do you see repeating themes in my decor?  I love birds, and I love boxwood. Oh, and I love bleu.



Another easy and fast Christmas decoration is a shallow white bowl filled with small preserved boxwood balls, gold painted hand-carved wooden birds, and a single faux gold bead and leaves spray. It's another arrangement that does not require watering.




Begin with placing three preserved boxwood balls in a shallow bowl.  Place one floral spray with the boxwood balls, and pull the beaded stems outward so they rise above the boxwood in several directions.



Finish by placing two to three gold birds atop and around the boxwood.  This arrangement took the most time because the birds had to be spray painted gold using Rust-Oleum's metallic gold spray paint.


Sparkly Reins on Wooden Horse 


Adding a wreath to an existing wooden carved horse is just one way to dress up the horse.  Another fast, easy way to dress the horse for the holidays is to tie a large braided cord with metallic threads as a rein around the horse's neck.   



While red and green are traditional Christmas colors, choose to use a braid in a color that coordinates with your existing color scheme.  The pale mauve braided cord coordinates with the curtains in the living room.  A large satin or wired ribbon could also serve as a holiday rein for a wooden horse. 


Decorated Magazine Box 


This is a super fast and super easy way to add Christmas decor to an existing item.  First, tie a Christmas gift tag like this birch tree tag to the handle of the magazine box.



Next, add a sparkly gold beaded spray to one end of the magazine box near the gift tag.  Bend two or three of the leaves or twigs over the edge of the box to stabilize the spray, and place the spray inside the box. 



Finally, add December issues of your favorite magazines so they are visible with other months' issues behind the December ones. Seasonal catalogs also have beautiful Christmas covers that are fun to display in a magazine box.  Plus, the box keeps the catalogs handy for making wish lists. 


With just a few easy decorations, the living room is almost ready for Christmas leaving lots of time for shopping, watching Christmas movies, listening to Christmas carols, baking Christmas cookies, and spending time with family and friends. 



Here is a peek at how the living room looks with three of the easy Christmas decor arrangements. 

There are a few more decorations to add to the living room, including dressing the fireplace mantel with boxwood wreaths. Stop by in a couple of days to see the entire living room decorated for Christmas.  

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Christmas Table With French Words

Tuesday, December 15, 2015

A fascination with French words continues and has become a Christmas table setting with French words. Remember the little paperback pages from Words in a French Life on which I wrote a gold word, joyeux?



The paperback pages led to creating a Christmas table with more French words. 



The golden joyeux goes so well with the gold chargers, white plates, and small glass ornaments at each place.



A French bleu violin's gold accents were meant to grace a Christmas tree, but could there be a more regal setting than with a single page from Words in a French Life



The pages are fun to read, each telling a short story that incorporates a particular French word of the day and a few other French phrases relevant to the story.  What a fun way to start a meal together! 




Pale bleu notecards with graph grids came from a Parisian papeterie (stationery shop).  Graph grid notecards and notebooks are standard designs for French school children's lessons and can be found at all papeteries.  The stiff notecards make excellent place cards to pair with the other small touches of blue on the table.  

Four names can be easily printed in a font with flourish on one notecard, then each name outlined with a gold paint pen.  Doesn't Christmas conjure images of gold and curlicues in your mind? The rest of the year can be written in black in typesetters' mundane fonts, but not Christmas.  Make everyone's name special for the magical time of the year, Christmas. 



Have you spotted additional French words?  



NoĂ«l in the swag overlooking the table? 



The script on the puffy star may be French, then maybe not. 



French or not? Can you decipher any of the words?  Regardless, the star is another fun item to try to read. 



Here's an idea for how to reuse a preserved boxwood that's no longer looking good.  



Spray paint it gold to give it another lease on life. 




Christmas is a joyous occasion that gives us a chance to revel in its beauty.  There is no other concentrated time in the year filled with as much joy, peace, love, and goodwill.  I love creating images and settings that celebrate the season and lift our spirits. 

May you see your loved ones with eyes that perceive all that is good and right about them. For their rightness far, far outweighs their shortcomings. Lift up their spirits and in so doing, you lift up your own. 

A few French words add joy and frivolity to the season, for everyone.  


Christmas Dining Room Dressed in Boxwood

Sunday, December 13, 2015

Dressing our homes with greenery has its roots in the Druid culture, followed by the Romans, then the Germans, and by the English Queen Victoria whose husband was German. Even before Queen Victoria, residents of Williamsburg in America dressed their houses with elaborate wreaths made from fruits and greenery including boxwood.


The love of boxwood continues today in homes all across America, including in mine.  This Christmas season, boxwood is throughout my house, beginning with the dining room.



Fresh boxwood hangs from the china cabinet and nestles a hand-carved swan on the English pine table. Simple greenery that evokes a Christmas feeling without fanfare or sparkle or glitz, but with the same spirit felt by our ancestors throughout history as they hung greenery as reminders of life in the darkest days of the year surrounding the winter solstice.



Found at a street fair in New Hampshire in the late 1980s, the swan normally resides on a ledge atop one of the sets of French doors in the living room.  



This Christmas he sits atop boxwood in a rustic flat basket.  



A small preserved boxwood star tops the wire Christmas tree holding old Christmas cards hanging on the arched-top coat closet door. 



A full fresh boxwood wreath hangs on the center of the china cabinet. 



Small peeks through the center of the wreath give glimpses of china, glassware, Christmas gift boxes, handmade paper angels, and Christmas ornaments. 



A handful of rolled pages from a French alphabet children's book lie in a bowl inside the china cabinet and are tied with small snippets of gold and white music-printed ribbon. 



One of the armchairs holds a new gold and white Christmas pillow embroidered with a deer and a tree with just a little glimmer.



The details are beautiful and are subtle gold touches to the room that is mostly decorated with only a handful of natural boxwood greenery pieces. 



Small details like the gold piping around the cushion make a big difference in how the room looks and feels. Often people cannot pinpoint why a room appeals to them, but chances are finishing touches like the gold piping add to the room's appeal. 



Yes, details make the difference between a room looking finished and a room looking like a work in progress. These four photos illustrate some of the details in the dining room dressed in boxwood. 
  1. The boxwood shines because it was lightly sprayed with plant polish, Green Glo.  Plant polish is what makes plants from florists look so healthy and shiny.  Look for it at grocery stores with a plant section, or at discount stores like Michaels and Hobby Lobby.  Try it, and you will never have an unpolished green plant again. 
  2. A gold cup hook screwed into the back of the china cabinet door provides an easy way to hang a wreath from the china cabinet.  Face the cup hook down, and use a ribbon to secure the wreath to the hook. 
  3. Wired-edge ribbon makes creating bows and curly ribbon tails easy, easy, easy.  What did we ever do before wired edges on ribbons? 
  4. Gathering centerpieces in a container (basket, box, bowl, ... ) anchors the arrangement and gives it a finished look. 


One of the things not finished at my house is wrapping the presents.  



The little green holly decorated bag holds tape, tags, and tissue paper reminding me there are less than two weeks left until Christmas.  Plus, there is still more boxwood to hang in other rooms. 



One room down, and more to go. 


Take a peek at how I revived the water-damaged finish on my English pine table.  

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