Our Christmas decorations are finally down.

Yup.  January 18th.  No need to applause.  For us, I think it was good timing.  But other’s might have a different opinion.  I hear that in some neighborhoods, if your holiday decor isn’t put away by the 10th, they reserve the right to egg your house, fork your yard, roll your trees, or seran wrap your cars.  And that’s before the caning and maiming begins.  Or maybe that is something that I just made up.  Either way, I kinda miss the tree.  It’s that dang sparkle.  It’s addicting.  

Well, anyhoo.  I decided that with the Christmas stuff put away, it was time to reevaluate our decor arrangement.  Nothing like a new year to get the head gears turning with new ways to make our home feel a little more homey. 

I started with the mantle.  Here’s what it looked like before December:

Since I have been seeing a lot more honey colored textures in the Pottery Barn catalog lately (like here & here & here), I decided that this warm woody feel would be just the ticket to melt my heart.  And then I remembered a pile of stuff that my mom gave me from her yard sale last year.  Enter the flat-woven-basket-thingie.  I immediately put it over the mantle to test for scale.

I always do that first, ya know?  Test for scale.  If the piece is too small or too large, then it won’t work.  But this time, it worked harder than Ryan Seacrest.  Then I just kept the framed homemade art & the birdcage up and added a stack of neutral binded books for a complete right side.  The other side was fairly simple.  The three candlesticks & the ceramic vase of white faux Poinsettia stayed from our Christmas mantlescape…but the candles themselves got a switcheroo.  The previous ones were too short to balance out the entire arrangement so I just popped in taller versions. 

Since I liked the mirror on the coffee table so much, I decided that it was gonna stay kaput.   

And the circular mirror was the start to a ’round theme’.  On top it had a round metal pot with round moss orbs, a Goodwill bird with a round body, and a round white vase with a fern that is struggling back to life.   It’s my fault.  I don’t do well with growin’ stuff.  Except when that stuff is in my belly.  I’m pretty good at feeding those things.  A little too well, according to my midwife  🙂 

Whattaya think? 

Is it an improvement? 

Maybe this will help you.  Here’s a little reminder of how it looked before Christmas, during the holidays & now:

   

It’s always nice to switch things up once in a while.  I can relate to Britney’s dating life like that.  She switches boys, I switch decor.  We are practically BFFs. 

Seriously though….anyone else out there finally take down your Christmas decor?  Or maybe you are one of those folks who can’t stand it when the twinkle-lights are up past the New Year?  Anyone venture into the land of honey-hued textures?  Or maybe you are like me and wanna make me feel better about almost killing our little love-fern?  (name that movie!)