Post-Christmas tear down

Having a full fledged crafty business means that almost every weekend during the holiday season I am out of town vending at shows. Last year, between craft shows, getting engaged and buying and moving into our new house I never had time to put up a tree or deck out the house for Christmas. I spent all of 2011 getting excited about being able to decorate our new house for Christmas this year, and as an end result, I might have over compensated just a little...

Along with all of the usual fanfare of the tree/ornaments/indoor and outdoor lights, I decided to test drive some decor ideas I was thinking of using for the wedding. I had been seeing some really fun paper pinwheel backdrops on wedding blogs this year, but I wondered how practical it would be to try to complete such a large scale display in a limited amount of time.

I'm guessing this is probably the best our big, blank dining room wall has ever looked.

I like that Horrocks had cut greenery in their flower section so I could make a winter white arrangement accented  with pine boughs.

The dining room wall looked so festive that I couldn't resist making a photo backdrop for the basement. Since I didn't want to deal with the mess of adhesive on our permanently installed blackboard, I hot glued this set of pinwheels to a foam core board backing, then propped it up on the blackboard ledge. Since it's not actually attached to anything, I was able to take it down afterwards and keep it for use in future years!

Anyone who knows me well is aware of my obsession with all things Anthropologie. Among other things, their store displays are always awe inspiring, and on a very large scale. A  couple of years ago their holiday displays incorporated huge hanging flurries of paper snowflakes. I decided to make my own 'snow storms' in two opposing corners of our basement. To make the displays I used Honeycomb balls and pinwheels from a local party supply store, disco ball Christmas ornaments I already owned, round paper lanterns from Party City, silver stars from the dollar store, and some tissue paper poms I had made for a party last spring. I was really happy with the overall effect, and in total I spent less than $50 for all of the supplies for both the pinwheel displays AND the hanging snowstorms.

A snow flurry in the basement.

To cap it all off, once the house was decorated I couldn't resist having a party. Since I've always believed that a themed party is infinitely more awesome than an ordinary party, we threw a masquerade ball. Check out what Mr. Mammoth and I wore:

Mr. Mammoth sports the Honey Badger scarf I made him for Christmas, along with a very poetic thrifted jacket.

If I could get away with dressing like this every day, I probably would. Vintage Sequin dress purchased years ago at a church rummage sale, tiny tophat from the party supply store, and a really fun makeup job thanks to the lovely Bre.