Tag Archives: wine

How to Decorate With Christmas Centerpieces

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You can buy holiday table decorations but it is very cheap and simple to make your own centerpieces using Christmas decoration and a candle. You can also use all kinds of Christmas decoration to make things like napkin holders and special cocktail markers for holiday drinks.

The dinner table centerpiece is the easiest of holiday table decorations. You can reuse an old door wreathe and simply put a bright red, white or green scented candle in the middle of it. You can also buy an armature (such as a circular grapevine) at a store that sells Christmas decoration crafts and wrap it in real or fake evergreen boughs or ivy. You can then wrap the boughs with ribbon or decorate it with glass balls.

Glass balls that you no longer want to use on the tree as Christmas decoration can be hung from a dining table chandelier. You can hang glass balls from the rims of cocktail glasses that are wrapped with holiday ribbons. Don’t forget that you can also use strings of light as part of your holiday table decorations. One idea is to frame the table with strands of mini lights or a rope light. Use your imagination and you will find many novel ways to make your holiday table look like it was laid out by a professional interior designer!

Believe it or not you can also make small centerpieces out of palm trees. Palm trees are holy because they decorated the desert in which Jesus was born. Perhaps the simplest of decorations for smaller palm tree s are strands of white or multi colored lights entwined around the trunk of the palm. Bright white, red, gold or green lights are the colors that say merry xmas although pink, yellow and lime green also looks excellent on tropical plants. As ornaments have hooks that can harm a palm tree you are best to affix glass balls or crystals to wired bowed and tie the decorations onto the delicate fronds of the palm tree.

If you are looking forward to a tropical merry xmas you can also find specialty strings of lights called palm tree decorations. These are the kinds of lights you find in a Tiki cocktail bar complete with glowing plastic pink flamingos, palm trees and other tropical themes. These look good on a palm tree but you can also use them on a regular xmas tree (such as an artificial white one) to give your holiday décor an unusual flair. It’s not very traditional but it is interesting.

How to Decorate a French Country Kitchen

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One of the most fashionable ways to decorate a kitchen is in the French Country style. This is a very rustic look that is reminiscent of the charm found in homes in the South of France.

To accomplish this look you will have to decorate with toile. Toile is a fabric that has pictures of the countryside of France on it. It might depict landscapes, bottles of wine, cheese and the produce of France on it as well. These motifs are a great choice for the curtains, tablecloth, chair seats and dining ware in your kitchen.

Ladder back chairs are also characteristic of this look. Make sure the table is large and rustic and that the chairs have seats made out of rush (twined water reeds.)

The colors of the French Countryside are rusts, greens, blues and golds. Keep the walls, ceiling and floors in earthy brown, creams and red colors. If you have beams running across your ceiling you are lucky because it means you would have accomplished the look. If you don’t have beams in your ceiling you can also install them.

A stone floor also compliments this look. You can get faux tile in stone like colors that can help achieve this affect. Another charachteristic of this kitchen style is roughly plastered walls. Cast iron wall sconces also look nice on a plastered wall.

Yet another characteristic of rustic French kitchens is rusted metal. Rusted metal could be found in kitchen cabinet hardware, lighting fixtures and baker racks.

French motifs in the form of scultprues, clocks and other items can be roosters, olives, sunflowers and lavender. Decorate with handmade pottery to bring the element of the French countryside to your kitchen.

It is also characteristic to hang baskets in a kitchen. These woven baskets should be large and natural looking. You can put fruit and vegetables in these baskets and use them to store cooking implements.

Copper pots and iron pots also look gorgeous in this type of kitchen. Be sure to hang them from the ceiling and on the walls to augment the look.

When planning your space, remember that the French Country is a very warm, relaxed, and informal decorating style. Stay away from anything too fussy or formal.