December to Remember Day 28: Finally the Tour

I'm sorry that this has been delayed, things at CdlV have been turned a little upside down with the Christmas chaos, but with things at least tentatively back to normal, I have a couple of rooms camera ready again ... of course, that means I have at least one room that I can barely walk into. Without further ado:

Many of you remember when I talked about the peacock tree the first time I posted it HERE. It started with one ornament, this one in fact:

and became a slow collection. Each year, after Christmas, I would hit the better Christmas decor shops to find any and all of the peacock ornaments that I could to add to the collection. Last year, I felt like the collection was finished, and this year the tree came to life.

I start with a theme, something that might evolve over time. The theme for this tree was actually a peacock in a pear tree when it all started. I found these beautiful German glass dusted pears from Pottery Barn last year and thought they'd be the perfect compliment to the decor.

Of course, with over 700 peacock feathers stealing the show - they hardly appear. The beautiful thing about all of the trees though, is that the longer you look at them, the more you see. Like the small peacocks throughout:

one of my favorites, the mirrored, faceted, peacock colored crystals:

snow covered pear tree branches:

and the beautiful gold mirrored ornaments that help to spread the color from the Moroccan lanterns around:

Now, I didn't want to have garland on the staircase, so I opted for oasis foam covered in the peacock colored ornaments, beads, and glittered poinsettia blossoms in a beautiful lime color.

The whole thing took me days to put together, and will probably only take a few minutes to take apart, but isn't that the way it always goes? I've already started buying the ornaments and sundries for next years staircase ... and I think you're all going to be blown away. It might be my best idea yet!

Moving into the living room, the centerpiece to the decor is definitely the fireplace.

Draped in greens from the ceiling to the floor, it's really probably my favorite part of the Christmas decor at CdlV this year. Here too, you see more as you look:


Of course, this all ties in with the living room Christmas tree:

Now, this was one that I put together last year with this room in mind. Scott always said that this house reminded him of a cabin in the woods, so I rolled with that idea and put together the theme for this tree using twigs, branches, and pheasant feathers - and I threw in some crystal and mercury glass - along with a little glitter to give it a little dazzle.

My favorite ornaments here is the crystal firefly:

birds nest with glass bird:

and this gift from a blog reader, there is another one (s)for Scott:

The whole room is lit up with holiday cheer without being at all traditional, and for me that's the best part! The dining room really went up last minute this year, and wouldn't have gone up at all if it hadn't been for the article that Niagara Gazette featured. But it was a nice addition, and went together relatively quickly. The tree is 9' tall, and lit with Philips decorator series bulbs in a muted amber tone to relate to the amber bulbs we use in the fixtures in this room.

Of course, with all of that amber lighting, comes the extreme challenge of photographing the space - especially in a hurry. I'm sorry that some of these are coming out just a bit more yellow than they actually are.

The ornaments in this room have been collected, but the mass of them came from Hobby Lobby in Texas before we moved here. All of these ornaments are favorites of mine, and this tree is without a doubt the most traditional of the line up.

Perhaps the only thing that isn't traditional about this tree is the topper. This year I added a star burst mirror to the top of the tree. A fun sort of asymmetrical explosion up there, huh?

I love mixing in a bit of the unexpected in every tree. Here, instead of ribbon, I wrapped gold glitter covered branches into the tree to give it a spun gold look, after all of the ornaments and ribbons were put on the tree.

It's hard to believe that it's all gotta come down soon. I hope you enjoyed the full tour of the Holiday decor here at CdlV, wish you all could have seen it in person. Perhaps next year? In other blog news, I got a great new video camera for Christmas, so look for video on the blog real soon!

Updates to follow, please check back in ... and I promise you'll wanna follow along in 2010. Lots of exciting new endeavors for me, CdlV, Color Outside the Lines, and all of you! Stay tuned...