It's that time of year once again. You know, the most wonderful time of year for all things warm and fuzzy, shimmery and bright, short days and longer nights. Ok, I didn't intend for that to rhyme but if I must say so myself, a sister is quite talented and apparently, multifaceted too. So we'll just go with it. Don't ya'll just love me? LOL
For those of you who've been riding along this design journey with me since my blog launch a little over a year ago, you'll remember that although December is my absolute favorite month of the year, as it is indeed my birthday month, with my birthday falling on December 5th....Decorating for the Christmas holiday however is NOT one of my favorite things to do. While some of my new subscribers and followers may find that to be a tad bit shocking, my veteran audience, ya'll know all too well my sentiments regarding the stress that oftentimes come along with the holidays. I've not only spoken about it several times in my recent Instagram stories, but I also documented those very thoughts in last year's holiday post. To read the details of those thoughts, click here.
Being that I'm someone that unfortunately suffers with anxiety, has a type A personality, a bit of a perfectionist and OCD tendencies...Yeah, the stress of the holidays sadly do me no justice at all!! But I am very happy to say that this year, I really put forth an effort to move at my own pace and to not get caught up into feeling like I had to rush to get everything all done. I mean don't get me wrong, I definitely had a schedule that I had to keep in mind to get everything decorated and staged for my photoshoot of course.
However, like I said...I worked really hard to just make daily progress this year and just do a little at a time each day. As a Design Blogger, it does become more and more challenging to keep up with the pace of putting out seasonal themed content as early in the season as possible, as opposed to later. Generally, most Christmas-themed and holiday blogpost from the blogger universe are up and running as early as the week of Thanksgiving, the day after Thanksgiving, or the very first week in December. I knew that would definitely NOT be the case for me!! At least not this year. Holla at me next year though and let's see how I fair out. But at the same time, don't hold me to it. Look, I need to create padding for myself even a year in advance, the way my anxiety is set-up OK! 😩
So for this year, realistically I had to focus on my own schedule and as I mentioned, work at a pace that worked best for my agenda. In addition, most early holiday blogposts typically come from super seasoned bloggers that's been in this game far longer than I have. Gradually, I'll get there...but for now, I'm working through my baby steps, working to crawl and then hopefully walk and run later. 😉
Ironically, as I was trying to not beat myself up regarding timing... I recently read a quote from a very well-known and popular Fashion Blogger, Kyrzayda Rodriquez, (who I so admire her EVERYTHING about her style and the hard work she puts in!!!) that advised all bloggers regarding putting out content to remember - Quality over Quantity always! I so needed to read that, to process it and to remind myself that we all have very different lives, with different schedules and very different day to day agendas...and, above all each of us have different paces that we tend to move at.
In addition, I had to remind myself that I'm a fierce Sagittarius, and when everyone else is going right...I usually tend to go left. I've always marched to the drum of my own beat, just as my Mom has always said. And, I doubt that'll ever change. Most importantly...I had to take appreciation in my own work and the quality of it, and fully revel in the fact that I work damn hard at what I do and ALL that I do!!
So to those of you who've been riding with me since the beginning, and to those who are new and now riding with me...know that yes, sometimes it may take me a bit longer to get my content to you. But the quality of my work will never be sacrificed. I want to always make sure that first and foremost I'm delivering my absolute best presentation. With that being said, ya'll know what time it is and ya'll know how I do. So let's get to it...
"Welcome to Christmas at House Piazza: A Glittery, Shimmery, Shiny Holiday!
Sources:
Interior Decorating & Styling By: Allured By Design
Photo Stills By: Stacy Marks Photography
Shooting Location: House Piazza
Makeup By: Javetta White
Hair By: Lashanda Taylor of Between The Shears
Wardrobe: Ruffle High-Collar Chambray Dress - Banana Republic, Blazer - The Limited
HOLIDAY COLORS & THEME:
Last year's theme was titled Cozy Blue Christmas. I had just launched my blog roughly two months prior to the Christmas holiday season being in full swing. At the time, my blue living room was the focal point of most of my social media posts. In addition, it was also becoming extremely popular to my growing audience...my love for the color blue and my luscious indigo blue sofas.
This year, I didn't really want blue to be the main focal point of my holiday theme. More so, an accent. I knew that may present a challenge considering my husband and I do have two very visible deep blue sofas in our living room. But I was up for the challenge, and set out to load our home with accents of gold, silver, champagne, platinum, mercury, loads and loads of glitter and loads and loads of shimmer!!
In addition, the goal was to simply create a very warm and comfortable atmosphere filled with christmas lights, a burning fireplace and lit candles spread throughout. And, dare I say...I think I did a fairly good job and I'm very happy with the look I designed and styled.
What worked to my advantage with this year's theme is the fact that gold is already a dominant accent, spread throughout my entire home. So it definitely wasn't difficult at all to work with gold holiday decor. My biggest challenge however was indeed the tree!
CHRISTMAS TREE:
So last year, our Christmas tree though beautiful and elegant, was rather simple. My husband doesn't care for a multitude of ornaments on a tree. Frankly, Charlie could probably care less about most of the decor in our home, but you know there's this saying...
Happy Wife Equals A Happy Life!
EXACTLY!!! I'm sure you all catch my drift 😉 But back to 2016...So I did it my husband's way last year keeping the tree fairly simple because he kind of put up a fuss about it and for once I caved in and granted him his wish. But this year was all about filling out the tree far more than we did last year. And, to make sure I went about it the right way...I even brought in some help.
As many of you all know, I have a very great relationship with the owners and staff over at Niche Modern Home, a local home decor and furniture boutique located on the Northshore side of New Orleans in Mandeville, LA. I only talk about Niche all of the time, as well as shop in there very frequently. They're very supportive of me, and in return I support their business. I even wrote a blogpost about their store last year, their price points and their amazing customer service. To catch up on it, click here.
But back to the Christmas tree decorating... So, The manager from Niche, Alison Alvarez Russ, came to my aid and helped me incorporate both glittery stems and beautiful ribbons to our tree. Last year, I was at a complete loss on how to properly install both and I allowed my frustration to get the better part of me and just said to hell with it. This year, I was determined to NOT do that. It was imperative that I DO BETTER, or learn what I didn't know.
So Alison came over and taught and provided both me and my IG family with tutorials on how to install stems and ribbon to your christmas tree. And, OMG!!! It was super helpful and I was so happy with the end result. Also, it made such a visual difference when comparing my tree from last year to this year. Visit my Cozy Blue Christmas blogpost from last year to compare for yourself by clicking here.
I received so many direct Instagram messages from my IG family telling me how much the tutorials really helped them and how they were now looking forward to applying the tools Alison shared with us. To say that brought sheer joy to my heart is an understatement. Being able to help my audience with something, especially on a decorative tip I myself needed help on as well, was truly a good feeling. We all learned together and in addition, that let me know that I may need to do more tutorials on other things in 2018.
But for now, let me just say I love how my tree came out this year. It was fuller and much more filled in.
In the event any of you missed out on the tutorials of how to install christmas stems and ribbons in my IG stories, or most recently began following me...don't worry I got you covered. To catch up, click here.
COFFEE TABLE CHRISTMAS DECOR:
For my coffee table decor...this year, I opted to balance out some of my gold accents and added in lots of shimmer, shine, and mirrored pieces through mercury and frosted mercury accents, as well as winter white florals.
As much as I loved how my coffee table came out last year...I truly just adored this year's frosted mercury vase. It was just the cutest and it added such a personal touch with the monogram P representing #HousePiazza. I'd been trying to get my hands on one for the longest. Sadly, every time I'd look for the letter P, it was always sold out. Thankfully, that wasn't the case this year and the moment I saw it at Steinmart, I grabbed it.
I also really really LOVED the gorgeously packaged, metallic finish candles with marble lids from Bath & Bodyworks this holiday season. As soon as I saw a preview of these beautiful and elegant seasonal candles, I knew they'd make their way into my home and Christmas theme this year. I mean, c'mon...they were simply too gorgeous to NOT pass up!
I continued the display of my coffee table books per the usual. Ya'll know I LOVE to decorate with books in general and I highly encourage anyone to do so if you have yet to. However, I did switch up the arrangement for my holiday theme and displayed one of my favorite design books on my coffee table this year.
This book usually sits on my foyer console, welcoming folks into our home...just as the title suggests, The Welcoming House. But the cover of the book had both a bright and warm feel to it. As a result, I thought it would be the perfect addition amidst all of the other warm tones and beautiful mercury accents...both atop of and surrounding our coffee table.
HOLIDAY TOSS PILLOWS:
One of the things I love to do oftentimes when styling my home, is to "shop my house" which essentially means working with existing things I already have or own. It's the perfect solution to cutting down on cost and saving money, especially during the hustle and bustle of the holiday season. Because I shop quite often for home decor in general, I tend to change decorative pieces around a lot within my home...storing the overflow of accents away for another time or later season. This was the case for this year's holiday change up to my toss pillows.
While I did consider purchasing a few new ones for this year's holiday theme...I'm so happy I remembered I had this gorgeous, soft velvet lumbar pillow in grey with the words HOME spread across the front of the pillow. I'd purchased this beauty last year all with the intent to incorporate it into one of the rooms in our home. Still with tags on it and all, this beauty was waiting to be used and styled...and I must say I'm sooooo happy I made use of it this season. Visually it was a game changer!
With so much shimmer and glitter everywhere, the pillow arrangement on my larger sofa provided a more comfy cozy vibe with all of the softer velvet textures. Leaving the love seat sofa to be the more festive seating area continuing with the theme of shimmer, glitter, shine and sequins. YES, SEQUINS!!!
Like the grey velvet lumbar pillow was a game changer for my larger sofa...adding in this amazingly, stunning mermaid faux fur throw from Pier 1 Imports to my love seat, totally pulled the entire room together. It not only complimented our new Christmas stockings this year, (also decked out in gold sequins)...but it also provided a continuous and harmonious look for everything that sparkled throughout the space. And, if you didn't know before, let me be the first to tell you...I LOVES me some sparkle! ✨✨✨
Speaking of sparkle. The one sparkly pillow I did purchase for this year's Christmas theme was the festive "Joy To The World" pillow from Home Goods. This particular pillow fit in just perfect with my existing line-up.
However, two brand new pillows purchased eons ago (as in so long ago, I really don't remember)...yet waiting for the right time to make their debut, finally made their grand appearance this year.
The Monogram P pillow was originally purchased from Pottery Barn to be apart of my Master Bedroom look. The petite, bling bling lumbar pillow was originally purchased from Pier 1 Imports to be apart of my Guest Bedroom look. Considering neither of them were used for their original purposes, I found the perfect way to implement them into my home in what I feel was an even better way.
Even my husband was excited when he noticed the large monogram P pillow sitting at attention. That let me know right away, it was a good idea and I'd hit a home run with my decision to once again "shop our house."
CHRISTMAS AT EVERY SURFACE:
The biggest difference with my holiday decor this year compared to last year, was that I really worked to spread it around more in the main open area of our home. Last year, it was mainly contained to the coffee table, the mantle and the kitchen table. That most certainly wasn't the case this year.
The goal was to spread christmas accents around and make sure it touched the surface of just about every table or console in our main open area. I achieved this by spreading out my favorite glittery pinecones from ZGallerie. Last year, these little heavenly scented beauties were all contained in one basket, sadly. Oh but this year, I spread their love everywhere!!!
And wherever you couldn't find a pinecone, an ornament or two sufficed as well.
CHRISTMAS GARLAND ON THE STAIRWELL:
With all that I loved about this year's Christmas, holiday look, I have to say my biggest and proudest achievement was the addition of garland to our stairwell. OMG!! I can't even begin to explain how thrilled I was and still am that I finally have beautiful garland aligning both sides of my stairwell this year.
But, for me the ice cream on the cake was the gorgeous garland swag or garland teardrops I added for additional decor. I fell in LOVE with these platinum colored beauties, which made me and my husband's home all the more festive and totally holiday ready. Truth be told, finally having garland displayed in our home made me feel like a real grown-up. So you know I can't be told NOTHING right about now!! What? You're talking to me? Baby, I have garland in my house go sit down somewhere!!! 😜😩😂
As much as I enjoy shopping with large mass retailers, I enjoy even more shopping with local vendors in my area. I'm all about supporting small business, especially small businesses with great customer service and amazing products. One of my favorite local stores to shop holiday decor is Gordon's of Metairie. Their entire store is transformed into a Christmas wonderland for the holidays and organized by color and theme, making it extremely easy for customers to select beautiful holiday decor based on one's preferred holiday palette.
When I walked into Gordon's this year, I headed straight to the champagne, gold and platinum section knowing that would be my color theme this year. Not only did my garland swags come from Gordon's, but also my beautiful holiday, floral arrangement as well.
What I love about all of the pre-made floral arrangements are the various shapes and sizes they each come in. The one I chose was the perfect size and addition to add atop of our kitchen counter and island.
However, because there was so much Christmas decor already spread throughout our main open area and living room space, I didn't want to crowd our kitchen counter with too too much. But I couldn't resist styling and staging some candles, marble trays and of course not just any ole christmas treats, but my absolute FAVORITE holiday treats...
CHOCOLATE & CARAMEL COVERED CANDY APPLES!!!
Let me tell ya'll!!! I seriously look forward to the end of every year, just so I can buy these delicious apples from our local grocery store, Rouses Market, which only sells them during Christmastime. They're usually available in Rouses by mid or end of November up until early January or until they sell out. And, when I tell ya'll I get my fair share of these apples every year during the holiday season. Yummy to my tummy is an understatement, OK!!!
They're sooooo freakin' delicious and one apple is not nearly enough!! You need at least a good four or five of them throughout the season, if not more. They also make really good holiday gifts as well considering how beautifully packaged each individual apple comes, with it's very own personal Christmas card and tag attached.
CHRISTMAS IN THE MASTER BEDROOM:
So last year, after fighting through my holiday stress and actually pulling off decorating our home quite beautifully...I became so inspired that I surprisingly wrote in last year's holiday post that I may possibly consider incorporating a second, and even a third tree into House Piazza. Clearly, I was tripping!!! Like for real, for real!!! This is where I had to tell myself again...baby steps Tachic! Let's get through a few Christmas seasons successfully executing one tree with no stress, before we leap into adding multiple trees giving both myself and my husband a heart attack!! Yeah, let's just take it slow.
Because I most certainly wasn't ready for that this year, I opted to instead spread minimal, yet very festive holiday decor throughout our newly designed and completed Master Bedroom. Just the simple touches I added to our space for me, made the room even more magical than it already is. As gorgeous as the living room is this year, I am thoroughly enjoying seeing the wonder and magic of Christmas in our bedroom. It's something about the twinkle of Christmas lights that just makes your heart smile.
And, because my friends over at Niche Modern Home love me so very much...we did our very first sponsored partnership this season, with Niche providing and sponsoring some of the holiday decor for my Master Bedroom, such as the following accents in the images below...all large and glittered sphere ornaments, gold Santa Claus, light-up Christmas Tree, white thistle shimmery Christmas Tree, gold shimmery Christmas Tree and the mercury, sparkled ornament.
Of the many holiday items Niche sponsored, the little Charlie Brown white thistle Christmas tree (pictured directly in front of our mansion mirror) was truly one of my favorites. Next to the tree, all of the glittered ornaments completely stole my heart with their shimmered beauty.
Currently, all of the Christmas ornaments and some holiday decor at Niche are now 30% off, with larger markdowns coming soon. For any of my New Orleans, Northshore or Southshore followers be sure to stop in their store and take advantage of their sales. To access their FB page for location details and store hours, click here.
Holiday Design Tip: I can't tell ya'll enough how ecstatic I was to constantly be able to re-purpose existing decor and shop my own house, this season. Don't get me wrong, I love to shop like every other design enthusiast and interior design obsessed person out there. But at some point, we ALL face storage issues the more we continue to consume. So whenever I can come up with ways to successfully and creatively design and style a look with what I already have, I am THRILLED about it!!! Be it this season, or the next...I highly encourage you all to work with as much of your existing decor as possible. Find creative and new ways to incorporate it into your design plan and overall theme. In the long run, you'll be happy you did.
Well, that my lovelies, pretty much wraps up this year's Christmas Tour at House Piazza. I hope you all thoroughly enjoyed all of the visuals. In addition, I hope you all let out a laugh or two and were entertained. Above all, I truly hope you all are leaving with tons of design inspiration to incorporate into your own homes.
But before I wrap it up completely, I have a special treat for ya'll. I try to incorporate my husband into my photoshoots whenever possible, all contingent upon his work schedule and if it aligns with the dates my shoots are scheduled. Most recently, they hadn't been. But this time around, it worked out. So I thought it would be super special and sweet to share some images with you all of myself and the Mr. of House Piazza himself.
Be sure to click on the image below to see the full slideshow of our holiday photos.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays Everyone! Wishing you all love, joy, prosperity, productivity, peace of mind, and a very blessed life in the upcoming year and many more years to come.
With Love,
Tachic-