Winter Decorating : Snow, Stars and Glistening Crystal

Hello Friends!

I’d planned to write about a visit with a friend that took place last week, however, catching a cold kept me from experiencing that pleasure. Instead, I stayed close to home, and so, here are some photos of what that currently looks like.

As you may have noticed, I enjoy decorating for holidays, returning everything to, pretty well, exactly the way it was before afterward. But, this year I intend to shake things up more, moving items around and pulling seldom seen treasures out of cupboards. So, after taking down the Valentine things, I put together this Wintery look, using things I already had around the house. There are many thrifted items in the mix, along with gifts, family memorabilia and a surprising number of things rescued from other people’s trash. (It’s quite common to find boxes of good stuff beside the sidewalks in Toronto, with the intention being you take what you want.)

It was fun to do, like playing a little scavenger-hunt game, trying to find things around the house that fit the theme. Since Winter is nearly over, I’m now looking forward to seeing what I can hunt and gather for Spring. There might also be a shelf or two set up with St. Patrick’s Day decor, as well.

I hope you enjoy my first “between the holidays” decorating look. While the overall theme was “winter”, I wasn’t overly strict with it, as you will see.

↑ Crocheters who would like to make a flower garland like the one here, can find instructions here. ↑

↑ The crystal decanter and square dish are a couple of those curbside trash finds. ↑

↑ This lithograph by Quebec artist Pauline T Paquin, was a wedding gift from my aunt and uncle. ↑

↑ The Hudson’s Bay blanket is from the 60s, purchased by Nick’s parents when they moved to Canada from the UK, as a young married couple. ↑

↑ The wooden heart with the keys is a Valentine decoration that I left up. I found the heart at Dollarama in the craft supply isle, and painted it. Then I hung a couple of old skeleton keys with it, that are family relics —one was my maternal grandparents’ and the other was Nick’s aunt’s.

↑ The crystal wolf sculpture (by Swedish artist Mats Jonasson) was also a wedding gift, from an uncle who has sadly passed away. ↑

↑ Some of my collection of vintage Corelle dishes, these in the pattern “Old Town Blue”. They were all thrifted, one piece at a time over the years, and I’d lost track of what I had. So, getting them all out was a good way to figure out what pieces to look for and what to stop buying (dinner plates!) ↑

↑ I thrifted this children’s book just before Christmas. It’s from the early 60s and contains several little poems and awesome illustrations. I’ll show it in more detail in an upcoming “Thrift Store Finds” post. ↑

↑ Hanging crystal chandelier pieces cast rainbows about the room. ↑

↑ I took down the vintage Valentine cards that were on this handmade greeting card display wall-hanging, and replaced them with some exhibition cards from various art galleries. I save this type of thing in a shoe box and had never thought to display them together before. Literally “thinking outside the box”, haha. ↑

↑ Before and After : We’ve had this metal table (a curb-side trash find) in this spot for ages, covered with a piece of fabric to hide all the junk that’s stored on the lower shelf. Then I saw the green table listed on Craigslist a couple of weekends ago, being sold for only $20 by someone who lived in our neighbourhood. Within the span of a few hours, I’d contacted the seller, agreed to pick it up, walked to and from with Nick, and plunked it down into its new home. The other one will be excellent as a plant table.

↑ She has nothing to do with winter but wanted to say hello nonetheless! ↑

Thank you for taking a look. Wishing you a great week. xo loulou

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