Tour of our Christmas kitchen!

Heya! I hope you had a wonderful weekend! We were BUSY. Tis the season, eh? :)

My friend the Nester is hosting a holiday home tour, and I thought I�d share our festive kitchen and link up!

Warning: LOTS and lots of pictures!

A couple of years ago, I decided to make our kitchen FUN for the holidays. Like, lots of candy cane stripes, red and white, a little bit of whimsy, FUN.

Last year I made some super easy wreaths using dollar store forms and ribbon (that I bought half off the year before at Target). I hang them on the backs of the kitchen chairs:

 

I love how simple they are, but the candy cane stripe adds a little punch. :)

I kept it simple on the table by just adding some sparkle:

Who doesn�t love a little glitter in their salt and pepper? ;)

I usually surround our back door with garland and lights, but I�m not even kidding you � the lights on almost every. single. strand I�ve pulled out of the bins were burnt out. (I had to replace ALL of them on our outdoor garland.)

They were burnt out on the kitchen greenery too, and I was DONE with that. :) So I went with our simple wreath on the back door:

It�s just a cheapy wreath with red ornaments stuffed in, and a dollar store ornament hanging from the middle.

I hot glued the ribbon over the hanger too. Pretty cute, eh?

I told you about the score that is my kitchen tree last year � I think it was around $80 originally, and I got it for about $15 after the holidays at Michael�s. It came lighted, with the urn, and it is all sparkly and pretty � LOVE it:

I�ve put a bunch of white and red ornaments on it, including my absolute favorite � the little red glass birds from Target a few years ago:

I haven�t seen them there again � which bums me out because they are just the most darling little things ever!

Our Ikea sofa table is decked out as well � it�s the perfect spot for my Santa hats:

And various fun stuff from year�s past(WHY must stores keep tempting me with cauuute stuff?) at the end of the table:

A candy-themed snow globe train, an adorable gingerbread house that sings and lights up (be still my heart) from Hallmark, and the carafe and plate we use for Santa�s goodies.

I don�t have much on the counters � just a couple Goodwill cookie jars:

And another Santa carafe holds candy canes for my nightly hot chocolate:

A friend and I found those adorable carafes at Flower Factory years ago, and we each grabbed up a few extras. I just adore them. Cause Santa does rock.

My giant Goodwill cloche on the island is filled with my standard greenery, ornaments and beady stuff:

For those of you wondering, I take the cloche off, fill it up while upside down, then place the base over it and turn it right side up. :)

Last year I put gobs of greenery, lights and sparkly stuff up above our cabs, but this year I felt like I had plenty going on without them. So I just piled a few big ornaments here and there, and hung a couple from platters:

Originally, I had planned to place a very simple garland over our kitchen window and call it done � but then I pulled up the Christmas bins and it was kind of like Christmas when I opened them up � wink wink.

Every year, I forget about all the fun decor we have. Isn�t that so fun to rediscover everything?

I started with a little vintagey looking tree I found at a consignment shop last year:

Can I tell you how much I LOVE Santa boots? Love.

I ordered these blocks from my friend Amanda last year:

Oh my � they are so adorable!

I found these itty bitty Santa boots at Kirkland�s a year or two ago � and I fill them with red hots (one of my favorites!):

They are sooo small and insanely cute!

Since I still haven�t put any window treatments up on my nekked windows, I thought the window could still use a little somethin� to dress it up for the season.

Instead of the garland I had planned, (which I have enough of around here anyway!), I saw a simple idea in a magazine a couple months ago and decided to give it a try.

I used a tension rod we already had and hot glued some red ribbon around it first. Because I�m freaky like that. :) I hung some candy cane ornaments from it with ribbon:

Those ornaments were $4 (on sale) at Hobby Lobby by the way � and you get a bunch of them!

I think it�s pretty darn sweet:

I think my absolute favorite spot in our Christmas kitchen is the Goodwill shelves I found earlier this year � I had so much fun playing around with this little vignette!:

It was all stuff we had, and I LOVE having this little space to decorate in the kitchen! It makes me HAPPY.  :)

So here�s our Christmasy kitchen:

 

Can you find our Elf on the Shelf in this picture?:

He forgets to move every couple of nights. ;)

Whew! Well, that�s the tour of our Christmas kitchen! Some of you have been following along as I�ve been working on the redo of this room � it�s definitely getting there. And I LOVE how it�s turning out!

The before and after pics aren�t the exact same shot, but you can see the difference a new sink and backsplash have made in the room:

OK, a few other changes too. :) And the after shot was taken at night � now that�s impressive! You can see more of the changes I�ve made in the kitchen by going here.

Oh yeah�there�s 530 fantastic trees linked up! Wooeee!

P.S. Kelly is hosting a linky too � you can go here to check it out!

 

Thank you to my sponsor!: