Having great Christmas deocrations doesn’t mean that you have to put away your everyday accessories.  Lamps are a wonderful place to have fun with your holiday decorations.  A simple bow on a lamp turns an every day object into a Christmas decoration.  The chest above features a pair of antique majolica lamps and an antique wooden box as its every day accessories.  For Christmas, we added bows to the bottom of the lamps and left the tails of the bows long to swirl onto the top of the chest.  We opened the box slightly and filled it with a greenery base, and then added a peppermint garland and some tufts of ribbon.  Very festive, and easy to do with objects you already have.  To learn how to tie the bows, watch my bow tying video further down in the blog.  One thing to remember is that you don’t want to completely cover up the lamp with the ribbons.  The base on these lamps is very simple, so we placed the bows there to let the beauty of the majolica be uninterrupted.  Play with the bow placement to make sure where you put it shows off the lamp to the best advantage.  On a tall, columnar lamp, bows work great at the top of the base, just under the neck where the bulb is.

The next photo shows a lamp that is in the form of a bust of Napoleon.  I love the idea of animating every day objects at Christmas, so I added a “sash” across his shoulder which mimics the sash that is actually on the bust.  I placed a “badge” of a glittered and mirrored star on the sash to tie it together.  This is a simple way to create a fun decoration.  I ran two ribbons to make the sash, a yellow and blue plaid, and a coral silk.

The third image is of a brass lamp with brass flowers.  Again, I positioned the bow at the bottom to not cover up the detail of the lamp.  On this lamp with no other color, I was able to add an ornament to the bow.  You can pull a narrow ribbon through the ornament hanger, and tie that on the lamp after the bow has been attached to it.  The addition of an ornament like this works great on solid color metal lamps, wooden lamps, solid color porcelain lamps, glass lamps, and lamps with a gold or silver leaf finish.  It doesn’t work as well on lamps that have designs painted on them.

The next image is the mate to the Napoleon lamp.  It is Eugenie, and she is wearing a “shawl” to keep her warm on cold winter nights.  The shawl is tied with the same badge used on Napolean, but this could also be done with a nice broach or other piece of jewelry.

Have fun with your every day accessories at Christmas time.  Holiday decorating is a great way to look at an object in a completely new light, and a great time to let an ordinary object become extraordinary. 

The first photo shows the stair rail before.  Be sure to move anything that can be damaged during the decorating process before you start.  We moved a pair of chairs that flank the draped table, as well as the lamp and other accessories that sit on the table to prevent breakage.  Our stair presents a wonderful challenge because of the curve.  Curves are a little more difficult because the drape of the swags can’t always be measured before putting up the greenery.  You have to look at it after each swag to make sure everything is in the right position.  Our secret is to make the swags between four and five feet wide.  We count the pickets on the railing, and divide out how many we need have between each drape to get them all about even.

The second photo shows the stairs after we have draped the garland.  I prefer having the garland in swags like this rather than running straight across the top of the banister.  When the garland completely covers the hand rail, there is no place to hold on when you are climbing the stairs; and if you do hold on, you mess up the decoration.  Placing the garland on top of a banister is not a practical solution. It is best to have the swags on the outside of the stair rail for two reasons:  (1) typically the most visible part of the stair rail is the outside, and (2) the garlands will be less likely to be rubbed against on the outside.  I prefer a nice deep swag with the greenery.  This always gives a luxurious look, and provides a lot of surface area that will hold other types of decorations like ribbon, ornaments, and berries.  Be sure to make “tails” out of the greenery that go from the top of the hand rail to the floor when you are doing the stairs.  Again, this always has a full and luxurious look, but it provides a practical solution for getting the light cords down to the floor if you want to light the garland.  We put the lights on the garland after it is hung on the stairs.  We run plain clear lights first, and then use a more decorative type light bulb as well after that is complete.  We chose the large clear pinecone shaped lights which give a nice bright look, and the glass bulbs add a dressed up element to the garland.  We keep our garland in one piece when we take it down, so if you can get the lights to work out so they fit the garland in one piece, it will make putting the decoration up the following year a breeze.  Be sure to keep the ties you use to hang the swags on the garland in the correct position.  Label which end goes at the top of the stairs and which at the bottom, and putting up the garland the following year will be a snap.

After the swags are up and the lights on, bows and ribbon should be put on.  We used five different ribbons for our stairs this year.  All of the ribbons have wired edges, which makes tying the bow very easy.  To learn how to tie the bow, watch my bow tying video further down in the blog.  Position the bows at the top, and work the streamers into the garland.

We have a pair of antique Italian cherubs that we use at the top of the stairs.  These add a playful element to the garland in that they look as if they are the ones putting up the decoration.  I love this sort of playful character in Christmas decorations.  You could use any sort of sculptural piece like this and get a similar effect.  The ribbons are worked in around the angels so that all of the angel is visible.

The next photo shows how the tails of the bows can be worked into the garland.  This serves the purpose of helping to keep them in place so they don’t get messed up during the season, and really adds a sense of movement to the garland.  We used multi colored ornaments in the same colors as our foyer on this garland, and hung them throughout the garland.  They are somewhat evenly spaced, but don’t get them too perfect or you will loose the artistic quality this garland has.  You can also tuck in sprigs of a different type of greenery and some berries if you want to add a little more color.  One year we placed the ornaments just around the bows in clusters.  This was a great look also, but this year, we decided to make it fresh and use the ornaments throughout.

The last photo shows our completed stair rail.  Notice how we added a bow to the lamp on the foyer table to tie that into the overall design of the decoration.  The nice deep green swags, the full bows, and the layers of ornaments on this garland really make a statement when you enter the foyer.  What a great place to say Merry Christmas and Welcome.

To decorate for Christmas, I prefer to not put the everyday decorations of a house away.  I often see people take a beautiful picture down over their fireplace for Christmas so they can put up a wreath.  Typically the wreath is not as pretty as the picture was, and all of a sudden, the focal point in the room becomes less spectacular instead of more interesting.  To avoid this problem, I often decorate the wall sconces over a fireplace.  If you don’t have sconces, you could use a garland over the mantle.

The photo above, and the ones following show three different rooms in the same home.  The home is a Colonial Williamsburg style home in which the owner wanted to maintain the original house trim colors of red, blue, and green.  We colored the decorations to compliment these tones.

The first photo is in the library.  There is an early print of Times Square over the fireplace, and two authentic Williamsburg sconces.  For Christmas, we added a branch of greenery to each sconce to act as our base.  We simply cut about a 24″ section of garland to use as this piece and wrapped it around the arms of the sconce.  The greenery will hold everything you use to decorate it with in place.  We then tucked in gold icy twigs and red glittery berries.  Voila!  A beautiful Christmas mantle.

The next four photos show wall sconces in the kitchen.  Again, these are associated with a fireplace, but this same type of application would work on bathroom sconces, a bedroom, or hallway. 

The first photo shows a sconce with greenery only on it.  We used garland to create the greenery base.  This is a piece about 48″ long that we wrapped around the arm of the sconce.  Make sure you fluff out the garland.  You can not get this look and not fluff the garland.  You have to pull each branch and straighten it out to make it really full.  This rule applies to any artificial greenery you use.  The next photo shows the sconce after we applied the ribbons.  This is a kitchen, with colors inspired by the antique French poster.  We used a red velvet ribbon with a fuzzy white edge, a red grosgrain ribbon with white polka dots, a red and green plaid, and a red and white stripe ribbon.  Don’t be afraid to put multiple ribbons together.  Play with it and have fun with the colors.  It will look festive.  I only did one loop per side on this bow, but when it is fluffed out, it appears to have four loops per side because of using multiple ribbons, so it is really full.  I used tails that were about 24″ long each, and worked them into the falls of the greenery.  The next photo shows the sconce after we put on the ornaments.  We used all sorts of kitchen inspired ornaments such as gingerbread men, cupcakes, and candy.  These look like you could eat them, so they are perfect for this setting.  The final photo in this group shows the pair of sconces with the antique poster that inspired the colors.  What fun!

The last photo in this post is of sconces in a living room.  We did a similar treatment to the first photo you saw of the library, but used less greenery, and instead of making the greenery be horizontal, we applied it in a more vertical fashion.  The small piece of greenery is attached to the arms of the sconces.  This holds all the other decorative pieces in place.  We added red hydrangea blossoms with glittery stems, and gold icy twigs.  It is very simple, but really adds a festive touch to the room.  We completed this mantle grouping by adding colorful ornaments to an antique bowl on the mantle.  The bowl was first filled with greenery to act as a base, and then the ornaments laid on top.  Be sure not to overfill the bowl.  A little less will look just as good.  You don’t want the ornaments to fall out if the bowl is moved.  The final details in this photo show that we added some sprigs of greenery, berries, and ribbon to the bookshelves.  It doesn’t take much of this to create a great look.  Just tuck a sprig of greenery behind some books or a figure or vase on the shelf, and do that two or three times in each shelving unit.  It creates the look of Christmas decorations without removing anything from the shelves. 

Remember to have fun while doing your Christmas decorations.  We always play Christmas music to get us in the spirit.  Have fun with your family and friends, and create something beautiful in the process.