Last month I was presented with a terrific opportunity to design and implement a “Simply Christmas” decor for my church. It’s a brand new building with huge windows, loads of natural light, beautiful stone details, and lots of modern amenities. There happen to be a lot of really creative people who attend Hope — musicians, artists, photograpers, designers, etc. — so it was a huge honor to be asked and to get to work with a really talented group of people to pull this off before Thanksgiving.
The theme, as I mentioned, is Simply Christmas. The creative direction was this beautiful graphic by Robb Major that will be our seasonal brand for sermons and events throughout December. Can you see that the snowflake is actually made up of lots of little snowflakes and that CHRISTMAS is a fresh, leafy green color?
Well, my co-decorator, Jill, and I enthusiastically tore pages from our favorite magazines and catalogs, pulled fabric swatches from our workrooms, and exchanged countless text messages that can be summed up by a few keywords: mercury glass, fresh greens, linen and burlap, white lights, simple snowflakes.
As you might expect, our budget was somewhat limited. Since we were essentially starting from scratch, we opted to spend our money on timeless pieces that could be used throughout the year (i.e. mercury glass sconces) and from year to year (lighted artificial trees). We spent a little money on some live plants (wreaths, paperwhites and pointsettias) to add depth and texture in the places where people pass by frequently.
Jill found a dozen cableknit scarves on clearance at Old Navy that we cut apart and stitched back together around the base of the pointsettias instead of the flashy foil they usually come in. In fact, when we placed the pointsettia order, we requested they come without wrapping at all, which saved a buck or two on each one! We set each one in a plastic bag from the supply closet to protect the floor from leaks, and then wrapped them in the scarves.
I found four-for-$1 packs of snowflake ornaments for our trees at Target and picked up a bunch of canvas drop cloths for a steal at the hardware store.
With a few additional flourishes — fresh holly from my backyard, pewter nativity scene ornaments from Ben Franklin, and some recycled Anthropologie gift ties (see paperwhites above) – the whole thing came together beautifully.
It really was a fun project and a good exercise in decorating restraint.
I hope to have my own house decorated next week!
We are so excited to share these pictures with you! Stephanie gave you a sneak peak of our Quirk Gallery window installation last week. Our theme is “Grade-School Crush” — a sweet nod to Valentine’s Day.
