Welcome to the first week of our “Merry and Bright Blog Hop!”  I have teamed up with some very talented bloggers to bring you some beautiful Christmas decor inspiration!  Surely you’ll find something you love with all these girls have to offer!  I feel so blessed to be apart of this tour with them!  This blog hop will run for 3 weeks, giving you all a tour of each of our homes as we deck the halls for Christmas.  We’re excited you’re here to join us!

First up: The entry way!

My entry way is small as far as foyers go, so I thought I’d actually start just out the front door, on my little porch.

     I made the snowflake boards last year from some cheap MDF snowflake cutouts, glitter, and of course a stained board.

     This year I added to my DIY decor collection when I made this large sled at a craft party from Crafts 2 You Home Parties, (hosted by my sweet SIL Cat from Catherina’s Creative Corner.)

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My home doesn’t have a real formal foyer… honestly you pretty much see everything past this little 3 foot wall to my open concept home.  haha!  Despite being open to the rest of the house, and being small, this little entryway happens to be the darkest spot in my entire home.  I dare say, even darker than the basement.  But even though there isn’t much here, I still wanted it to be inviting and festive!  I also wanted to work at lightening up the space, as I mentioned, it’s dark in this wee corner!

In attempt to make it more bright in here, the first thing I did was move this side table from the great room into this corner.  The white color,  open shelf,  and tall skinny legs of this table instantly made things brighter!

And of course, any excuse to add twinkle lights will help add more light to the space!

            I was struggling to figure out what to place on this little shelf for a bit, until one day I started thinking back on what excited me as a little girl during Christmas:  one of those things was opening the boxes of ornaments to decorate the tree.  That overflowing box of Christmas decorations always made me giddy!  So why not turn that memory into a little vignette?  A small crate, overflowing with ornaments, ribbons, and garland were the perfect touch!

 I’ve been collecting mercury glass ornaments for a few years now, but those “flocked” silver pine cones are new this year from White and Fig.  I LOVE them!  This garland is also new this year, and is easily my favorite greenery in the house!  It’s from Afloral.  Afloral  has the most realistic faux foliage I have ever seen.  And I especially love how they didn’t skimp on the berries in this garland.  haha!

I strung up these tiny ornaments myself to create a little ornament garland.

     Since you can see the side of this table from the rest of the house, I continued the draping and “overflowing” affect out the sides also.

     The top of the table was the perfect spot to display my favorite wooden horse found at Marshals last year, which I made a little more “Christmasy” by adding a sprig of Juniper berries, also from Afloral.  And that old photo you see, is one of my favorites.  It’s of my mother and Aunt as little girls sitting on Santa’s lap.  I wish I knew how old my mom was here.  I’m guessing she’s 4 years old… back in 1955 or so.

     Another thing you immediately see when entering my home is my railing.  Again, because of how dark it is in this spot, I wanted to keep it as light as possible.  So I added white berries, frosted pinecone picks, and glittered lambs ear all from Michaels.  I found the burlap ribbon in my craft stash.  I’ve had it for years, and can’t remember where I first found it.

     The pre-lit garland was super cheap, $6 a piece (6 foot strands) from Tai Pan Trading’s After-Christmas sale years ago.   I found little wooden tags in the Target dollar spot, and drew little snowflakes and things on them with a chalk pen.

I also added some wooden ornaments as an extra filler.

I just love how subtle the glitter is on this lambs ear!  It is my absolute favorite detail of my railing.

And that concludes my tour of my Christmas Entry Way… Thank you so much for stopping by!  But, happy news:  The Blog Hop doesn’t stop here!  Be sure to check out all of these other lovely homes in the links below.  And check back next week to see what we have coming next!

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Merry and Bright Blog Hop Continues:

Katie @jonessweethomes

Desiree @camelotartcreations

Cat @catherinascreativecorner

Lindsay @countrygirlhome

Lauren @old_to_newblog

Rachel @crateandcottage