Little Christmas Decorating Tips and Tricks

I had planned on writing this post a couple of weeks ago but of course just now am getting to it. It's a little late but I figured it might still be worth it if any of you have any parties or gatherings coming up and are looking for a few tips and tricks on hiding power cords or adding some depth to your mantels or vignettes. They might all be things you already use in your own homes or maybe not.

 First, here are a couple of tips for adding height. This is the easiest time of year to add height to your vignettes because you can use just about anything - even something really unattractive and then all you have to do it hide them with some greenery. When I had the two paperwhites on my mantel side by side it looked okay, but not quite right. I added two folded napkins (for the picture I put them on top so you could see but they are actually folded and laying right on the mantel) and then placed the paperwhites on top of them and then placed the greenery nicely around it so you can't see any white from the paper towels. That added just enough height to make the proportions looks better.

For our hot cocoa bar four of the jars on the left were all the same height. (The tall one with the marshmallows is HUGE - I wish I could shorten it a bit, but the other four are all the same). To add visual interest I put the hot cocoa one on top of an upside down bowl -and yes, there are two different types of cocoa in there seeing how we started to run low and needed a refill =).

And then I just placed the jars filled with chocolate chips on top of an old check box. Then I covered the box and the bowl with fresh cut greenery. It was nice and easy and makes the whole vignette look so much nicer by having different levels.

 

Here's another little trick. For my dough bowl filled with candles I used homemade playdough (thank you Mrs. Shaver) and that helped keep the candles secure. And then once again I just placed fresh cut greenery around it and you would never know! (Of course I had to return the playdough to Lillie once I was done!) =) 

This one probably goes without saying but one of the easiest ways to hide cords is to run them up to a wall and then hide them behind long draperies.

For this prelit tree that we had on our kitchen counter area the cord was coming from up above the burlap sack. I simply added an extension cord and then untied the burlap and stuck the cord through it. Then I cut a hole at the base and pulled the cord through. That way all you saw was an inch or two of cord instead of a foot of dangling cord.

In this picture you can see we have a lamp on our end table to the right of the sofa.

From the back side if I didn't tie the cord up in a knot and then run it directly underneath the flat bottom of the table (you can secure it with tape if need be) it would dangle like the photo on the left. Being able to see the knot would annoy me so I have a little throw that rest on that arm of the sofa and hides the knot.

And my last tip I don't have a photo of but I have painted my cords at times to match the wall color or baseboard so that they are less noticeble. It doesn't make them disappear but it does help make them not so glaring.

I hope you all are having a lovely Thursday!