Welcome back to the second installment of my “Drunk Decorating Guide, Second Edition,” which as a reminder is for those of you who want to feel festive, but still need to have time for things like sanity and holiday cocktails.
In today’s installment we will find a super easy, inexpensive wreath for your front door, as well as some tips on how to achieve low-maintenance decor while shoving things in random places. Because there’s no room for perfection when you are drinking and decorating. (Are you hopefully drinking out of your XL wine glass that holds a whole bottle of wine, featured on my Holiday Gift Guide?)
Let’s start with the front door wreath. Here we go!
FRONT DOOR WREATH
I made a personalized wreath for our front door for less than $15 back in the Spring. It’s basically the lazy man’s wreath with our initial on it. But I love it, because I can make little tweaks to it every season so it feels festive but without the fuss. Here is what the original wreath looked like:
Here is what it looked like for Fall/Thanksgiving:
And here is what I did to it for Christmas:
A little trick is that I keep items that live there all year ’round, such as this wreath, but just dress them up to add a holiday vibe to them. It is inexpensive and makes a big impact. Like when I wear the same yoga pants and white t-shirt every single day but change the scarf when I go out. (What? You noticed? Shit.) Anyway, this approach makes cleanup that much easier when the holidays are over, and believe it or not, little details go a long way.
For this wreath, it was a matter of purchasing a cheap wreath and wooden initial from the craft store, tying the letter onto it, and shoving festive springs in random places. (Do you recognize that netted ribbon from my tree in the first installment of Drunk Decorating? I like to use the same stuff wherever I can. I’m lazy like that.)
For the step-by-step DIY on creating your simple, personalized, basic wreath, go here: DIY simple front door wreath. The wreath itself is woven twigs, so it makes it really easy to tuck things into it. That is the gist of it: get a few cheap sprigs from the craft store and tuck them into the wreath.
more small details and shoving things in random places
Speaking of adding small details to things I use on a daily basis, and shoving stuff in random places, check out our console table. I love our lamp, so I just add some of these berries around it (which can again be found at a low price in your local craft store):
Here’s what these candle holders on my console table looked like before Christmas threw up on my house:
But now, watch what happens when I shove some sparkly shit in random places!
The rule here is: when in doubt, shove some shit in random places. In this case, it’s some garland, these snowflake candle holders I had, and a few poinsettias. Because it wouldn’t be the holidays if you didn’t have some fake poinsettias, I mean, WHATAREYOUANANIMAL?!
use your ornaments everywhere, not just the tree
Also, you don’t have to use all your ornaments on the tree – I added them to the tops of the candle holders. I also added them to the garland hanging in the doorway…
…and to the garland on the bar. BARland, if you will…
We got our garland on sale at a discount store several years ago. It is not nice. It is actually pretty ugly and fake looking. But you can’t really tell when you dress it up with ornaments and light it up (and when you yourself are lit-up). It’s like putting a beautiful, sparkly sweater over a bad boob job. It will give your usual stuff an instant face-lift.
Speaking of “lifts”, another quick trick is to take objects you have more than one of and put them on top of something, like a candlestick, to give them an extra boost. Like these guys below. I call them my drunken elves. I set one on the furniture and put another one on a candlestick:
I love them so much because they are cute and were given to me by my mother-in-law. And also because they look drunk, too. And slightly lost. So I don’t feel so alone.
Last but not least, add something fun.(And possibly naughty.)
I will leave you with this last little tip: add something fun and naughty somewhere. If you’re having a party, tell guests whoever finds the detail first wins a prize. For us, that detail is our “Gingerbread couple”:
That’s it for today! Stay tuned for Monday for my third and final installment of “Drunk Decorating”. Do you have any extra tips to add? Leave me a comment and tell me your tricks! And if you missed my first installment, you can find it here.
