Decking the outside

I had so much fun decorating the outside this year, partly because it's fun to deck out the "new house" and partly because it's been downright nice (for December) to be outside this year. If it weren't for not wanting to totally break the bank, I would have just kept on decorating. It's no secret that I love Deborah Silver's container designs, but I draw so much inspiration from her amazing holiday creations.

One of the things I did that's new this year, is mix in obviously faux materials with natural materials. I had seen Deborah do it and it intrigued me, so I added the sparkly balls to the  window box. Another little tip I learned from reading Deborah's blog is to wire the dogwood twigs together before putting them in the pot to keep them in nicer bundles. I also added faux eucalyptus to the containers  as it was easier to find (and less expensive than the real stuff). The greens and the dogwood were all gathered from our property or my parents' property (OK, maybe the field across the road from my parents, but close).

 

I always fill the big container by the front door, too and that got a similar greens/dogwood/eucalyptus treatment.

 

I put in some C9 LEDs as well so it glows at night.

 

For the first time, I also filled the container I leave in the garden as well. It's not lit but I love looking out the kitchen window at it.

But I had the most fun decorating the pergola. As I've mentioned before, given the orientation of the deck, the pergola doesn't really do much in the way of shading. It's purely aesthetic and I'd be lying if I didn't say that that decorating it for Christmas was on my mind when we (and by we I mean me since Mr. Much More Patient still doesn't understand what the purpose of the pergola is) decided to have it built as part of the deck project.

I had intended to pull the fake fruit off these Costco wreaths and put on ornaments instead, but I kind of liked the natural look more. I hung a wreath on two sides of the pergola and stuck some nice, big red bows on them. The garland is also lit and I just love how it all looks at night. I always cut my garland and rewire it so that it's facing the right direction. I can't stand garland running against the grain on the vertical.

 

I'm thrilled with how it turned out. If we were having a big party I might have swagged garland all along the deck railing and added small wreaths at the bottom of the stairs. Lately I'm finding it much more fun to decorate outside than inside. Not sure why, but I'm sure the nice weather has something to do with it.