Style Idol - Doris Day

bells are ringing

A hot debate is currently raging in my mind as to whether or not I will wear this pretty dark green lace bell-sleeved dress on Christmas or go the cozy route and stay in pajamas all day. It's a tough call since I always want to look picture-perfect and it's so rare that I have a real opportunity to play dress up (other than "I can do what I want and today I'm wearing a cocktail dress to shop for groceries!" lol!) but I also feel a real tug to play it comfy and sit on the floor in pjs sipping hot cocoa.

Either way, I did wear this dress this weekend (like I said, you don't need a real reason to play dress-up!) and I felt so festive and fancy! Oh, and it's 40% off today only over at Modcloth if you spend $100 or more. I have been pretty good at curbing my spending lately but I have my eye on this sweatshirt, this dress, this dress, this dress, and this dress. It's so hard to resist when the dresses are already super on sale and the 40% off brings them down to about $20 each! I feel like it's actually responsible of me to buy them when they're discounted so much, right? ;)

dress - c/o modcloth | cat belt - modcloth | shoes - amazon

Oh, Christmas Trees

As usual I have way too many Christmas trees considering the small amount of space I have (but I love it!!) so I thought I'd post a little round-up and show you guys ALL OF THEM! I only have one tree that didn't make it out of the Christmas buckets this year, and that's my beloved lilac tree (you can see it in my 2012 decorations post here.) It's still in tact (although the years are starting to show on it a bit) but I just couldn't find a spot for it this time around.

My main tree is this 6' silver tree with multi-colored lights. I originally got a full-sized one of these at Target two years ago, but it was so huge and as much as I wanted to make it work it just didn't fit in my little room. But then last year they had the same exact tree in a more narrow size so I immediately snatched it up. This is the PERFECT size for my space and it makes me happy every time I look at it :) This tree is filled with my grandmom's vintage ornaments, mixed in with some vintage-looking ornaments that I've picked up at Target over the last few years.



2018 is the year I decided that I can put full size ornaments on mini trees and I'm very happy with that decision. I put some of my extra deer that didn't fit on the main tree on this little pink one and I love how it looks! Also I used these battery-operated twinkle lights on basically every tree (except the big one) and I adore them! They have a six hour timer built in so I don't need to go around and turn all the trees on at dusk :)



This tree houses all of my Frank Sinatra ornaments! (Someone on instagram called it a SinaTREE and I LOVE THAT!) I collected these for years until they stopped making them around 2014. If you're a Sinatra fan you can still find the old ones pretty cheap on ebay!



Even with photoshop I couldn't quite get the color right on this tree. It's a pretty antique gold color (not as intensely yellow as it appears here) and I have it decorated with my mini-vintage inspired ornaments from Anthropologie. I also recently got that little Merry Christmas tree topper and it really pulled it all together!



This year I decided to add some seasonal touches to my Middle Ages/Black Death shelf, including a pink tree with some Black Death elements like little black rats and skeletons. I just picked up some Halloween party favors and added ornament hooks or wire. I know it's super weird and creepy but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯



This tiny aqua tree was in the Dollar Spot at Target this year for $3. Me and my mom both treated ourselves to $10 shopping sprees at Target a few weeks back and this was part of my haul. Even $10 can get you pretty far at Target if you shop smart ;) I just love the color, it's not quite green and not quite blue.



This is another unusual color -- kind of a very light red/sort of pink. It's just so pretty! This tree houses all of my old deer ornaments that I got at Target about 5 years ago. They're all missing antlers or legs at this point since they are very delicate and I didn't start taking good care of my decorations until recently (probably when I noticed these were all missing antlers or legs!)



This tree is so teensy, only like 12" tall! And it's my oldest tree. I've had this one ever since I started decorating my childhood bedroom when I was in my early 20's.



I've always loved these trees and I finally have one of my own. When I showed my mom recently she said that my Great Aunt Annie (longtime readers might remember her!) had one of these in her house when my mom was growing up, but my grandmom didn't save it when they sold her house :( I would have loved to have that so much, but at least this one will always remind me of my Aunt Annie now!



Finally I have this large pink bottle brush tree. And that makes 10 trees in total! If only I had room for more, lol! ;D

DIY pom-pom snow window hanging

This DIY has been on my to-do list for seven years. I'm not even exaggerating, I got the idea when I was on a trip to Disney World in 2011. I finally bought the supplies to make this *three* years ago. And after shuffling the materials between drawers, I finally did it this week! Phew!

So, in 2011 when I was at Disney I saw a window display with fake snowballs made out of pom-poms and started brainstorming a way to make it myself as a holiday decoration. I'm so happy with how this came out and (like a lot of my holiday decorations) I've been staring at it wondering if it'll work all year long because I don't know if I can bring myself to ever take it down!



Materials needed:

- white pom-poms (the larger size was easier to thread)
- white yarn
- 2 wooden dowels
- a large plastic needle



Before you start, measure the height of the window where you want to hang the garland.  Then cut strips of yarn to fit the window. I varied the length of my pieces so that they aren't all the same. I think it looks more like snow and less like a curtain that way.

Tie a piece of yarn to the dowel with a double-knot and then thread your needle. Start threading pom poms until you reach the end of the yarn, and double-knot again. Then slide your last pom-pom down to the knot. I kept a lot of space between my pom-poms and mixed up the spacing so that it looked like snow. You can move the balls on the yarn, so once you hang up the display you can still adjust them and fiddle around with the spacing until it looks exactly the way you like :)

I did six strands of yarn on one dowel and five on the other (to make room for my hanging plants) To hang up the pom-poms just place the dowel over your curtain rod until it's weight is counter-balanced with the pom-poms in the front. Alternately, you could always do one strand at a time and tape them up or hang them with command strips instead of using the dowels.



This came out exactly how I envisioned it, and now I have a little Disney-style magic in my office! :)