Natural, Handmade and Vintage Inspired Christmas Home Tour

Last year for my Christmas decor, I decided to use things I already had, make some handmade ornaments, and forage my greenery. Join me as I share a natural, handmade and vintage inspired Christmas home tour filled with unique, creative and budget friendly decorating ideas.

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If you’re anything like me, you have way more Christmas decor than you actually use every year.

And each year, I see new things and continue to add to the chaos.

I had a lot going on last year around the holidays, and quite honestly, I didn’t even want to pull it all out of the attic.

Instead, I took out only a few boxes of my holiday decor and incorporated lots of fresh greenery I cut from my yard and neighborhood.

I also made quite a few ornaments and really enjoyed the simplicity of the decor and taking the time to handcraft some ornaments.

welcome to my home

Let’s start the tour at my front door.

The front porch is something I enjoy decorating for each of the seasons.

I usually keep it pretty simple, but I like to decorate for the seasons and holidays since that is the first thing that great guests as they walk up to your home.

Two 9-foot faux norfolk pine garlands were hung over the front door.

To add some fullness and character, I tucked in branches from my lemon eucalyptus tree and also a few real pine branches and pinecones over the top of the door.

I also added in some dried orange slices I had made and tied them with a narrow brown and white gingham ribbon.

The wreath on the door was made with real pine branches, real cedar branches and a few lemon eucalyptus stems.

One of the dried orange slices was added as a finishing touch and tied on with a brown and white striped ribbon, a gold velvet ribbon and a torn strip of fabric in the same colors.

Lastly, I added some mandarin oranges to my potted olive tree right beside the door to continue on with the theme.

my Christmas tree decor…

handmade decoupaged ornaments

Over 25 years ago, I wanted leopard print Christmas balls for my tree.

Unfortunately, there was no such thing, at the time.

So, I got crafty and made my own.

I bought clear glass ornament balls at the craft store and found leopard print tissue paper on-line.

I decoupaged the tissue paper onto the glass balls using mod podge.

I made about 24 of those ornaments and still have them. Remember when I mentioned that I have way too many Christmas ornaments.

I always hate to get rid of any, in case I want to use them again. So, I end up with far more holiday decor than I need.

This past year, I decided to add a bit of color to my Christmas tree that is normally all neutral.

I decided on pops of blue and green.

Since I didn’t have any ornaments in those colors I made ornaments using paper napkins and clear glass ornament balls and decoupaged them just like I made years ago.

I chose paper napkins in blue and green patterns and made several ornaments in each pattern.

inspiration for my color palette

My inspiration for the green color for my Christmas tree ornaments were some artichokes I bought for my fall decor.

I loved the look of them stacked in a bowl.

I decided to see if they would dry out so I could also use them on my Christmas tree.

To my surprise, they dried beautifully!

After they were dried out, I cut the stems off fairly short and used a small eye hook and screwed it into the end of the stem.

I added blue velvet ribbon to hang them on the tree, which incorporated the blue color I wanted to add, as well.

Not only were they easy to make, it was a very unique Christmas ornament to add to my tree.

more handmade ornaments

I purchased inexpensive flocked ball ornaments in a cream color and stamped them with a flower design rubber stamp and brown stamping ink.

These were so easy to make and made such cute and unique ornaments for my tree.

The great thing about these ornaments is you can customize the pattern with whatever rubber stamp you want to use, and also use any color ink that works with your color scheme.

easy but beautiful tree topper

I’m typically not a “bow” kind of girl, but when I saw this beautiful wide woven jaquard ribbon in my color scheme, I couldn’t resist.

I cut greenery from a juniper tree in my neighborhood to use as a tree topper. The branches have beautiful dark blue berries on them which was perfect with my blue and green ornaments.

I tucked the stems down into the top of the tree and wired them to the tree to secure.

I made 3 large double loop bows and wired them around the top of the tree, as well.

I left long tails on them, so they could be woven vertically down the tree.

The beautiful wide blue geometric pattern ribbon was a show stopper addition to my tree.

mantel decor for Christmas

In the fall, I created a mantel garland out of dried hydrangeas.

I wrapped chicken wire around the mantel and tucked in dried hydrangea stems until it was completed covered.

I love how it turned out and when it was time to change out fall decor for Christmas I just couldn’t stand to take it down quite yet.

Instead, I decided to incorporate the dried hydrangea garland into my Christmas decor.

I had been collecting wicker and woven bells for several months and thought they would be the perfect addition to the mantel piece.

Most of the bells were thrifted and a few larger ones were purchased at Homegoods and Walmart.

I added a tension rod to the corbels underneath my mantel piece and randomly hung the bells with blue velvet ribbon from the rod.

It turned out to be one of my favorite Christmas mantels I’ve ever created.

kitchen hutch decked out for the holidays

I love to decorate my kitchen hutch for the seasons.

I try to get really creative each year and change up the top of the hutch as well as the wall above the hutch.

Last year, at a barn sale, I picked up this deer head and thought it would be a unique element.

He hung in the center of the wall above the hutch.

I added a vintage gold frame around him, as well as a grapevine wreath around his neck and also draped greenery and tied with a ribbon.

A collection of vintage gold frames were placed randomly on the wall all around the deer head.

I layered them to add more depth and character.

A collection of small brass horns tied with velvet ribbon were added to some of the frames.

I think my favorite part of the top of the hutch was a garland I made out of asparagus fern that was gifted from a sweet friend.

She has asparagus growing in her garden and it has the most beautiful feathery like greenery.

I wired branches of it end-to-end to create a garland to go all the way across the hutch.

It dried beautifully and lasted the entire holiday season.