I’m still in the midst of getting my full interior holiday house tour ready for you guys (since you know that requires me to clean my house!), but until then I want to share the exterior this year.  On black Friday I picked up about 100 feet of real cedar garland and so this year I decided to forgo any of the fake plastic stuff (Not that you can’t make the fake stuff look great, but I didn’t want to mix and match with the cedar.)

To play off that gorgeous greenery, I decided to use mainly natural elements in my decorating. For a start I created a pretty vignette by the front door:

I always struggle with the fact I have a corner front door which and one-sided side light (Oh how I envy those beautiful large symmetric front porches!) But I try to make do.



I HAD to reuse my wood slice stag’s head. I just love it so much.  I couldn’t find a place for it inside the house this year, so I used it outside.
To echo the browns in the deer head, I filled a bucket with pine cones and some of my beloved cedar fronds.   I found these old sleigh bells on clearance after Christmas a few years ago and never knew where to use them.  They are really heavy and loud.

To raise the level of display I used an old crate.   The red lanterns are fro Ikea and the sleigh is thrift store find.  I couldn’t figure out what to put in side, but I had this log left over from when I was working on my wood slice chalkboard banner and so I threw that in.

I got this pine cone and berry garland at Michaels on Black Friday. I originally thought I would weave it through a pine garland, but once I swaged it on the deer art, I like it as is.

I actually had two, so the other one I wrapped into a fresh pine wreath (I also picked up on black friday) to tie it all together.
I'm glad I used a real wreath on the door since I used a fake one on the front of the house and side by side with the cedar it looks REALLY fake.

Because I didn’t use any lights this year (I normally put lights in all my garlands) I wanted to add some sparkle to the display, so I wove fairy lights (battery operated) though the bucket of pine cones and in and out of the crate.  I also added a large NOEL marquis light I picked up last year.

It is pretty bright and throws enough light on the front porch when it is plugged in.

Finally, on the front of the house, I added more cedar garland, sagging it across my garage door opening.

Right now there is NO POSSIBLE WAY I could park my van in the garage, so I let the swags hang pretty low.  Normally this would hit the top of my car, but my garage is so far from being clean I figured I wouldn’t worry about it.  It will be a miracle if my van needs the garage!I hope you come back later in the week when I share the interior of the house.  It isn’t all as rustic as this.. in fact, there is quite a bit of glitter involved!