{create} a gold and white Christmas

Remember how I mentioned last week that I invited friends over on Saturday night so I'd have an excuse to finish decorating? Well, it worked! We're fully decorated :). The difficult part of decorating for Christmas this year was that it also involved putting our living back together -- bringing furniture back in, hanging photos, etc. It's been six months (of kitchen remodeling) since we've been able to use our living room! So, not only is it nice to have it all decorated and festive, but it's nice to have things back to normal :).

As for decor, I mentioned when I showed you our mantle and tree that we're were going with very simple decor in a white and gold color scheme. Friends, I love it so much. It's so relaxing and soothing and elegant and festive. 

As for decorating in a color scheme I've never used before - well, I did end up buying a few things. Mostly, ornaments. I needed gold :). But I also ended up buying a couple of white pillows -- one with a fun ribbon texture and one with an awesome fuzzy texture. I justified these because I'll use them all year round. But, they do fit in so well with the holiday theme! 

Friends, how's your decorating? All done? Does it feel like Christmas is sneaking up awful quickly this year? :)

{create} white and gold Christmas tree

Slowly but surely, we're getting decorated for Christmas. You can see in my photos below, that there isn't much done on our surfaces, but my goal is to be done by Saturday morning. I even invited friends over for a little party to help motivate me to finish! Do you ever do this?? :) This past weekend we did get our tree decorated. There is something about decorating the tree - maybe it's the twinkly lights? - that immediately puts me in the holiday spirit.

As I mentioned when I showed you guys the mantel, we're decorating in only whites and golds this year. Just to mix it up a little :). So far I'm loving it.

For the tree, I made a couple quick and simple ornaments to add to our existing gold ornaments, including painting glass balls and these adorable white paper poinsettia flowers. There is one more ornament that I'd love to make, but just haven't had time. I'll keep you updated if I do.

 (You can find poinsettia instructions here)

And, we reused our book page chain from last year. We're both still really love it and I think it works well with our color scheme.

As for below the tree, I absolutely LOVE our tree skirt, but it's very red and white. So, I dug through our basement and found a roll of burlap we'd purchased for a project earlier this year. I'm completely digging the more natural look. 

Another thing I noticed when I was taking these photos? We still haven't hung everything back up that we took down when we demo'd the kitchen. Yah. Working on that ;).

How are you guys doing decorating for the Christmas? Is anyone else feel like the days are flying by this year?