A Christmas Porch Welcome to the 151st Metamorphosis Monday!

Happy Holidays!  Hope your weekend has been grand!  I've been busy finishing the last bit of Christmas decorating for the front porch.  Come a bit closer and check it out.

I usually use pine garland around the door for Christmas, but last year I had to buy enough to go around the door twice because it was sort of skimpy looking.  So this year I decided to try cedar.  If you live in the Atlanta area, Pike Nurseries has beautiful cedar garland.  I purchased 30 feet--enough to go around the door, down the center of my dining room table and across the mantel for $45.


If you don't want to spend a lot for fresh garland each year, a super budget friendly way to create garland is to buy a few strands of inexpensive faux garland at a discount store and add real greenery to it from your yard.  While on Christmas home tours, I've peeked under the fresh greenery of garlands around front doors, and often  there's artificial garland underneath.  You especially see this when the garland looks exceptionally thick and lush.  Often the maker of the garland has started with a strand of artificial garland as the base and they have added magnolia, pine, pine cones, or other greenery from the gardens.

To make garland starting with artificial garland as your base, cluster the greenery you're adding together in bunches, covering the stems of the greenery you've already wired on with the next layer of greenery, similar to how you cover a wreath form when adding fresh greenery to it.  It's okay to let some of the artificial garland peek out.  You will only have the initial expense of the garland (which isn't much if it's purchased in a discount store.  You'll need some green floral wire to wire on your greenery.  It's also very inexpensive to buy.

Then you just add your fresh greenery to it each year, eliminating the need to buy garland for decorating.  It's definitely more labor intensive than just buying fresh garland each year, but it's a great way to decorate with fresh garland with very little expense.  Of course, you have to have access to the greenery.  Or, access to a friend or neighbor's yard. At night.  Undercover.  But I didn't say that.  La, la, la....

My inspiration for the front door came from an ad torn from a old Grandinroad catalog.  I've saved this picture for several years now, hoping to create the look for my front door some Christmas.  At last, this was the year.




I did change the look up a bit, though.  I didn't use red ribbon since my front door is bright red and it would not have shown up very well.  Also, I wanted the wreaths to appear to be hanging from each other, instead of having the ribbon running down the door behind and through the center of each wreath, as shown in the Grandinroad ad.  The ribbon I used was a shimmery soft yellow/gold with touches of red and green.  I tried plaid ribbon and though it was pretty, it was a bit too bright for the "feel" I wanted this year.

I bought my wreaths at Lowe's.  They were $12 each but they just went on sale a couple of days ago for $9.
I kept my colors around the door soft and muted this year.  I just loved the look of the greenery, unadorned...no ribbon running through it and no baubles or beads this year.

Here's a little tip in case you wish to create this look for your front door.  If you just hang the wreaths from each other, the top wreath may lose its round shape and sag a bit from the weight of the other two wreaths below, unless you're using artificial wreaths.  Artificial wreaths may be light enough (weight wise) to hang from each other without causing the top wreath to sag.

My door is a wood door, so I placed a very skinny nail in the door on which to hang the second wreath.  You would never know that just looking at it. I didn't need to do that for the third wreath...it's hanging by ribbon alone.  The weight of one wreath seemed to be okay.  But the weight of two was a bit too much for the top wreath to handle without sagging in the center.  The second nail did the trick.

The top wreath is hanging from a metal wreath door hanger, the type that goes over the top of a door.  I attached a little ribbon to it with masking tape to hide the hanger.  That way all the wreaths appear to be hanging from ribbon.  I had three of those metal "over the door" type wreath hangers.  Two were too long and would have caused the top wreath to hang too low, throwing off this whole arrangement.  Fortunately, the third hanger was just the right length and worked perfectly.  I got lucky there.

I always have to use the sled and ice skates on the porch at Christmastime.  I just love them on the porch this time of year.  I tucked left over cedar and nandina berries from the yard into the top skate.

This year I placed an on old pail I found while antiquing one day, in front of the sled.  I put an ice bucket down inside the pail and filled it with water.  Then I filled it with Leland Cypress and nandina.  I also tucked a few red and silver ornaments in on top.

Remember this lantern I used on the porch for fall and Halloween?  It worked well surrounded by magnolia leaves on this Christmas porch.

Two artsy pics...just for fun.

Getting dark now--time to light up the garland.  (Click for a Pottery Barn Inspired Garland Tutorial.)

As it was getting dark, I tried to catch some "blue hour" pics.  (Click on the link to read about Blue Hour Photography.)

I'm still fascinated with the blue hour.  Love the trees silhouetted against this blue hour sky.

The Debutante camellia is still blooming its heart out.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

To see how the front porch looked prior to this metamorphosis, click HERE.  I'm joining in Nester's Christmas Tour of Homes HERE.

Looking forward to all the Before and Afters for this Metamorphosis Monday!

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