Christmas home decorations 2010

Well Christmas has snuk up on me again. Things have been kind of crazy so I have focused on one thing at a time and finally almost through the list, just a few Christmas presents to make and plan what to make for Christmas day and I am done, yeeha............ This year we have Kirsty (eldest daughter) and family staying with us over the Christmas period so have made more of an attempt at decorating the house so they feel all the mood in our little home. Following is my Christmas decorating using mostly decorations I have collected over the years, here as well as in Melbourne and mostly Sydney who does do Christmas so well, mmmmh Perth not so good at decorating for the season, seems a bit depressed, and off course there is lots of new building and roads re built so overhead cranes and buildings boarded up don't quite lend themselves to decorations. The Madonna above is my Christmas present from my daughters, she is very old possibly over a hundred years old, from Europe, chipped, faded and the head missing of the child, isn't she wonderful?

I have all these gold, bronze and richer colour decorations that I usually put on the hall stand but this year decided to go with glass and pearl baubles, and put the golds on the Christmas tree and added some mauve and burgundy Victorian glass balls, don't show up very well in this photo, but they do look quite nice.The cut glass tree I bought on sale (as I do most of my decorations) a few years ago on the hall stand. I did buy these two white feather peacocks, marked down to 50% off, this was before Christmas, the shops are not doing well this year, they are feeling the after affects of the financial crisis last year, we are losing some of our more beautiful shops, the cheap and tackie always seem to survive. A trio of angels in the bedroom.

I really love how the light catches the colours on these glass baubles, we have a lot of light in these rooms as I have opted to forgo window covers and it looks out onto lights of greenery in the small garden.I have added lots of chandelier crystals and old rosaries onto this candle chandelier, the light shines through these as well.

Can you see those lovely rose coloured crystal pendants on the silver tree, I got those at the Arizza Antique market in Italy when I went over to do Nina Bagley's art retreat in Cortona, oh it seems so long ago now, but looking at these brings it all back.At the bottom of the mantle piece is an embroidered santa I made, oh it must be about 8 years ago, where did all those years go, my sister Phil and I made santa faces out of polymer clay then dressed them all up, each year I made one with the coat heavily embroidered each year, then we exhibited at the Australian Craft Show held at Fox Studios in Sydney. We couldn't sell them in Perth but Sydney people obviously liked them and didn't mind paying the price as we did well over there and had a lot of fun, we did them for about 5 years.A few of the girls exchanging Christmas gifts last Wednesday, mostly we make gifts to exchange which is really lovely. I did mean to put white candles in the jars on the table but didn't get around to getting them so put some lovely red eucalyptus flowers in, the colour stood out well.