‘Tis the season! It’s hard for me to believe it’s that time again (but then in general, time feels like it’s been flying by the past few years for me.) As usual, the thing I look forward to the most during this time of year is my annual “holiday healing”- It’s the only time of the year where I have a dedicated two weeks or so to myself to finally do a massive clean and purge. It’s a time to catch up on neglected things (ie. laundry, lol) and just get myself refreshed and all set up for the new year.
It’s also a time to reconnect with friends and of course celebrate, and so for this year’s holiday decor, I was feeling a need for some warm cozy vibes. If you’ll recall last year, I was in a more pop-y postmodern mood. I really liked the red tree, so I knew I wanted to re-use that again as the base for my tree situation for this year.
I got my initial inspiration over the summer. While perusing around the Antique Galleries of Palm Springs, I spotted these amazing Felipe Derflingher “imprisoned” brutalist glasses. I’d never seen anything like that and had to have the set. Then I picked up this fun table runner from World Market. The purple + gold + orange-colored shapes reminded me of the geometric shapes on the glasses and I thought they might look good together. Unfortunately, I never ended up using them over the summer, but I thought they’d be perfect for holiday entertaining.
For the ornaments, I wanted to do something reminiscent of mid-century paper maché sculptures. I have always loved those Mexican folk art paper macheé angels (I see them a lot in vintage stores) and after a little research, was super inspired by the work of Abelardo Ruiz. However, instead of an angel, I thought maybe a dove or partridge could make a nice shape for an ornament.
This DIY is really simple. I drew out a dove shape and used it as a template, then traced it onto cardstock and cut them out. I then used some fabric puffy paint and carefully outlined the shape. I really wanted that irregular globby outline so as I was applying the paint, I made sure to do a “stop and go” approach. This lets the paint build up a little to achieve the bumpy texture. You could also glue some thin cord instead of the puffy paint. After they dried, I simply spray painted over them with a gold/brass paint. Finally, I applied some colored rhinestones and voila! happy mid-century inspired dove ornament!
For the rest of my ornaments, I went back to those vintage Felipe Derflingher glasses for inspiration. I wanted to include some colored clear balls, and I found some great purple/lavender ones from Christmas Central.
I also loved these modern ones from CB2, which I got on sale during their Black Friday sale (unfortunately the appear to be sold out and no longer on the site).
Finally, I went back into my boxes and pulled out some of the Kelly Wearstler inspired ornaments from 2011 (see here) as well as added an assortment of past ornaments in gold and copper tones.
For the rest of the decor, I mixed in lots of red berry tones and wood elements to keep things warm and cozy.
And that’s a wrap on Happy Mundane Holidays 2019! Make sure to follow me on Instagram and stories. One of my goals for my Holiday Healing is to get up a few posts that I’ve been neglecting to finish, so there will be new content announced via Insta.
I hope you all have a wonderful holiday and best wishes for an awesome 2020!