Craft a Winter Window

A Florida homeowner isn’t willing to limit herself to one décor style for Christmas, decorating each space in her home with a different theme and DIY projects.

There’s only one rule to decorating your home for Christmas:

fill your home with pieces you love that usher in the holiday spirit for you. Forget anything you’ve heard about keeping to just one color palette or even one style. You’re allowed to incorporate any and all décor that will help you remember the magic of the season.

Homeowner and blogger Desirée Guy of Camelot Art Creations is an example of someone who threw out the rule book to make her home special for the season. Landing on four different styles she loved, she implemented each one in a section of her home, using every facet of her interests and creating a holiday haven she and her family can enjoy.

NATURAL, CHIC, PRIMITIVE AND CLASSIC

“I mixed it up this year," Desirée says. “My goal was four different styles and visions, but I try not to go overboard with one style because I like so many.” She started with a red and white palette in the kitchen for a classic look her kids would love. The striped towels and garlands are reminiscent of candy canes and keep the heart of the home whimsical and fun. In the living room, she decided on a more elegant look with a blush and gold palette, whereas the dining room and master bedroom have a primitive vintage look, reminiscent of Christmas in the 1800s. Lastly, the outdoor patio is a woodsy, snowy wonderland with flocked trees, pinecone garlands and birch tree décor. “I tried to choose the best seasonal style that would go with the existing style of each room,” Desirée says.

What brings all four styles together is the year-round furniture that lends itself to a French cottage style. “There’s painted furniture in every room of the house,” Desirée says. And all of the rooms have a minimalist quality to them, as she didn’t go overboard with holiday décor in any space. “Any style of Christmas is warm and inviting,” she says. “It’s all beautiful to me. When you mix styles, it’s what makes each person’s home unique and individual.”

VINTAGE CHARM

“Living in a 1990s home in Orlando, Florida, is common,” says Desirée. “My heart belongs to the old 1800s vintage Victorian vibe.” To find pieces that fill her old-fashioned heart, she shops Facebook Marketplace to find vintage furniture that lends itself to an older-style home and is budget-friendly. She found her credenza, hutch, dining table and dining chairs all through Facebook Marketplace, and they all add character to her newer home.

Despite her love of vintage, she likes to keep these pieces limited to a few areas, so most of it resides in the master bedroom and dining room. “The living room and kitchen are the common areas, so I like to keep my older pieces out of those rooms,” Desirée says.

THE PERKS OF PARTNERSHIP

Though Desirée’s room themes are influenced by her love of various styles, part of her tendency to switch things up comes from a partnership with Factory Direct Craft. “I’ve worked with them for three years now,” she says. “I’m a seasonal stylist and product photographer for them, so I’m used to working with the products they send me for photos.”

Some of those products include ornaments, signs and faux greenery garlands and wreaths. “My overall goal for greenery was to keep it simple and natural,” she says. “Sometimes I like to incorporate berries, pinecones and ribbon, but not this year.” She’s always able to find décor that fits in with her chosen styles, but she likes to work with what the company is offering as well, which is often what helps determine her color palettes.

DIY MASTER

Another way Desirée makes her décor style stand out is through her creative DIY projects. “Every year I try to do something new for Christmas, like an ornament craft with the kids,” she says. Her most recent project is a pair of vintage window shadow boxes that display small Christmas vignettes (see sidebar on page 101). Her projects inspire other homeowners to create décor that’s budget and family-friendly. For example, instead of buying all the ingredients to make homemade gingerbread cookies for a wreath, she cut out shapes from cardboard, used puffy paint to create a frosting look and glued them into a wreath shape. She even makes gift tags using that same method.

If you can’t find it or afford it, you can make it happen with a bit of creativity. So this Christmas, instead of boxing yourself into a specific Christmas standard, create your own rule book that allows you to invent a space you and your family will enjoy the holiday in.

A WALK IN THE WOODS. A snowy wonderland greets guests at Desirée’s outdoor patio. Flocked greenery and white décor gives the appearance of snow with a nature-focused look. “The wreath is a pearl garland that I rolled into a wreath shape,” she says. A blue door offers some color to break up the neutral space and it provides a background on which the wreath can pop.

|TOP| BLUSH AND BEAUTIFUL. A hutch from Facebook Marketplace is the focal point of this half of the living room. Blush accents such as pillows and throw blankets carry the holiday color palette to this side of the space, along with bits of greenery on the back wall.

|LEFT| BY THE CREDENZA WITH CARE. Rolls of sheet music peek out of a combination of cream-colored stockings from Amazon. “I mixed knitted and natural cream stockings,” says Desirée. “I was inspired by the long skinny vintage stockings, but they were too expensive so I recreated the look by rolling up the top of the stocking to elongate it.” She embellished them with blush ribbons and gold ornaments to continue the living room color palette.

|BOTTOM RIGHT| DIY DREAM. This dreamy vignette is decorated with Desirée’s DIY projects, including a vintage window shadow box display and fabric trees. “I cut fabric into triangles, stuff them with Poly-Fil, sew them up, insert a dowel rod up the middle and secure the other end of the rod into a wooden block or small flower frog,” she says. “I usually embellish them with a button or pearl on top.” These trees rest on a shelf that’s attached to the vintage door, acting as a topper to the window display underneath. The window itself is simply leaning against the door. “I don’t like hanging heavy things,” she says. “I prefer to lean anything breakable.”

|RIGHT| PINK AND GOLD. The King of Christmas tree in the living room embodies the living room’s elegant seasonal look with blush and gold ornaments from Factory Direct Craft. “I included little vignette ornaments that I made by filling test tubes with fake snow and a small bottlebrush tree,” says Desirée.

|BOTTOM LEFT| SANTA’S STATION. An old piece of railing, a faux garland, a table and supplies were all that was needed to create this wrapping station in the dining room. A peek of the Christmas tree in this space shows that it’s adorned with dried apple slices and candles, which complement the primitive vintage vibe in this room.

|TOP| GINGERBREAD WREATH. Classic red and white seasonal touches dot the kitchen in the form of hand towels, ribbons and garlands for a simple Christmas reminder. The gingerbread cookie wreath hanging above the stove was one of Desirée’s budget-friendly projects. She cut out cardboard into star shapes, added “frosting” with white puffy paint and glued them together to form a DIY wreath.

|BOTTOM| DINING OUTDOORS. Taking its cues from the surrounding space, the outdoor patio has a nature-inspired centerpiece with a birch tree log garland and birch tree candle holders. Eucalyptus and a group of ornaments, both big and small, finish the look and add holiday flair.

|TOP LEFT| CANDY CANE KITCHEN. A cozy desk nook in the kitchen became a creative corner for Christmas cheer once Desirée added some shelves. “It was an empty wall when we moved in, so I put in open shelves I made myself to display and change out seasonal décor,” she says. Keeping it simple with red-and-white décor, miniature trees and Christmas-inspired signs, Desirée designated this space for classic Christmas colors. |TOP RIGHT| ALL BOTTLED UP. A vintage secretary desk in the master bedroom houses Desirée’s collection of glass bottles and jars. “I added the thrifted flower wallpaper to give the piece some soft color,” she says. Miniature bottlebrush trees are scattered among the collection to hint at the holiday.

GREENERY GALORE. An effective way to add Christmas spirit to a window-laden space is to drape greenery across the window sills and hang a wreath down the middle. “The wreaths are fuller, so I chose simple, skinny garlands so the window area didn’t look too heavy,” Desirée says.