Ideas For This Year’s Christmas Decorations

PRAIRIE GROVE — FlowersN-Friends in Prairie Grove is ready for the Christmas holidays and Leslie Tabor with the shop has some suggestions for those decorating their homes for the season.

Her first piece of advice: don’t wait until the last minute.

Tabor decorates every room in her house and starts by cleaning and clearing out the areas to decorate and then reviewing what decorations she has from previous years.

“You pack it away for a year and forget what you have,” Tabor said. “I look through my boxes and then set the items where I want to use them. Go ahead and get items where you want to use them and then work on an area when you can.”

Her favorite holiday decoration is lights.

“Lights are my everything,” Tabor said. “They are beautiful.”

Mirrors paired with lights can be used to make an area look bigger or to add light to a part of your home, she said.

Another item she likes is Christmas balls and said she can put Christmas balls in a container and it will instantly change an area.

Decorations don’t have to always be vertical or horizontal. Think diagonal, layer items and think depth, Tabor said.

“Utilize everyday items to lay and give depth to an area.”

Tabor does not worry about having items that match and likes to use wood and books to build heights and soften the color. She also recommends using different textures of material.

She said she uses the same items each year but uses them in a different way and different places. She likes to add something new and something old when decorating an area.

While Tabor decorates every room, she said just decorating a few sections of a home is enough to give it the holiday spirit.

If someone is going to just decorate limited spaces, Tabor recommends decorating the entry way, possibly the dining room table and the coffee table in the living room, along with the Christmas tree. A little splash in the guest bathroom also is an easy way to decorate another room.

“Play Christmas music, light a candle and enjoy decorating your home,” Tabor said.

PHOTOS BY LYNN KUTTER ENTERPRISE-LEADER

Left: A lantern surrounded by greenery and holly berries can make a simple table centerpiece or place on a coffee table. Above: Go outside and find some pine cones to use as part of your Christmas decorations for the holidays.

LYNN KUTTER ENTERPRISE-LEADER This decorated Christmas tree at Flowers-N-Friends in Prairie Grove shows how larger decorations can be used on a tree.