Adding post-holiday charm is as easy as pairing your favorite collections with subtle holdovers from your Christmas decor.
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Matthew Mead offers ideas for creating colorful winter vignettes inspired by favorite collections.
The start of the new year provides an opportunity to view your home decor with fresh eyes. As you pack away the majority of your holiday ornamentation, set aside a few items that can be used to bridge the season and create some interesting new vignettes and decorative focal points when paired with your collections.
Mercury-glass ornaments, fruit pomanders, pinecones and candles, along with fresh or faux greenery, can be employed to augment groupings of collectibles, bringing their quiet beauty into focus.
When you have taken all the Christmas decorations down, it’s a good time to take inventory of the other great accessories you have. If you are a collector, then you likely have acquired some related pieces that you display together, while others are scattered throughout your home. Gather groups of items in similar colors or materials, such as dishes, glassware and baskets. Reunite them and add attention-getting flourishes.
Situate vignettes in prime locations, including mantels, shelves and tables, or use window ledges, doors and cubbies as small showcases. Assembling engaging new combinations of items you own allows some less-prominent collectibles a chance to shine and provides your home with a colorful lift during the winter months.
Matthew Mead is a lifestyle guru whose upcycling ideas make excellent use of items you already have or can find easily at thrift stores and flea markets. He is a photographer, stylist and author. Follow his work and upcoming projects on Instagram at www.instagram.com/matthewmeadstyle or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/matthew.mead.37.
Ornamental Arrangement
Accent tables, including coffee tables or sideboards, can be great surfaces for flat arrangements meant for overhead viewing. Create one that takes advantage of pretty ornaments arrayed in a wintry snowflake design. Position an assortment of vintage glass icicle ornaments on the top of a rustic round breadboard. Alternate them with silver-colored napkin rings that encircle miniature mercuryglass balls. Embellish with a few leaves and finish with a napkinring-enclosed votive candle in the center. Use tacky wax to keep everything in place.
Shining Star
Utilize an interesting piece of vintage bakeware, such as a star-shaped baking tin, to form the basis of a scented decorative accent. Place glass ornaments in the container and then fill in with mini pinecones. Add fragrance with a few drops of essential oil. Dot the points of the star with tiny mercury-glass spheres to highlight its shape. Settle the star within a larger tray or bowl and situate it on a coffee table or dining room sideboard.
Market Basket
To both aid in your decorating efforts and create a piece that could be displayed on its own merits, fill a large basket with small jars or pails and pile them with an assortment of items to use throughout your vignettes, from small glass balls to nuts, cinnamon sticks and pinecones.
Glass Menagerie
Perch a collection of glass spoon holders or goblets on a windowsill and decorate them with apples, pomegranates, pinecones and more. Unlike flowers, these naturals won’t need daily watering or frequent replacement. Mix in graduated sizes of bottles if you’d like to give your display a bit of color and shape variation.
Clever Clockwork
When starting the clock on a new year, it is particularly timely to show off a group of pinecone-shaped clock weights. String several from ribbon to form a cluster and wire on some real pinecones and fresh and faux greens to make a natural-looking wall swag sure to contribute charm to a closet door or freestanding cupboard.
Timeless Totes
Baskets are a country staple, and many collectors have so many they don’t know exactly how to use them. A larger basket can perfectly contain a grouping of dried oranges, seedpods or pomanders. Multiple baskets can be combined to show off all kinds of dried botanicals, and various sizes can be arranged or stacked together. Configure a few woven carriers within one another and add natural filler material to create a textural door decoration. Start with a large storage basket that you can use like a shadow box. Tuck other baskets of various sizes inside and stock each with different goods, such as fresh fruit, holiday ornaments or feather trees. Use wire or tacky wax to hold everything temporarily in place.