A Very Cozy Cottage Christmas | Decorate with Me! DIY Decor

Hello my friend, I'm Kelsey and I'd like to welcome you to my home. Today we're slowing down and settling into the quiet wonder of the season. Christmas is upon us and the house is just waiting to be adorned in its seasonal attire. We are getting crafty today, embracing a lived-in look. I want warm, cozy, and full of old-fashioned charm. So grab a warm drink to sip, settle in, and come along as I decorate for a very cozy cottage Christmas. Of course the first thing on today's agenda is cutting down our Christmas tree. This is something we do with our kids every year and I have been doing this every year prior to having kids either with Matt or with my own family growing up for as long as I can remember. I only planned on taking the tree home and putting it in its base that day. I wanted to wait until the following day to decorate and what a wonderful surprise we woke up to. Our first major snowfall of the season. We had five inches and the kids had a blast. While the kids played outside, they were out there for a good three or four hours, I was busy inside. Set right to trimming the tree. Now I'm just curious, you can let me know in the comments, but what type of lights do you prefer? Do you like the bright LEDs or kind of the old-fashioned warm white or do you like the colored lights? I like the colored lights. I'm going with the warm white this year and these little clip-on candles which I love. They were a great investment last year. I think I got two dozen of them. They just take a AAA battery, lasted all season, and then I just popped them out to store. Put the same batteries back in this year and they're still good. I love that they're on like a little swivel. I don't know if that's what it's called, but you can move the candlestick around so that it stands straight. We're gonna leave the tree as is for now because I have some DIY ornaments we're going to make. We're going to move on to the mantle. Now like I said earlier, I am just going for a warm, inviting, lived-in look. Very cottage style, very collected, and I just wanted to use things that I use all the time. I wanted it to be rich and colorful so I just have a bunch of different books. I'm going with reds and greens, some blue and pink in there as well. I pulled out two of my favorite plates. I just stuck some thumbtacks into my wooden mantle to get them to stand there. I have some ironstone white pitchers, some hydrangea dried from the garden, and this sweet little sheep. Tied a little bow on him to make him a little bit more festive. I have had this little church building, goodness, at least 14-15 years. I got it from Michael's way back and it's one of the only things I have held on to over the years that's actually Christmas themed. I love using nature so I grabbed some pine cones, stuck them in a copper little bucket there, and I found one of my teacups in blue to kind of just balance out the mantle. I like pops of color to be balanced and not just have it in one spot. And then to finish it off, some white bottle brush trees that are actually from Matt's grandma just to fill in the empty spots. There is a purchase I make each year for Christmas decorating and that is some real touch garlands. I will either look for really good sales before the holidays or I will shop after the holidays and everything goes on clearance and I buy one or two each year just to add to my collection. In our very dry, hot home we have coal heat. Fresh greenery does not last more than a week or two before I'm left with bare twigs and constantly cleaning up needles so this just makes sense for me. And I got these 70% off so they were quite affordable and I picked up two of them so now I have six real touch garlands to add around the home and these came with these super sweet little fairy lights in them and I just love it. It looks so realistic and it just adds so much charm to the house for Christmas. Now I wanted to finish off the mantle with a garland and I was so happy to see that the chain garlands were trending this year. I've always loved a good chain garland whether that be with paper or ribbon. Something very nostalgic and warm and inviting about it. It reminds me of Little Women which is one of my favorite books and movies, the older version of the movie, and I'm very happy to bring that into my home this Christmas season. So I grabbed a bunch of different ribbons. I already had some whenever I see sales. I will buy some but I did find a few of these at Hobby Lobby when they were running a really good sale and I cut them in nine inch strips. Got my hot glue gun out and you know how it works, just weave one in through the other. Another great place to find ribbon is at The Thrift or Goodwill. Occasionally I can find some good ones there. Now to me it's not Christmas without having some sort of dried oranges or citrus. This year I am doing some oranges for the tree but I'm also going to make a garland and I wanted to use different types of citrus. I wanted some grapefruit and lemon and lime just for a bit of a brighter look to it and some contrasting colors. So I just slice these as thin as I possibly can. I make sure they are all the same thickness so that they dry at the same rate. I put them in at my oven's lowest setting. For me that is 200 degrees. I let them go for about an hour and a half to two hours and then I will check on them. Every 20 minutes I set an alarm because very quickly they can go brown. So every 20 minutes I check them. Sometimes I'll flip them and they'll be done when they are no longer sticky. I'm digging how this is turning out. I love when I have a vision for something and it actually comes forth the way that I hoped it would. It is just saying inviting and cozy and lived in with some rich color. I'm really really loving it. I do have some ribbon coming in the mail hopefully today with the snow. We'll see if it gets here or not but I'm thinking either some long-tailed bows maybe it's velvet ribbon or I have some pattern gingham ribbon maybe for a central bow. I don't know we're going to try a few different things see if we like it or it might just stay like this. It's time to trim the tree. I'm not totally sure what I'm going for here but I'm just working with what I got. So I have all of this red beaded garland I got from Walmart last year on clearance. It was originally $2.48 for a nine foot garland whoops and I want to say I got it for like a buck something like that each. I have a few of these we're going to see how far it goes and if I like it. How does one want to do this? Now for some more crafting and we're going to make some ornaments. I wanted to make some like Victorian snowflake fan stars whatever you want to call them. So I found this on Amazon. It is a bunch of the works of William Morris bunch of those patterns and I thought they were really beautiful going with my theme looked very cottagey. So I took out some of those pages and I cut them in half and then of course we do an accordion style fold. Take some ribbon or string tie a knot across the center and then I cut like a little triangle out to make a tail at each end but you can make any shape you want. You could just make them pointed and then we're going to take some hot glue fold those two sides together allow that to dry and then flip it over to the other side and do the same thing glue those two sides together. To finish off the tree I'm going to add some very long tailed bows. I have some gingham and I have some kind of like a dusty blue velvet. I'm not actually tying them or attaching them to the branches because I didn't have anything else to attach them with and I didn't want to tie them around the branch because then they're not so fun to remove once the tree starts to dry out. So they're just hanging on there for dear life. Hopefully they hold up to my children. The tree needed something else so I decided to add some of my very vintage glass ornaments. Some of these I found while antiquing and I have been collecting over the years but the majority of them I actually got from Matt's grandma as well. When she passed I was allowed to pick some things out of her belongings and I loved her ornaments and Matt loves seeing them on the tree. It reminds him very much of his grandmother and his childhood. Now can one have too many bows? I think not. So we're going to add some more to the mantle in the same colors as I used on the tree. I did a double bow here and I quite like it. Of course we need stockings. I think I have said in every Christmas video I have done that I have been meaning to make some stockings out of some sort of vintage textile like an old quilt or something and here I am having not done that. Again I have many dreams and aspirations but my list is quite long and the time I have is quite short. I need to start preparations for Christmas and all of my projects that I'd like to do probably in July. We'll see if it happens next year. I decided to add a nice big basket of blankets for a cozy touch. We like to do family movie nights and we each need our own blanket so nice easy grabbing there for a blanket. We're gonna put up a garland again over here on the wall and I wanted to do some citrus here with that garland. I decided to just use a hot glue gun and some string. I didn't feel like threading each one through and tying them off. It was a shortcut probably not going to hold up the greatest and I burned my fingers quite a bit but it will suffice for this year. A very simple and easy way to bring some Christmas charm into the space is with pillows and blankets and they don't have to necessarily be Christmas themed. I just chose some with I guess more festive colors. I like to keep a bunch of covers on hand. I have a whole stack of them much easier to store than actual pillows and I'm always looking for a good deal so all throughout the year if I see something on a flash deal I will grab it. If I see something thrifting I will grab it. Same thing goes for blankets. Okay I will take you on a tour of the finished space in just a moment but if you still need a gift idea for someone I thought I would share what I am doing for some people in my life. This is more for a lady but it's very simple quick and lovely. I picked up a whole bunch of these farmhouse teas the trial size bags. So many lovely festive flavors here so I'm giving these along with some biodegradable tea bags for them to brew their tea in. These are so nice because you can just take the whole thing and throw it right into the compost pile. I've taken the tea bags and tied a ribbon around it just for a festive touch and I'm also going to put in some dried oranges and cinnamon sticks again for a festive touch but they could also use them in a simmer pot. I'm going to put these items in a festive mug. Like I said I'm always looking for a deal and on Black Friday I found these mugs. It was a two pack for I believe five dollars so I thought that was a pretty good deal. Of course you can always thrift them go to your goodwill and see what they have. Now if you're interested in some of the farmhouse tea I do have a discount code for you. I'll put it here on the screen and I'll put a link in the description. It would be a lovely gift, a lovely stocking stuffer and it should still get here in time for Christmas if you order ASAP. Same goes for Antique Candle Co. I think the last day to order in time for a Christmas arrival would be the 15th. I have a whole bunch of these candles I'm going to give along with the mug and the tea. I will be sure to put the links for these items down in the description as well as my discount codes to save you all some money. Now I know many of you either have children or grandchildren or maybe you'd even want to make this for yourself but I thought for the kids let's make them a little treat for after they come in from playing in the cold. They love their hot chocolate and I will show you how I make my hot chocolate concentrate here in just a moment but we're going to make something to garnish the hot chocolate with. I whipped up some heavy cream with a little bit of granulated sugar and some vanilla. I put it into a piping bag. I have a star tip on here and we're just going to make some little snowmen. I'm going to use some mini chocolate chips for the buttons, the smile and the eyes and I used in orange Reese's Pieces for the nose. A little rustic looking but my kids loved them. These just get put into the freezer so they all kind of solidify together and you can pop them into some hot chocolate. I have shared this before but I know there's always new people coming in and this is seriously delicious. It's so much better than the hot chocolate packets you can get from the store. Very quick and easy to throw together and you just store it in the fridge. So in a quart size mason jar I am putting in one cup of organic. You can use cacao or cocoa powder. I'm gonna do two cups of maple syrup. You can do any one to two ratio there. One part cocoa to two parts syrup and you want to use the real maple syrup. Don't use like the fake sugary table syrup. You're gonna stir those two things together. It does take a little bit for it to incorporate well but it will come together. Trust the process. I'm gonna add about a teaspoon of homemade vanilla extract. I will link the video here on the screen for how I make that. It is so good and it saves a whole lot of money if you make it yourself. I'm also going to throw in a pinch of salt and give it a stir. That's all you have to do. Pop a lid on it, stick it in the fridge. It stays good in there for a good long while. I heated up some milk. I have never tried this with water. I don't think that would work. Don't try that. You definitely need some sort of milk. I like to add one to two tablespoons into about 12 ounces of milk. You can add to your heart's desire. However chocolatey you like it but it is rich and velvety and lovely and my kids always gobble this up. The kids thoroughly enjoyed their melting frosty the snowman's. They were a total hit and I think they're going to require them from now on. Some final touches to this face. I used my paper bag snowflakes we made together from last year. I saved them. I love how the sunlight glows through them. If you want to know how to make them I will link the video here on the screen and down in the description. Of course more bows wherever I can. Now here's what it looks like in the daytime. Absolutely beautiful. I love it but it does not compare to the glow of the light at night. A gentle reminder sweet friend. Although beautifully decorated homes and gifts and Christmas festivities and activities are all lovely things let's remember the real reason for this season. Jesus. May we keep him at the center of it all. Without him it's all for naught. May we reflect on his gift to us. Have hearts full of gratitude joy love hope and peace. May they be full to overflowing so that we can share with the world around us. May you feel his presence and be blessed dear friend. But when the kindness and love of God our savior appeared he saved us. Not because of righteous things we had done but because of his mercy.