Page 6 - Christmas At Home 2019 YEP DUMMY EDITION

Christmas at home
deck the halls –
with stressfree
baubles
The run up to Christmas is busy enough without having to do time- consuming decorating too. Luckily, Lauren Taylor has found no-stress
Fways to make your home feel festive.
rom buying presents Interior
for the whole family, Designer Sophie attending a string of Robinson, working festive events and with Habitat, says: planning a feast “Decorating a sideboard,
everyone will love, the run up where all your decorations
(dobbies.com) sell pre-lit trees so you can avoid the annoying task of untangling lights, and offer trees with pine cones and berries ready attached for a natural look.
Meanwhile,
Essentially Christmas Decorating (essentially christmasdecorating.co.uk) will come to your house and decorate the place to your taste and dismantle and remove everything afterwards (for a price, of course).
take sCissors to your tree
Robinson suggests: “Snip a few branches off the Christmas tree and string them up
as garlands, interspersed
with baubles for a quick and affordable decoration.”
You could spray paint some branches or leaves gold too - if you can be bothered.
“Snip some smaller branches and lay them down the centre of your table as
a basis for a centrepiece,” Robinson adds. “Weave lengths of satin ribbon and nestle a few shimmery baubles and candle sticks in-between the foliage for a striking look.”
to Christmas doesn’t always feel like the relaxed period you had imagined.
Add to that the pressure to make sure your home is looking suitably sparkly- yet-elegant, with a precisely decorated tree in an on- trend colour scheme, and it’s a wonder anyone holds it together in December.
However, if you are expecting lots of visitors this Christmas or simply want your house to reflect your festive spirit, it can feel important to decorate.
But is there a way to avoid elaborate Christmas traditions like the Elf on a Shelf? Can
you just throw money at the problem and let someone else make your house look fab?
Here is some advice for festive decorating that doesn’t involve lots of time and effort.
Curate deCorations in one plaCe
To create a minimalist festive look that doesn’t involve climbing up ladders but can still be striking, simply clear some space on a piece of furniture you love.
are housed together, will create a stylish focal point for a room. For example, create a miniature Christmas tree by being inventive with a fir branch and a wide-topped vase.”
fill a BiG vase
Vases aren’t just for flowers. Fill one with something wintery, like pine cones, oranges spiked with cloves, twigs with berries, holly, candy canes or even baubles.
Place large vases on the floor next to a fireplace or smaller ones as centerpieces on a dining room table. You can pick up stuff for free while out and about in nature too.
Robinson says: “My
mum always went foraging for foliage and branches
to decorate the house at Christmas, and I’ve kept it up.”
leave tHe tree deCoration to someone else
If you find decorating a tree more stressful than fun, there are companies who will do the whole thing for you.
Dobbies garden centres