Beach Bear Villa, HHI: The Nester's Christmas tour of homes

So, you remember how much I ~~want to stalk~~ admire The Nester? Well, she's hosting a Christmas Tour of Homes today and I'm joining right in! So, many of these things you've already seen, but let's just look at them all together and humor me...shall we?

Okay, here I am, welcoming you to my Christmas-y world for a day. Imagine I'm offering a Caramel Tassie and a cup of hot spiced cider...Come tour my home:

You've all seen my Christmas Angel Wing Mantle, but I'm so dang proud of it I'm pulling it out again! Click on the link if you want to learn to make a pair of these wings for yourself.

I've been collecting this Christmas Village for a few years. All the pieces are from the Dollar Store (seriously) and for this reason, it doesn't bother me to let the kids set this town up and play with it all season. They nested the houses on that thin cotton sheet from the Dollar Store with lights under it. They then pulled off puffs of cotton batting to make snow (all their idea). I have to admit, it does look magical!

Here is my Paper Snowflake Blizzard, ala Elf, the movie. We sit down with hot chocolate and a good Christmas movie and cut, cut, cut! The kids really love the magical, whimsical feeling of this and it's just lacy enough to be pretty, too.

Here is our family tree, the one with all the meaningful ornaments, that is only decorated from 4 feet and under because it's the kids' baby. It looks better in the dark (cringe).

Here is my "pretty tree" from the living room. Kids can look and help a little bit, but it's MY baby (sigh).

My beautiful Lenox Nativity that took me 12 years to collect. One. Piece. At. A. Time.

And the kids' nativity (That I yelled at my husband for spending so much on at the time! But, now, I'm happy to have it. It's priceless.)

This table holds my Brown Paper Packages Tied Up With String
. They are full of love, you know. The kids love to read the tags on each package and imagine me filling it with all my love.

Here are my colorful snowflakes in my ever-changing kitchen window. Mama needs something pretty to look at while she's washing dishes! And no one ever said snowflakes have to be white.

Finally, here is my Eddie Ross ornament wreath (I cheat on Martha with Eddie sometimes - ssshhhhh...). The colors of this wreath make me sooooo happy! Lucky for you, tomorrow is Tutorial Tuesday, so you get to learn to make one of your own! So, come on back, you hear?

Run out to the Dollar Store or Target and pick up those tubes of inexpensive ornaments, try to get about 100+ in all different sizes. Large, medium, small, and tiny ornaments all together work the best. Then pick up about 8 nicer ornaments to accent (see the striped ones in bright colors?). Then you can meet me back here tomorrow for assembly instructions.