Laume's Studio

Apologizing for not posting is becoming an annoying habit. So I won't. I'll just jump back in -

I appreciate all the sympathies and good advice about my decorating reflections and woes in my last post. Friends commented here, privately, and over on my Facebook page. Nothing I didn't already know, but it's always hard to give oneself the same advice you'd easily pull out and hand to someone else. I'm going to just decorate for my own pleasure, as little or as much as I want, and not feel guilty if I don't pull out all the stops in this transitory year.

The next question becomes, what do I want to decorate? How do I want to decorate? If I want to make a big impact, I should pick a style and go with it. Colorful fun retro? Paris shabby chic? Velvety Dicken's Victorian? Botanical and foresty? White and glittery frosty? Golden Yule? Whimsical pastels or Faery Bling?

I've been wandering through stores and surfing through the internet in search of inspiration, to see what calls to me this year. Unfortunately, nothing is the obvious favorite. I love it all. But I only have one house, a few rooms, so I can't do it all.

The other night I caught a show on HGTV - 25 Great Holiday Ideas. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the show, and there were some cute ideas. But honestly, there was nothing there that I hadn't seen done before, and often better, by all the creative bloggers I've visited over the years. Just thought you all should know how AMAZING you all are. You're definitely the best place to go for my own inspirations.

Of course when it comes down to it, if I manage to decorate at all, it will undoubtedly be with a hodge podge of things I already own. Not a problem, since I have far too many boxes. It'll be like shopping in my garage, only without a checkbook, and with mittens and gloves.

Instead of the big tree, I might just put up my smaller teddy bear tree. I haven't had it up for a number of years because I got tired of the younger cats knocking it down. Now that the cats are older and fatter, maybe they'll leave it alone. Ditto on my tree collection. I could put up my winter forest again, maybe add a few faeries. Set up a Yule altar. Bring out my holiday dishware. And gather a bunch of candles on the mantle. That seems doable.

And now, instead of spending the afternoon searching for accompanying photos, I'm gonna wrap this up and go start the holiday clean up in the studio. I just realized (a long held holiday tradtion, misjudging how soon everything has to be done!) that the month I thought I had to "whip this all up" is truly only a couple of weeks.