Monday, November 29, 2010

Monday's Simple Christmas Idea

As I've gotten older and my children have grown up, I have less desire to spend a lot of time doing Christmas decorating. I love the decorations, but its a lot of work, especially when its time to take it down.

So as part of my simple farmhouse Christmas this year, I want to simplify decorating. I have been thinking about what kind of things I want to use and what can be left in the box in storage. I will definitely put out some Nativity scenes that I have collected over the years, because they depict the real meaning of Christmas.

Do you have some out of season pillows laying around? I do! I have Fall themed pillows that will go into a box until a later time.... unless.... I can figure out how to incorporate them into my simple Christmas theme.

A no-sew option would be to simply turn the pillows over. If you check some of yours, you may be pleasantly surprised to find that they are a solid red, green, gold or beige/cream color. If so, just flip them.

I flip this "sister" pillow during Christmas every year. Here's the front:



And here's the back, a perfect Christmas green.



Also, with a minimum of sewing skills you can make removable pillow covers to use through the holiday season. After Christmas, just take them off, fold them up and store them until next year. There is a simple tutorial for one way to make a removable cover listed under "Tutorials" on the left side bar of my blog, or just cover the pillow the traditional way and after Christmas, carefully remove enough stitches to remove the cover from the pillow.

Measuring:



Covered:



The back with an envelope opening:



Two covered pillows:



The insides of the smaller one:



I am incorporating a few touches of Christmas into the farmhouse and haven't even opened a box of Christmas decorations yet.

5 comments:

Granny said...

Debbie that is such a great idea. Nice pillows can be expensive and in our tiny home there's always the problem of where to store them. This way you only have to store the extra cover. Thanks for that great idea.

Denise said...

Thanks for the great idea, I have some Christmas fabric and a few pillows that are out everyday. Gradually I have been changing my decorations to "winter" as opposed to Christmas, except for a few things like the Nativity of course and a few Santas.

Anonymous said...

Thank you for this post. Great ideas.

You probably have not noticed, but
my 'most of the year' pillows in
our living room are the reverse side of our Christmas ones!! It
really works.

Marjorie

Mom2fur said...

I just started decorating today and I'm also trying to simplify. Well, maybe not too much, but I've already given 3 bags of things to charity and I've got at least 3 more to go. Things I've picked up over the years on clearance or at garage sales that don't have any real sentimental meaning. I agree with you--there's a lot to take down in January!

Anonymous said...

Hi Debbie,
My decorations are going to be so simple this year.
I don't have the energy to do much. I haven't put up the tree yet. LOL I am slow this year.

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