We kept the outside of our home decorated simply for Christmas. We

hung fresh garland over our front door and use outdoor 3M Hooks which work like a charm (we actually keep them up year round, but don't tell anyone) I also added simple string lights to the garland, it looks so pretty at night. I took these photos just before the sun was setting hoping to share how it looks. I love how pretty our Christmas Wreath trio looks on our front door with the fresh garland, see more Christmas Wreath trio ideas here. 

We also hung a Moravian Star above our entry, its so pretty at night! It took me about 10-15 mins to put the star together, its made for indoor / outdoor use. The only issue I had with the star is the light bulb, we had to replace the one it came with, but other than that its so pretty and I look forward to hanging year after year! In the hanging planter next to our front door, I placed a small wreath on top, adds the perfect amount of Christmas cheer.

One of these days, I hope be a person that goes all out with lights everywhere!! I'm already dreaming up ideas for the outside next year, if I can find some good after Christmas Sales!

5 Tips for Wrapping a Pretty Present

I love wrapping up pretty present, but I'm the first to admit I don't always take the time to wrap them and end up using gift bags stuffed with tissue. But honestly I love wrapping a pretty present and seeing my children's face light up when they unwrap their gift. Plus wrapping gifts, verses buying gift bags is much more affordable. Use the extra money you save on buying all this gift bags and spend it on gifts! With Christmas just around the corner, I wanted to share my five tips for wrapping a pretty present. 

1. Good Wrapping Paper is Key. The better wrapping paper you use, the easier it will be to wrap your present vs. cheap paper that will tear when wrapping. The gold and white wrapping paper is from Sugar & Paper LA and is super thick and such a good quality, it made wrapping presents super easy. Also stuff the inside of the box with tissue paper, it makes unwrapping the gift so much fun!

2. Use fabric ribbon or twine to finish off your present. Buying pre-made ribbon & bows is more expensive than buying fabric ribbon, plus making your own bows look so much prettier! 

3. Take your time. There's nothing worse than being on a time crunch and you have 20 presents that need wrapping and its midnight Christmas Eve, I know because I've been there. It sucks, don't make the same mistake. When you set aside a weekend of two before Christmas to wrap presents it makes the entire process more fun. When I wrap presents, I usually do them in the evening while watching Christmas movies. 

4. Solid Wrapping Surface & Good Tape. Wrap gifts on a solid surface such as a desk or dining room table. A large working space ensures your able to create nice creases in the paper to tightly wrap each gift. Also good tape is key!

5. Use various Ribbon Sizes & Go for Contrast. For Smaller wrapped gifts, oversize ribbon has huge impact. On larger size presents use a small to medium size ribbon. This year when buying wrapping paper, I choose to go with white and gold paper and went bright turquoise ribbon for high contrast. I love how the turquoise pops against the gold paper. I also added cute gift tags to each present to help make them feel polished, vs using sticker labels. 

Quick Tip on Bows, when using oversize ribbon, first wrap the present with the ribbon, and then tie a bow and hot gun the bow on the ribbon. It really creates a polished look, like on the present above.

I hope these tips help you this Holiday season in wrapping pretty presents, and saving those coins and not spending extra on a bunch of gift bags! When do you start wrapping presents during the Holidays? 

Still in need of some gift ideas? I've created a several Modern Holiday Gift Guides: His + Her, Preschoolers, Teenagers, Stocking Stuffers and My Favorites (filled with lots of goodies!)

Turquoise Christmas Wreath Trio

I snapped this picture the other day (and shared in Instagram) and I wanted to share a quick update on decorating the outside of our home for the Holidays. I'm often inspired by the colors we use in our home to decorate for Christmas. This year I was inspired to use shades of turquoise and gold to decorate our home, see more our of Christmas decor here, which prompted me to re-do our Christmas Wreaths on our front door. 

While, I loved the pretty red check ribbon against our front door, see more here. I wanted to colors we used inside to also be apart of the colors we use outside. I'm so in love with how the wreaths and turquoise ribbon look against our Chartreuse front door. The wreaths are such a pretty welcome to greet our guests! To hang the wreaths, I used a wreath holder which is hidden underneath the ribbon (so sneaky right!) Over the weekend we hung fresh garland outside our front door and next up plan on adding lights (this afternoon) I'm so looking forward to sharing Monday how our the outside our home looks for Christmas!

Have you started decorating the outside of your home for Christmas?

Modern Holiday Gift Guide: My Favorites

Over the past few weeks, I've been sharing Gift Guides and today I'm sharing my Favorite Gifts, a mixture of what I already have and love as well as gifts on my wish list! Hopefully you love my round up as much as I do, and bonus a few of them are on sale (and I just added to me shopping cart!)

1. Oversize Plaid Scarf  2. Nespresso Citiz Bundle (I have a Nespresso U, which I LOVE it makes the best lattes at home) If you already have a fab coffee maker, consider the gift of foam, with a Nespresso Aeroccino Milk Frother 3. Songbird Radio (I want one for my bathroom) 4. Tile Keyfinder  5. Perforated Hobo Bag 6. How to Be a Persian Wherever You Are 7. Recipe Box  8. Pineapple Door Knocker (too cute, right!!) 9. Flat Out Fabulous (my favorite lipstick color) 10. Leather Tassel Key Chain 11. Black & White Stripe Mug  12. Modern Gold Salt & Pepper Shakers  13. Why Not Me (Mindy Kaling is so funny & her show "The Mindy Project" is a must watch, its not on Hulu) 14. Leopard Heels (my favorite heels & I glad I got them, perfect for dressing up or down, sadly the exact ones I have are sold out, but these are equally fab) 15. Leopard Watch (I want this so bad!) 16. Cute Fuzzy Slippers (on sale right now!) 

Visit my other Modern Holiday Gift Guides here: His + Her, Preschoolers, Teenagers & Stocking Stuffers Happy Holiday Shopping! 

What are your favorite gifts to give and treat yourself to? 

Merry + Artful Holiday with Minted

Friends, can you believe there's only 20 days left until Christmas. I usually don't countdown, but my son reminded me this morning lol. Even though Christmas is less than two weeks away, there's still time to order a few thoughtful and personalized gifts for the Holidays. Minted has several thoughtful Holiday gift ideas, ideal for babies, kids, her + him and couples. I've rounded up a few gift ideas name labels for kids (cute stocking stuffers) to stationary, notepads and artwork from Minted.

For Kids: Name Labels & Artwork . For Her: Planners, Stationery, Notepads & Artwork. For Him: Notepads, Calendars & Artwork. For Couples: Artwork (abstracts, places they want to visit or portrait of their home)

If you haven't ordered your Holiday Gifts yet, fear not Minted is offering free shipping on Holiday Cards + 15% off, visit here for the Holiday Shipping Estimator. Happy Holiday friends, make it a Merry & Artful Holiday. 

DIY Holiday Gift: Amaryllis Bulb Bowls

I wanted to share a quick and pretty Holiday gift idea for to make the Holidays. Tis the season for growing bulbs indoors and they also make a pretty gift idea. During the cold winter months its the perfect time to grow Amaryllis and Paperwhites indoors. In three simple steps you can create several pretty Holiday Gifts, here's what you need: Amaryllis Bulbs (you can order 3 here for under $8 each) or Paperwhite Bulbs (you can order 15 bulbs here for around $1.50 per bulb) Pretty Patterned Bowls either soil or rocks. Paperwhite bulbs look best grouped in odd numbers, so keep that in mind when planting. 

 I visited my local DIY big box store and bought the last two Amaryllis bulbs (I visited two different big box retailers before finding bulbs, I recommend buying them online, I'm buying my next set online!) and bought two bowls I found while popping into Marshall's. Both of my Amaryllis bulbs were sprouting green leafs. I added a little garden soil placed the bulb inside, then added the rocks and watered. 

Even though some stores sell Amaryllis kits, I love the idea of being able to personalize the gifts by picking every bowl out to place the bulbs. I just love how pretty the bulbs look in the pretty patterned bowls, I'm so looking forward to making a few more and giving them as gifts. As for wrapping the present, you can opt not to wrap and just tie a pretty bow about the bowl or, place the bowl + bulbs in a box and wrap, as long as your gifting them in 1-2 of wrapping. Depending on the bulbs and bowls you choose, you can easily make each present for under $15! 

Do you grow bulbs indoors during the winter months? 

Get the Look: Modern + Classic Christmas Style

Yesterday, I shared our decorated for the Holiday season for Bloggers Styln' Home Tours Christmas Edition, make sure hop over to see my home! I'm still working on adding a few more wreaths in our home, as well as finishing up my little ones bedroom. When it comes to decorating for Christmas, I'm inspired to decorate with the colors we already use in our home, this year I was drawn to the turquoise and gold. Today I'm sharing my Christmas decorating sources, plus you'll never guess what I spent only a few bucks on, and I plan to use them year long. 

1. Turquoise Ornament Balls 2. Gold Ornament Balls 3. Gold Moose 4. Starburst Ornaments 5. Alassis Noble Fir & Juniper Candle 6. Stripe Grey & White Candles (less than $3 bucks for a pair, so pretty to use throughout the year) 7. Lighted Garland 8. Modern Serving Bowl 9. Modern Brass Candle Holders 10. Crackle Glass Vase 11. Treetopia Oh Christmas Tree 12. Classic Glass Vase (perfect for everyday and on clearance for a steal!) 13. Coupe Champagne Glasses (similar to what I have) 14. Antique Gold Bar Cart (I love this bar cart!) 

When it comes to decorating for the Holidays, I usually only have one BIG splurge, ornaments! I love buying a ton of ornaments, since we have a little one I always opt to buy non breakable ones [ for a stress free Holiday ] Budget Tip, use long lasting flowers during the winter months, like mums they'll last for weeks and weeks. Also fill your vases with fresh evergreen, you can go outside and trim if you lucky or buy a small bouquet at your local market for a bucks, they'll last though the New Year! Have fun decorating for Christmas!

What's your Christmas Decor Splurge every year? 

BSHT Christmas

Hi friends, welcome to Chic Little House, BSHT Christmas Edition. Its the most wonderful time of the year and one of my all time favorite times of the year! I'm so excited to be apart included in the Blogger Stylin' Home Tour for Christmas hosted by Lindsay of The White Buffalo Stylin' Co with 36 amazing creative talented bloggers, to say I'm in good company is an understatement. If you're joining me from Go Haus Go, isn't Emily home and style amazing! 

If you're new around here, my name is Katrina and welcome to my blog. I'm a huge lover of interior design, hoarding pretty fabric, DIY Projects, wandering isles of antique stores hoping to snag my latest project. I love filling my home with both vintage and new, I love when old pieces find a new life in my home. At the very top of my love list, is my husband and our two sons and our 1950's rancher. We recently re-built our home after a house fire and made several thoughtful improvements in short: we added square feet, tweaked the original floor plan to meet the modern day needs of our family. Read more about our year long rebuilding journey here. My goal is only to fill my home with what we truly love. I'm a less is more kind of girl unless we're talking about pillows and vases, then one can never have too much. 

When decorating for Christmas in my home, I'm always inspired by the colors that already apart of my home. Last Christmas, we had a flocked tree with chartreuse and gold ornaments. This year, I was inspired by the shades of turquoise in my living room. This year we decorated our tree in shades of turquoise and gold. My yearly splurge during the Holiday are ornaments, I just can't resist. 

In our dining room, I hung the gold ornament garland I made last Christmas above our bar cart. I love how it looks. On our table, I have fresh greeny from the market, it makes our dining room smell so good. 

On a recent trip to Trader Joe's, I came across the cutest fresh candle holder wreath and knew it would make the perfect wreath to hang in my kitchen. I also added a little faux Christmas tree to our kitchen, decorating with felt garland. Small touches of Holiday cheer in our Kitchen make me smile. 

Tis the season for growing bulbs indoors, Paperwhites and Amaryllis flowers are always happy addition in homes during the cold winter months. 

I still have more Christmas decorating to do, next up my little ones room! Stop by next week to see his bedroom all dressed for Christmas. Thank you for joining me! Next up on the BSHT Christmas is Burlap and Lace. I just adore Shannon's blog (love her name too, my sister is also named Shannon) I'm also head over in heels in love with her Instagram feed, so many pretty images and inspiration for days. 

What inspires your Christmas decor each year? Do like to mix it up, up stick with traditional ornaments? 

Modern Gift Guide: Stocking Stuffers

I hope you've all had a fun Holiday weekend and hopefully made a dent in on your shopping lists. My favorite gifts to buy, other than books are fun stocking stuffers. Stocking stuffers are so much fun, because they can be silly or have that thoughtful "wow" factor. I've put together Modern Stocking Stuffers for the entire family, that are whimsical and practical! Check out my other Holiday Gift Guides here: His + Her, Preschoolers and Teenagers.

1. Viewmaster 2. Amelia Necklace 3. Zebra Tray 4. Tile Phone Finder (genius! Never loose your keys or phone again, on my wish list!) 5. Turbo Mens Body Bar 6. Copper Strainer (perfect for Home Bar Carts + So Stylish!) 7. Super Mario Maker (die hard Mario fans will love this!) 8. ban.do Passport Holder 9. Pocket Knife 10. Portable Phone Charger 11. Leather Card Case 12. Cute Coffee Mug  13. Alphabet Gold + White tray  14. Plaid Wrap Scarf  15. Alassis Noble Fir & Juniper Candle (hands down my new favorite candle, I love burning this at night the smell is so soothing) 15. Classic Play-doh 

Have fun filling your loved ones with gifts both big and small! What are your favorite stocking stuffers to buy?