Wee Birdy

December 10, 2012

Christmas at home with Wee Birdy

It’s Christmas-central here at Wee Birdy, and as most of you know, I adore this time of the year and I’ve always embraced the festive season with great gusto. I’ve loved sharing all my festive wee finds with you over the past few weeks and compiling all my gift guides, but today I thought I’d invite you around to my place and show you how I’ve been getting ready for Christmas.

And to give me a kick-start, the lovely folks from Freedom gifted me with a voucher to help me deck the halls. Excitement! I really love Freedom and have spent many an hour wandering the aisles of their amazing decorating section, never failing to uncover all sorts of lovely wee finds (and it’s far more extensive in-store than online, which also adds to the excitement factor).

I wanted to create a simple but effective table setting for Christmas entertaining this year, using my collection of vintage mercury glass baubles as the inspiration (see photo above). At Freedom I found a beautiful festive silver table runner ($19.95) with a set of four matching silver napkins ($14.95), which added a great textural base for my setting. For dinnerware I used Freedom’s Fino M3 Coupe Dinner Set ($89); a sleek and minimalist everyday set that goes beautifully with my streamlined Georg Jensen AJ cutlery.

We were in desperate need of new glasses that actually matched, so I bought six Fizzy Highball tumblers (great value at $1.95 each), which provided a textural balance to my collection of Riedel stemware. This was further enhanced by Freedom’s set of three crystal glass tapered candleholders ($29.95). The centrepiece of fresh rosemary in my Georg Jensen Ilse vase added a green festive touch (and smelled great, too), and I decorated the table with nuts and pods in an assortment of George Jensen and Stelton polished stainless steel serving bowls.

I also experimented with a splash of colour, swapping the mercury glass ornaments for brightly coloured Quality Street chocolates and my collection of vintage glass Christmas decorations. Which look do you prefer?

I love creating little winter wonderland vignettes for my coffee table each year – but with a toddler in the house I’ve moved it to the sideboard! Here I’ve used Freedom’s fabulous glass belljars (Maisey Cake Stand with Dome Lid, 31cm, $14.95 and Maisey Cake Stand with Dome Lid, 33.5cm, $34.95) to make miniature winter forest scenes.

I used Maldon salt flakes (the best fake snow) and some tiny vintage Christmas cake decorations and my collection of little woodland deers to create my winter wonderlands. I really love this little tableaux and the glass belljars look great on my antique silver tray.

Our living room colour scheme is usually grey, yellow and white, so I swapped our yellow print cushions for these plump and beautifully textural red “Freeway” cushions from Freedom ($39.95). I think they really bring out the texture of the fabric in my vintage armchairs, and they also match the Scandi red and white knit stockings hanging in our fireplace.

One of my favourite childhood Christmas traditions was reading our collection of Christmas books (Raymond Briggs’ Father Christmas and Father Christmas Goes on Holiday are my all-time favourites) throughout December.

I’ve continued the tradition with my son, and I was thrilled to stumble upon Freedom’s natural caprii tote with handles ($89), which is big and sturdy enough to house our growing collection. Best of all, we can use it as handy toy storage after I’ve put away the Christmas books.

Christmas always brings a raft of visiting rellies and friends, and as the contents of our linen closet has seen better days, we invested in some smart new guest towels. I bought Freedom’s generously-sized Sanctuary bath sheets (mine are in platinum, $34.95 each), which are super-luxe and perfect for guests.

We love entertaining guests on our balcony, but the unfortunate drawback is that you have to walk through our (often dishevelled) bedroom to get to it. So with a plethora of people dropping in over the next few weeks, it was time for a mini bedroom makeover.

Cue Freedom’s Henson white queen quilt cover set, $149, which features a glorious pin-tuck pattern which not only adds interest and texture to a white duvet cover, but it will never need ironing and always look good – no matter how creased it may be. Genius for time-poor parents! It also goes well with my beloved Rachel Castle yellow polka dot pillowslips, which add a pop of colour to our room.

We already had Freedom’s fabulous yellow spindle side table, which goes fabulously with the vintage saucer chairs on our balcony. But we needed some kind of decorating element to tie these disparate pieces together, and I found the solution with Freedom’s Mix n Match red cushion ($29.95) and the matching red Cera citronella candlepot ($16.95). The birds-on-a-wire frame is also from Freedom, and I’ve used it to display our Christmas cards this year.

Hope you’ve enjoyed this wee festive tour around my place! How are you getting ready for Christmas this year?

Disclaimer: This is not a sponsored post but I was provided with a Freedom Gift Voucher – and of course I went over my budget, which I paid for myself.

Photography by Lucas Boyd.

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