Rustic Elegant Christmas Living Room, Mantel and Tree Decor

Sharing my cozy, rustic and elegant Christmas decorations in our living room, along with the mantel and Christmas tree filled with handcrafted ornaments and decor!

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This is our first Christmas in our new rental home in MS, and while it's been fun to decorate, it has been challenge to decorate an open concept home that is significantly smaller than our last!

I gave some tips on how to decorate a very small entry for Christmas, and now that our home is completely decorate, I'll be rolling out more home tours in the next couple of weeks.

This year, I challenged myself not to buy any new Christmas decor but to work with what I have already. I recycled some old ornament balls for the tree in our bedroom, and have crafted a whole bunch of Christmas decor for our home.

Catch up on all my Christmas projects here

Rustic Elegant Christmas Home Tour

This is the space we spend most of our time in, the combination living room and kitchen. It was the logical place to put the Christmas tree, and while there wasn't room to put it in front of a window, it's the first thing you see when you walk in our front door!

Rustic Elegant Christmas Tree

I decorated this tree in a more simplified way that trees in years past. There's much less ribbon on it and fewer decorations, but it still looks beautiful and magical! I knew that these combined spaces would look very busy very quickly so I kept the tree more simple.

Christmas tree, cottage dresser, stack of old quilts

I'm calling it rustic and elegant because I combined handmade frosted pinecone ornaments (hanging from velvet ribbon) with gold and some shinier balls. I like the mix of contrasts. You'll see many of my DIY ornaments that I've made in years past.

Christmas tree with red and white ornaments, burlap ribbon, rustic elements

My tree topper is a series of ribbon bows tied around a greenery pick on one side, and the other side has a trio of large red bells. Because this tree is seen from every angle, I had to decorate all sides of it.

Rustic Elegant Christmas Mantel

The biggest challenge in our living room is the fireplace mantel, and that big black box that is resting on the mantel! There is no room for a picture, mirror or pretty decor like I had in our Texas home (see my favorite Christmas mantel here).

I wanted to add Christmas decor to the mantle area, and the fix was to focus on a lush and full garland across the mantel and some cozy and rustic stockings to draw your eye away from the television (if that is even possible lol). Millie's sweet little puppy face helps too ❤

dried orange garland on mantel, cozy stockings, chippy wood stockings

The garland is a cedar garland that I clipped to the top of the mantel with these clips. I made a dried orange slice garland (click HERE to see how I made it) that drapes across the top, and topped it all with some red berries.

I hung a collection of cozy sweater stockings one one side. The other side has some chippy wood stockings that Mr DIY and I made this year. I'm still working on the tutorial, but you can see how I decoupaged some of these stockings for our guest room and our main bedroom at this video tutorial.

chippy wood stockings hanging on mantel, garland of greenery, dried oranges, berries

Rustic Elegant Christmas Living Room

We are fortunate to have large built-in bookshelves in this room. Because we have bookshelves in another room, I've been enjoying using this set for decorative vignettes and displays - see my Fall bookshelves here and my Halloween bookshelves here.

As you can imagine, I had lots of fun filling up these shelves for Christmas, mixing in some signs with a few of my favorite ironstone pieces, some small green trees as well as my cozy DIY Christmas trees.

My ticking stripe tattered candy canes were one of my favorite Christmas crafts this year. You can see a video tutorial here.

I also made these sweet and fluffy sheep from doilies.

chippy plate rack, ironstone platters, Believe sign, bottle brush trees, doily sheep

built in shelves with white ironstone, neutral Christmas decor

painted grandfather clock, red ornaments, beige check curtains

In our entry, I hung a Christmas wreath on the mirror that was hanging in our TX French farmhouse bedroom. This wreath is actually two of my Christmas wreaths that I joined together with a little velvet ribbon. The red ticking stripe base is from this farmhouse Christmas wreath, and the top is from this beaded wreath swag that I made and just realized I never shared the Christmas version! The beads fell off in our move, so I just removed them. The swag is removeable and interchangeable, which is a great way to have one wreath base and swags for every season!

The room behind the sofa is the kitchen, which I'll be sharing soon. Here's a peek.

I hope your heart is full as you're preparing for Christmas in your home!

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Comments

Cindy DDecember 13, 2022 at 11:53 AM
Hi Cindy. I loved what you did with what you had. Beautiful job. As for the sweet and fluffy doilie sheep. You need to spill how you made them. They're adorable. ;) :)
Mrs. SDecember 18, 2022 at 2:55 PM
I think it looks so pretty and cozy! I love how you have decorated the built in bookshelves for every holiday and season so far. And I love the way you decorated the other side with the white dresser and stack of quilts. And your tree is so pretty!

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Rustic Elegant Christmas Living Room, Mantel and Tree Decor