Holiday Decorating with The French Basketeer

The holidays are in full swing and, I could not be more excited!  This is, hands down, my favorite time of year.  And with two young kids, it just keeps getting better.  This year I decided to engage Andrea, the fabulous stylist known on social media as The French Basketeer.  She has such a wonderful sense of style, influences by her European heritage. Andrea came to our home and, after discussing my vision for the design, we took inventory of all the things that I had collected throughout the years.   As a designer, I always wrestle with the right balance between the fun (and sentimental) decorations from my youth and the more elegant, formal decorations that I've collected more recently.  Andrea came up with some wonderful ideas how to embrace and combine the two.

On top of my collected things, Andrea provided some magnificent additions of both the bought and hand made variety.  For our entry, she created gorgeous berry wreaths and strung lush garland around the door (adorned with antlers and tangerines!).

To commingle with the ornaments from my youth, Andrea created a quirky mix of homemade bobbles for the tree.  She baked cookies in the shape of snowflakes and our dog, Captain, and introduced us to the French tradition of hanging walnuts, tied with velvet ribbon.  We then topped the tree off  with hearty, burlap ribbon.   The tree came out just beautiful; elegantly new yet warmly nostalgic.

Andrea also lent me her stunning collection of silver platters to use for a brunch I was hosting.   It think the mix of old and new, shinny and organic, red, green, and a pop of orange looks just wonderful  in our home!

I am already looking forward to collaborating with Andrea next year!  If you want to follow her work, check out her blog here.

I wish you all the best of 2013 and a fabulous start to 2014!

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