Create a Festive Fire Place or Focal Point this Christmas

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We don’t have a fire in our living room-partly for safety and partly because the room didn’t originally have a fire in it so it would have been difficult to build in when we renovated the house.

We used to have a shelf over the radiator and last year, I bought an inexpensive plain garland (basically a Christmas tree branch) to put over the shelf as our festive-focal-point.

A year later and a very mobile baby meant we had to replace the shelf for a radiator guard and, to be honest, it is a lot more pretty than the shelf.

I still want a Christmas-styled focal point in my living room though so I have opted for a festive fireplace (or radiator cover, as is the case with me) focal point.

My Christmas, My Way. Which just happens to be House of Fraser’s motto for the festive season.

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Now this is right up my street. On their website is a whole host of tutorials from how to make an advent calendar to my favourite-the candelabra wreath.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouxp3-TZfis&list=PL4f9rTRBme2edK47wAkAG81ex7xmfuPw-

I really wanted to have a go at this but where the dining table is in the kitchen is a really low ceiling and you would literally bang your head on it so I had to put my thinking cap on.

This is when I remembered my plain garland.

I chose some berry-licious red baubles for my garland and wired them onto the branches. The baubles were £2.99 for 12 from HomeBargains.

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I then added some delightful star lights-currently on offer at House of Fraser for £7.

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I wanted to bring the outdoors in-just like the pine cones on the wreath in the video but I choose acorns instead-these two are £5.60 each on offer from House of Fraser.

acorn

The little light up reindeer lodge was £5.60 from House of Fraser (they have a lovely range of light-up wooden houses in this range.

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The Christmas tree…

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and Santa decoration were really inexpensive from a little shop near my dentist- I went in to cheer myself up after I had been in. I could have quite easily bought the whole shop. Luckily I was holding the baby and had to keep a hand free for Boo’s hand which seriously limits your ability to shop.

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I am really into stag heads at them moment. I am on the look out for a life-sized one-for ever, not just for Christmas. I have not ruled our taxidermy but real ones are very, very expensive. For now, I am just making the most of this reed diffuser from Marks and Spencer.

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For me, Christmas is about the whole package and all too often, people forget about the scent of Christmas. I actually buy Christmas candles and scents in the January sales to keep my house smelling Christmassy all year round.

candle

Last year, I reviewed ScentSickles. I loved them so much, I bought more this year. I put them in the bag with the afore-mentioned garland and it came out smelling of pine cones and fir trees rather than must or worse (remember mouse-gate?).

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I have pinned ScentSicles to the back of the wreath, then there are the two reed diffusers and, a candle. Hubster said to me ‘it smells of Christmas in here’ and that, my friends, means my job is done.

Why not have a go making a centre piece yourself this year?

*We were given the House of Fraser items for the purpose of this review. All opinions are my own.

6 Comments

  1. My parents have the PERFECT house for Christmas with an enormous open fire and a 14ft tree in the living room – I can’t wait to get over there for Christmas this year!
    Thanks for sharing your review on #TriedTested this week x

    1. Oh I want a fireplace like that. How do they decorate that tree? 14ft would fit but I struggle decorating a 7ft one. Christmas in York sounds lovely x

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