Create a Festive Fire Place or Focal Point this Christmas

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

The Christmas tree…

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.

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.

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.

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?).

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.