O Christmas Apartment, O Christmas Apartment

This year is the first Christmas my boyfriend and I are under one roof, sharing a tree, combining traditions. It will come as a surprise to no one that I already have a plan of attack to stage a beautiful, part retro, part homemade, Christmas mise en scène.

First things first: vintage Christmas ornaments. How silly, you're thinking. They break. What's the difference? The difference, my friends, is you can usually find a lot of ornaments that end up costing about $1-$2 each. Even places like Target charge more than that.

Vintage bulbs from Etsy. Check Ebay for even cheaper, but more random, assortments

Vintage Diamond Ray icicles from Etsy

There are tons of vintage tree skirts on Ebay and Etsy, but I might try making my own.

Here's a great tutorial from Design Sponge

You betcha I'll be cooking up some cinnamon ornaments to scent the whole apartment

It's easy to add some sparkle with bunting and garlands. Garlands work on the tree, of course, but how about hanging over doorways?

Mirrored bunting

Another garland you could use year 'round

Super easy crepe paper bunting

Vintage foil or tinsel garlands

Confetti System from West Elm, which would take all of 10 minutes to DIY at home

Speaking of Confetti System, I've already made two of these DIY Confetti System ornaments

Decorations. I am alll over teensy little trees.

A beautiful mantel

A Christmasy corner

A ski slopes diorama

DIY snow globe

And there are so many more things, like lights, wrapping paper, wreaths, recipes. The challenge of planning Christmas in a small apartment is figuring out where everything goes after Christmas. I've also saved a few other holiday crafts right here. Just in case I find an extra few inches of suface area in the apartment.

How about you? How are you planning to decorate for Christmas?