Designer's Notebook
25 Designer Decorating Ideas
Get a new look for the holidays

Let Nature Be Your Guide
You do not need to go to a store and buy manufactured items to make a lovely decorative piece. A walk in your yard or woods can inspire you to be creative with your holiday decorations and use natural materials in unusual ways.

—Edwina Drummond, Edwina Drummond Interiors

Turn Over A New Leaf
In addition to the classic evergreens, boxwood, and holly, consider other foliage, such as rhododendron leaves, red osier dogwood branches, and flowering cabbage or kale for unique arrangements.

—Edwina Drummond, Edwina Drummond Interiors

Mix It Up
Mixing different greenery in your wreaths such as white pine, native spruce, hemlock and balsam fir creates both visual and textural interest.

—Louise Hurlbutt, Hurlbutt Designs

The Naturalist
Use dried hydrangeas, hens and chicks, pinecones, berries, and birch bark in a wreath for a subtle, natural decoration that can stay up from Thanksgiving through the New Year.

—Edwina Drummond, Edwina Drummond Interiors

Wonderful Wreaths
Add fresh fruit such as lady apples and lemons to wreaths for a pop of color. For a seaside holiday, add sea stars, sand dollars, and shells to your wreaths. Adorn with a festive plaid or simple red bow.

—Louise Hurlbutt, Hurlbutt Designs

Bright Harvest
Pomegranates, pears, and rose hips make colorful arrangements for Thanksgiving.

—Jane “Cubby” Derby, J. Covington Interior Design

Outside Inside
Go to a garden center to find beautiful flowers and foliage to make festive centerpieces and outdoor items to bring inside, like carts, baskets, and potted plants. Adorn with lights, ribbons, and seasonal decorations.

—Cathy Kert, Cathy Kert Interiors

In the Green
Line a decorative tray with plastic wrap then cover with mounds of moss and finish it off with tiny pinecones or acorns and pieces of birch bark. Spray the moss with water every few days to keep it fresh.

—Edwina Drummond, Edwina Drummond Interiors

Bright Berries
Fill a short, small vase with water, and then drop berries into the bottom. Cut white roses very short, so that the flower itself is just over the top of the vase. Pack them in tight and you have a beautiful arrangement! Or, in a tall narrow cylinder, fill the vase with water, drop berries in and then add just one white orchid stem or a grouping of white calla lilies.

—Edwina Drummond, Edwina Drummond Interiors

Bigger is Bolder
Increase the size, height and scale of what you typically do for the holidays.

Instead of using a lot of little things, you will gain a lot of visual impact from simply making a larger focus.

—Cathy Kert, Cathy Kert Interiors

Shine a Light
For atmosphere and drama, show off as many candles as possible, and arrange them in clusters. Use many different types and sizes, from votives to pillars, for extra visual interest.

—Eeta Sachon, Interiors by Eeta

Elegant Candles
The menorah is essential to Hanukkah, so use one that is special to you, such as one that has been passed down through your family. For a natural, yet elegant touch, use white beeswax candles.

—Leslie Rifkin, L. Newman Associates

Run With It
Pick one thing and do it in abundance. For example, at Christmas, instead of decorating a tree with 25 different ornaments, use 25 of the same ornament. The same idea can apply to other holidays as well. For Thanksgiving, make apples your theme. Make apples the centerpiece of your dinner table.

—Jessica Christoferson, Cymbidium Floral

Santa’s Toy Shop
The holidays are a wonderful time to show off collections. Snow globes, for example, look great displayed with holiday greenery and ribbon on a mantle or shelf. Birdhouses, dolls, and antique toys are other possibilities. Be playful, display objects that make you smile, and be a bit daring.

—Eeta Sachon, Interiors by Eeta

Center of Attention
Want to create a new centerpiece that will be the buzz of the party? Fill an old glass lantern with your family’s vintage ornaments. This should spark great conversations of Christmas past, and is a great way to protect your priceless heirloom ornaments.

—Marcy Marceau, Designer Lines Kitchens & Interiors

Color Crazy
Try using non-traditional color combinations for Christmas, like chocolate brown and gold, ice blue and silver, or hot pink and lime green.

—Eeta Sachon, Interiors by Eeta

Fresh Take
For Christmas, try a green and white color scheme. Display big bowls of white tulips, green apples, and white orchids. Green wreaths, pears and white candles also make an elegant decoration.

—Jane “Cubby” Derby, J. Covington Design

Monochrome Style
Go monochromatic in a non-traditional color. Fill vases with different types of flowers in one color, such as ice blue or royal purple, and use the same color for ribbons, ornaments, and other decorations.

—Jessica Christoferson, Cymbidium Floral

Complementary Colors
Select a color theme based on your home’s palette, and choose decorations that complement it. For example, in a home decorated year round with lots of reds and deep, rich colors, use lots of matte glass balls in copper, gold, and bronze tones piled in large glass bowls. Finish with evergreen boughs, big pots of amaryllis, and large formal bows of metallic ribbons.

—Anne Cowenhoven, Accent & Design, Inc.

Designer Tree
To create a designer tree, pick up some of your favorite designer fabric and make up a few pillows to be placed around the room. Pull colors from the pillows to decorate your tree. This can be achieved by buying ornaments, lights, and garland that are full of those specific colors. Use any leftover fabric to trim out or create a whole new tree skirt.

—Marcy Marceau, Designer Lines Kitchens & Interiors

Gifts That Glimmer
Decorate your Hanukkah table with gold or silver felt, and use gold or silver plates to serve delicious traditional dishes such as potato latkes. Wrap eight grab bag style gifts in beautiful paper and decorate with glittering ribbons and baubles to make them feel like treasures.

—Leslie Rifkin, L. Newman Associates

Tie One On
Why not try using ribbons and bows throughout your home to create a seasonal theme? A blue and silver combination or a gold and silver combination can be very dressy, while combining a green ribbon and a lacy ribbon can give a country feel. Perhaps a plaid tweedy ribbon will create a casual theme and certainly the ribbons decorated with snowmen and reindeer will delight the younger crowd.

—C. Randolph Trainer, Interiors by Decorating Den

Take a Bow
Tie one large silver bow in the middle of an oblong arrangement of live or artificial greens and then place a small gold bow on either side of the larger one. Add a few gold or silver balls, perhaps a few pinecones or a few votive candles in the appropriate color and you have a magnificent arrangement.

—C. Randolph Trainer, Interiors by Decorating Den

Apple Trees to Applesauce Squared
For a Williamsburg-style decoration, my mom always created an apple tree with real apples, a pineapple atop, surrounded by magnolia leaves at the base and filled with sprigs of boxwood. The horror of uneaten fruit was something my father-in-law had to deal with until he suggested that we core out the bits that had touched the nails and make pineapple applesauce, which we now call pineapple-squared sauce.

—Ann Henderson, Ann Henderson Interiors

Put Aside Design (Sometimes)
When my children were young I worked hard to put my designer tendencies aside, often sitting on my hands to keep from moving carefully placed popsicle sticks hung by loving little hands. Last year, I had a beautiful tree perfectly decorated in deep browns, copper, and turquoise. It was exquisite, but I would have given anything for the messiness of a few popsicle sticks.

—Lisa Teague, Lisa Teague Studios