Holiday Decorations + Party Prep

I've spent much of the week decorating for the holidays as well as preparing for the cocktail party that we are hosting on Saturday.  I've also managed to wrap a few gifts...the ones above have paper from The Container Store and mod little snowflake tags from the Martha Stewart line at K-Mart (more on that later!). Ooh, and I'm really into origami cranes right now so I decided to use them in lieu of bows on my packages...

The color theme for the tree this year is aqua and white.  After four years of a fake white tree with hot pink ornaments, I was ready for a change.  Also, when you have a small living space, the tree really needs to coordinate with the other colors in the room. All of the ornaments came from K-Mart!  They have an unbelievably cute selection and everything is so inexpensive. These glossy ceramic birdies and owls were $2.50 each and a box of 8 glass ornaments was $4. They have every color too, from pitch black, to magenta, to aqua and white.

I've started to lay out the buffet and bar for the cocktail party, so I can see if I have room for everything, if I'm missing any serving pieces, etc, etc.  We're using the front entry table for the main food buffet. For decor, I arranged some white branches in a tall vase and hung a collection of small glass ornaments, but it's definitely not looking finished. It needs more variety in size and scale and I think some icicles or sparkly snowflakes would do the trick! I'll be on the hunt for those items tomorrow. Also, note the stack of fab cocktail plates on the left. Here's a better view...

I've been stalking them at Anthropologie for months. They were finally marked down so I snapped up a set. The one you see on top has foo dogs and the other version has blue partridges, all with a scalloped gold border. While we're on the topic of bargains, I also snagged these pretties:

How cute are these linen cocktail napkins with embroidered peacocks?!  It should be known that I am a relentless bargain shopper and Anthropologie is my closest target.  I stalk their sale room obsessively, checking in 3-4 times per week. These napkins were $8 each until yesterday when they were marked down to $1.95. That's more like it!  Sadly, they aren't available on the website, so you'll have to hunt them down like I did. Anyway, they are now hanging out on our bar with my monkey and some random ornaments. Monkey normally holds a little bouquet of fresh flowers in his basket, but for the party he will assist the bartender by holding corkscrews and the like. A final word on Monkey...doesn't he kind of remind you of this monkey seen in Top Design finalist Ondine Karady's apartment?  

I found mine at a very cute Philly boutique called Hello World.  They don't have an e-commerce site as of yet, but you might be able to call them and have it mailed.  He was a bargain at $25 and they have an even more tempting version that sits about 2 feet tall.

But back to holiday decorating.  Finally, I put up a simple wreath on our front door. We don't have any kind of roof or overhang to protect the entrance, so I couldn't do anything too fancy or delicate. Still, I like the little owl and how Foxy's face peeks out from the middle! 

That's all I have for now. More sharing to come, once everything is in place.  Happy Friday!