Neutral & Modern Holiday Decor

Last weekend we hosted a little holiday gathering with some of our co-workers, so we had to pull out the decorations, turn on the music, & bring out our inner "Elf"...(everyone does that, right?)

While we love all the classic holiday decor, we are definitely more non-conventional kind of people.  For some reason, we don't gravitate towards any of those traditional primary reds & greens.  Maybe because our color schemes are so gray & neutral throughout our house?  Or maybe because we like putting our own modern spin on it?  Either way, we like to keep all of our holiday decor colors & themes neutral.  This year, our holiday colors primarily consist of whites, blacks, grays & silvers.   

Now, let me be the first to admit...I am obsessed with apothecary jars.  I have quite a few of them throughout our house, & the dining table is no exception.  They are normally filled with lemons, but for the holidays we filled them with ornaments, metal cookie cutters, & bows:

The ornaments are in all different finishes- pearly, sparkly, shiny, & matte.

We also strung some ornaments from fishing line & hung them below the light fixture at different levels.  Nader used paper clips to attach the string to the actual fixture:

We found some of these bendable crystal holiday decorations (who knows what they're called) from Target & we wrapped them up the light fixture:

We have two more apothecary jars on the right side of our TV stand, which we filled with silver bells (from Hobby Lobby) & more silver ornaments:

On the left side of the TV, we just added some deer from Home Goods:

 We hung two stockings from our TV stand as well:

For the columns, we bought some mini battery operated LED lights from Target & some dark taupe/gray ribbon from Home Goods.  We strung up the lights & secured them with tape, then just wrapped the ribbon over the lights:

 We "wrapped' our doors with two pieces of silver ribbon & a bow (we used a regular sized bow, but it would look better with one of those giant ones):

This year we decided not to have a big tree.  Luckily, we had our mini tree already decorated (we kept it in the guest room since last December...haha).  Smaller artificial trees are awesome if you don't have the time, money, or patience to decorate a big tree.  We set the tree up on a side table:

So there's a little neutral holiday inspiration for ya!  We still have a few more things to put out, but this is what we've got so far...Hope you liked it!

Happy Holidays Everyone!

Mel & Nader
:)

Organizing: The Pantry 1.0

Since I recently organized every drawer & cabinet in our kitchen, it was only fair that I made sure the pantry was equally as organized, right?

Here's what I did in a nutshell:

-tossed any expired items
-removed all non-food related items
-added a shelving organizer on the door (we did this awhile ago actually)
-attached some wire baskets underneath with zip ties
-added baskets to organize different food items
-added glass jars for baking ingredients
-labeled everything with chalkboard labels

First, I threw out any expired items & removed all those non-food related items like light bulbs, cleaning supplies, & plastic cups.  I organized the remaining items into groups:  cereals, pasta, rice, grains, snacks, coffee, tea, & bread.  

Next, I transferred all these groups to their own baskets that I picked up from Garden Ridge (currently At Home Store):

We also had 2 of those under-the-shelf wire baskets laying around.  I figured we could use them to store onions & potatoes.  Since we don't have actual wood shelves, I added a zip tie to hold the baskets in place on the very bottom shelf:

Shortly after we moved in we added some shelving units to the inside of the door.  (I definitely use the inside of the door to store things all over our house...it's prime real estate, right?)  We store all of our canned goods & miscellaneous items here:

Next, I had to figure out another storage solution for all the baking ingredients.  Years ago I bought one of those 4-piece canister sets, but they didn't work out so well for me.  I couldn't fit all the flour/sugar into the jars & the opening were not wide enough to fit a measuring cup anyway.

So, for the last few years I have just been storing everything in Ziploc bags (which works just fine btw).  However, I wanted something prettier (a la Ina Garten's kitchen), so I picked up some glass jars to store our flour, sugar, powered sugar, & brown sugar:

I also bought some smaller glass jars to hold our baking soda, baking powder, & cornstarch:

I was a little concerned about the brown sugar drying & hardening in the jar.  Then I found out that you can buy these ceramic brown sugar bears that will keep the brown sugar moist (I bought mine @ Bed, Bath, & Beyond).  Just soak it in water for 20 minutes & you're good to go:

The small 'baking' baskets hold all those random items like food coloring, sprinkles, shortening, cupcake liners & extracts:

Next, I had to label everything (of course).  I went to Staples & picked up some Martha Stewart Chalkboard Labels.  Since I couldn't stick the labels directly on the baskets, I cut out some scrapbook paper & attached the labels to the paper first.  Then I used Velcro to attach the labels to the baskets:

Here's a Before & After: 

Much better, right?

Now that the pantry is finished, I have to create more storage space in our downstairs coat closet for all those items that I removed.

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Here are a couple of pantry updates since this original post...

2014 Refresh:

2017 Pantry Organization 2.0: