Newspaper Ornaments

This holiday season I have dedicated one corner in the living room to be completely color free. Our Holiday colors are usually various shades of turquoise, blue and silver with little hits of pink and gold. But this one corner is my little holiday escape.

It all started when I saw these adorable ornaments at Anthropologie and decided I can probably make them for a fraction of the price.

While out treasure hunting I picked up this cute deer because it looked easy enough to wrap in paper (no sharp edges and a simple form). I also picked up an old box of ornaments for $1 to attempt in the event my deer bombed.
The book was in a 5/$1 pile and didn't appear to make good reading since the last pages were missing. I didn't want perfect scissor cuts so I turned to a trusted old trick for perfectly straight yet torn edges: a wet paint brush. Wet a small brush and draw your line, then tear in about 5 seconds for a perfectly ripped edge.

For a variety of looks I covered a few balls completely with the paper after soaking it briefly in 50/50 water-glue mix. Basically, I paper machiered the ornaments.

For other ones I opted to just do a ring about it

or a few rounds for a mix of old paper and shiny silver.

My little deer turned out perfectly and will be appearing in a future post!

For our ornaments, I wanted to display them seperately from the regular tree so I went out in the yard and clipped a branch off one of the lilac trees.

I shoved it into an urn I wasn't using and piled white pebbles around it to be sure it was steady and then we were ready to add our ornaments!

In the theme of our old book ornaments I switched the painting out for an old framed book plate.

A couple of stray chandelier crystals add a little extra sparkle and we were done!

Not too perfect, not too full, just the perfect amount of holiday dazzle for the minimalist in me!

And that's our quiet holiday corner. How about you? What are you colors for the season? Do you stick with the same colors every year?