Woodland Christmas in the Dining Room

Have you ever been inspired to decorate a room from a scrap of fabric, piece of artwork, or even a pillow? Sometimes I find something out shopping or through my travels that sets of a chain reaction of decorating and in the case of decorating my newly-painted dining room for the holidays, a simple decorative towel inspired a "Woodland Christmas" feel...

Yes, it all started back in late October when I visited the Country Living Fair and found this woodland-inspired decorative towel in one of the booths. It caught my eye because I had already painted the dining room and picked out the tree fabric for the curtains and I thought the towel could be made into a pillow for my dining bench...

One evening after the Fair, I was finally able to check out a Pottery Barn Outlet and these just had to come home with me...

These cute stag salt and pepper shakers along with the butter dish (below) were great deals and went perfect with the towel pillow so I've had the Christmas theme for this room figured out now for a while...

The rest of it has just been filling out all of the details... I mentioned when I revealed the dining room for Fall, that I would be changing the artwork out seasonally with botanical poster prints that are copyright free and inexpensive to print out at Costco ($8). For winter, I picked out a couple of images with pretty evergreens...

I also had a pair of grapevine wreaths hung inside the chunky frame before, but swapped them out with an antique German roe deer antler mount that I bought in High Point and attached them to a large slice of basswood.

When it came to decorating the table, I knew that I wanted to mix some more silver elements into the tablescape to tie in the new salt and pepper shakers and butter dish so I simply filled my antique trophy cups with potted cypress and white roses (also from Costco) mixed with greenery...

I then simply layered an inexpensive green and white houndstooth table runner from Target with birch logs, pinecones, and glittery Christmas picks (all from Michael's)...

I also tucked in bright green reindeer moss, candles, birch orbs, and a few acorn ornaments (from Hobby Lobby). The antler is a shed found in the woods in N. Idaho before we moved to NC. Yes, deer, elk, moose, etc shed and regrow their antlers naturally almost every year.

I was hoping to get some wood-slab chargers to go under the plates this year, but I used these round moss mats on top of some placemats I already owned...

The dining room is definitely feeling "woodsy" now and in many ways reminds me of home back in the Northwest where lodge-decor is a mainstay... All we need is Christmas dinner!

I've joining up with 29 other talented bloggers sharing Christmas in our homes in a "12 days of Christmas Tour"! Make sure you check out some of the beautiful home tours on the schedule below... Lots of inspiration...