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The most popular colors of Christmas are red & green, but how do you incooperate them into your decor when they aren't your main color schemes? My main colors are gold, browns, rust & blue. I do have some red touchs here & there, but not predominantly. I bought this cute tablecloth that had a white background with red, green & blue snowflakes, but it just doesn't work. This made me realize how you have to consider your decor. I am not looking to get rid of all my red xmas things, most of them are smaller scale & will work ok. Any tips out there on how to mix?

You can do Christmas in any color. Many people use decorations for Christmas that coordinate with the colors in their home. Or you could concentrate on silver or gold or white as they are more neutral. Or since you say you have red touches in your decor, you could concentrate on red, but leave out the green.

I will still use red and green, because green is seen outside your windows (nature) it is like a neutral in your home. But, you can change that green to coordinate more with your home such as antiqued or toned down, a lot of the more modern colors like lime, chartreuse, and pastels can be used for toning down bright colors.

For the red, you already have rust in your home, so you can tone down the reds to be more rust.

For example I will use my red towards the Coral tones and my greens towards the lime/chartreuse tones in my Florida home.

And as cocok mentioned, use your metal, whether it is gold (brass) or silver (or chrome, stainless) as your metal color.

Then there are some items you cannot integrate such as the color of the items you saved from Christmas past that have family meaning to them. Those items I display proudly without concern of matching since they are temporarily displayed and I care more about the meaning than how it fits in.

You have already gotten good suggestions. I used to worry about this when I had a lot of rust. I ended up liking peach with it (peach poinsettias, ornaments, ribbon, etc...) Now I have a lot of burgandy so I tend toward darker reds, although I mix in some bright reds, too. As Cocok mentioned, you can get Christmas in most any color! But as Mary Ruth mentioned, I always mix in my sentimental favorites; I never do a pure "theme" Christmas (although I know many who enjoy that). I look at Christmas decorating the same as regular decorating - using your decorating sense and taste to make what you have work, or toss what doesn't work (unless the sentimental value is too great, in which case there is probably SOMEWHERE you can work it in).

Today you'll find holiday decor in an array of neutrals like gold, silver, bronze, copper, white, cream etc. Dramatic colors that are non traditional include cobalt blue, regal purple, earthy reds, lime greens, fushia, etc. I like to tie holiday decor scheme into my room's furnishings for a custom look. Ruby reds fight the pinks in some of my public spaces so I lean toward those same pinks to burgundy. For practical reasons and because I like them, I often use whites and gold and/or silver too. A friend of mine has a degree of rust in her public spaces. I advise her to use burgundy and greens if she prefers a more traditional feel. Of course neutrals will work solely or in harmony with this and most pallets.


Keep in mind that dots of an accent or two can keep your holiday decor lively as long as they are repeated around the room and compliment the existing room scheme. Also, you always have the option of painting holiday decor pieces if you can't locate items in retail stores or on line. If you have papered walls or leftover window or upholstery fabrics, these can be incorporated into your holiday decor via things like handmade ornaments, stockings, mantel scarf, wrapped packages, gift tags, etc. Mixing prints, textures and/or solids has a visual appeal.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Froo Froo,

quote:

Originally posted by mmtsh:
My main colors are gold, browns, rust & blue. I do have some red touches here & there, but not predominantly. I bought this cute tablecloth that had a white background with red, green & blue snowflakes, but it just doesn't work.

Any tips out there on how to mix?

Continue to try various things and follow your instincts. My color scheme used to be rust, blue, cream, brown, and occasionally dark green so I know that bright white doesn't work well with that. You might find that cream works better than white with your scheme and rusty reds more than bright red.

This year I decided to go predominantly with green, silver, gold, and white in my fairly neutral LR, and am using red, blue, green, white, and silver in my kitchen/dining. I tried to add some bright red in the LR but it didn't look right. It energized the colors in the LR too much and destroyed the relaxed look that the more restrained color scheme provides. The rooms' functions seem to dictate the colors needed and my LR is a relaxing space and the kitchen not so much.

Sometimes, too, it is the style of an item rather than the color that makes it jarring. I love some of the bright graphic prints for Christmas linens, but they seem out of place in my traditional home. I can use deep red and dark green with my decor, but I can't use the shiny metallic reds and greens. Again, I think it's more that the bright and shiny look doesn't complement my decor rather than just the colors.

I feel too many decorations makes my house look overdone, so I limit, adding just a few holiday touches/colors to my rooms. I keep brighter reds close together and more burgundy reds together as well. Luckily I decorate with a lot of reds, so those decorations seem to blend easily. Green seems to go good everywhere.

It is hard to incorporate Christmas but this year I was able to integrate decorations into black and white check bedding and it's wonderful. Talk about taking a chance! For an example see my blog post at

http://alwaysnesting.blogspot....ug-in-their-bed.html

To Always Nesting. I LOVE your bedroom. Love , love, love it! I would love to do something as beautiful as that for the holidays. Maybe next year.

I know just what you mean. I have a lot of fall colors throughout my home. I found that using burgundy for my Christmas red looks much better.