This year I’m decorating very simply. I don’t feel like having any glitter, I just want a simple calm Christmas.

Wreaths, hyacinths, amaryllises and my hellebores feel perfect this year. And lots of lights and paper stars.

I love the advent light I invested in last year. It really does give me Joy. And there are my advent candles.

This year I added to my decorations by getting this. It screamed my name when I saw it. Beeeeniiiittttaaa, you must buy meeeee! So I did.

So why am I showing you the radiator in Wille’s bedroom? See where those pipes go down into the floor?

Here’s what it looked like before. I didn’t want to finish off the floor until I’d painted the radiator.

And here’s the after. I bought these little oak rosettes that you just clip on around the pipes. Such a huge difference. Now I can’t wait to get the rest of the radiators painted so I can fit rosettes around their pipes too. It feels so good to add those finishing touches.

Ps. Chez Larsson was chosen as a favorite blog over at Hus&Hem magazine. Thanks Tiger for having me!

This year I decided that I didn’t want the traditional four tapered candles in a candle holder for advent. Instead I got four tiny white votive holders which I customized with some etching cream.

First I stuck the numbers 1-4, one on each votive holder. These will be the templates for the numbers that will turn out clear after I’m done.

Then I used some contact paper to mask off the sides. This will give me clear numbers on frosted vertical stripes on my holders.

I used an etching cream called Etchall. I’ve had it for years and have been dying to find another project to use it on. What you do is cover the surface that you want frosted with the Etchall cream. You have to spread or dab it on, not use a brush. You leave your to be frosted item for 15 minutes and then rinse and peel off the stickers. You can actually save and reuse the cream by gently scraping it off before rinsing, but I opted to rinse straight away because I didn’t use a lot.

I love how they turned out. Not the traditional take on the advent candles but the function is still the same, light a candle every Sunday until Christmas.

Ps. We had our first snow late last night!