Like the rest of my home, I have decorated our dining space with natural Christmas touches by using dried orange slices, pinecones, fresh greens, and dried flowers from my garden. Unexpected touches to create a cozy cottage Christmas.
How to Create a Natural Christmas Theme in a Dining Room
This Christmas season most of my decorations throughout the house have something that was brought in from the outdoors. In my living room area, you will find pinecones and fresh greens that I foraged among other things.
Since this is a small house it makes sense to create a cohesive look and continue that natural Christmas decorating style into the kitchen and dining area too.
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Decide on a Color Palette
I’ve been so inspired by the colors and textures that I find right outside my front door lately. From forcing branches in the early Springtime to making moss wall art I find that I’ve been adding more and more natural elements to my home throughout the year.
Christmas hasn’t been any different! If you saw my Christmas Tour of my living room & entryway you will see how I’ve incorporated natural elements throughout the space.
My dining area furniture is dark wood and shades of green to begin so it makes the perfect backdrop to a more natural color palette.
Colors Inspired By Nature:
- Brown-From Pinecones
- Gold- Dried Celosia Flowers
- Green- Fresh Pine
- Orange- Dried Oranges
Another thing that inspired this look was an abstract painting that I moved from my living room to the kitchen. I love the muted colors. It was from the Studio McGee line at Target earlier this year. This one isn’t available but I’ll link their current selection.
Studio McGee Wall Art at Target
Decorating China Cabinet Hutch for Christmas
Well, my China cabinet is already painted a deep green color…so it already looks festive!! On the top of the cabinet, I displayed the DIY Christmas Village that I made last year. White & rose gold.
Dried Orange slice garland idea
A couple of weeks ago I made a huge batch of dried orange slices to use for the holidays and also for a wreath decorating party.
How to Make Dried Orange Slices:
- Slice oranges between 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick
- Blot w/ paper towel to remove excess juice
- Arrange orange slices on a baker’s cooling rack over a sheet pan
- Place in 200° oven for 3-4 hrs until dried
I knew that I wanted to make some sort of garland with them…so I looked in my “maybe I can use this to decorate” box. This is what I refer to the cardboard box in the corner of my living room that I loaded up with ornaments, ribbon, and supplies from my studio in the basement so I didn’t have to keep running up and down the stairs.
Earlier in the season, I picked up a set of mini 3″ grapevine wreaths because I figured that I could use them for something…and when I saw them in the box I knew exactly what I was going to create!!
Using a roll of copper floral wire I strung on the oranges and mini wreaths. What I did was run the wire through the orange slice and twist the wire to secure it in place. Then did the same with the wreath.
Trying to keep the same distance between the oranges and wreaths.
This dried orange garland can be as long as you want but I made mine the perfect length to drape across the top of my china cabinet.
natual christmas styling inside a china cabinet
Inside the china cabinet, I am using white as the main color and adding natural touches with a little bit of greenery and pinecones and also more warm metallic tones with the DIY pinecone trees and glass metallic ornament.
The silver vase is vintage Crate & Barrel that I got as a birthday present 25 years ago…some things just never go out of style!
A little white cement tray (A’Laur Handcrafted Home Decor) was the perfect spot to create a vignette with a gold mini pinecone tree, an extra cinnamon salt dough ornament, and a $1.99 thrift store ironstone creamer with some silver pieces that I inherited from my grandmother.
Of course, I needed to get a little bit of greenery in here somewhere. This not-really-vintage pedestal planter fits a small artificial tree and pinecones from my yard.
Afterward I hung a mini rose gold ornament string of fairy lights across the top of the hutch and let it drape down with the orange garland.
One thing that I always do when I am decorating this hutch every season is to hang something off of the knob. For Christmas, it was this cluster of mini mercury glass bulbs that I tied on a length of velvet trim.
If you have a cabinet with doors and want to add a little extra detail to yours some simple ideas are to hang a small wreath, hot glue pinecones to both ends of a ribbon and drape over the knob, or find a small sign on a wire hanger and put it over the knobs. Last year I made a small bundle of greens and tied red berries, orange, and a cinnamon stick to it.
Here are a few of the past Christmas looks that have hung on the cabinet door. You can see how to make the gingerbread wreath here.
A recent purchase that I made that I can highly recommend is a set of 9 battery operated flameless pillars. Here I tied 3 together with a velvet ribbon and made a tray display by adding greens, pinecones, feathers, and gold bells.
Christmas Table Setting
Our dining area is pretty small and although I would love a grand dining room table this 42″ round table fits the space perfectly. It does limit me on decorating though!
For a natural wintery centerpiece I filled a thrift store vase with boughs of fresh pine from my backyard, artificial flocked pine stems, frosted branches & pinecones, and fresh baby’s breath. Around the edge of the vase, I tied a piece of green velvet ribbon and an orange slice to create a cohesive look throughout the dining area.
Staying with the color palette for this Christmas I opted for a pretty simple place setting using brown leather chargers, white dinner plates, and a coppery brown salad dish.
Natural colored linen napkins with a copper napkin ring topped with a dried orange slice and snowflake salt dough ornament.
get the look
Hanging Wall Basket
On the dining room wall under the clock, I have a hanging wall basket. I’ve never seen one like this before. It is from a local vintage shop Green Plum Vintage Goods in Newburyport, MA. and as soon as I spied it in one of their Facebook pictures of their store I sent the pic to my Mom and asked her to run down and grab it for me before someone else bought it (the shop is down the street from her home).
It’s filled with dried flowers from my cutting garden, artificial winter greens, and a couple of pheasant feathers.
Add a Christmas Tree
The dining area may be small but there is always room for a tree!! The flocked tree has the same color theme as the rest of the dining area. You can see all the details on how I decorated this tree for more information
Thanks for taking my Christmas home tour today! Wishing you the best holiday season!! ~Jennifer
