mellicious | It's beginning to look a lot like...

I've had this picture on Flickr for a week or so but I know not everybody checks my Flickr stream regularly, so here is our balcony in the snow:

People who live places where there's snow on a regular basis probably already knew that the best way to get snow to show up was to set it against a dark background, but it took me quite a lot of trial and error to figure that out. (And hmm, that wreath actually looks real from a distance, doesn't it? It's not.)

I also have the other wreath (which nobody is likely to mistake for real) up on the front door - I don't think it's really meant to be an outdoor wreath, to tell you the truth, but it does alright. It gets sort of droopy when it's been damp, but I just fluff it up again. There are only a couple of pieces of holiday decor out inside yet - candles, and my mom's Christmas quilt is on the bed (although since we rarely make the bed, this doesn't add too much in the way of décor, either.) I get sort of fetishy about candles this time of year, so the candles made it out before anything else. In fact I did go to Ikea today, and it was basically to buy candles, because Ikea has this weird extra-large-tealight size of candles that I've never seen anyplace else. I don't really like regular tealights, they don't last long enough to suit me (although I did actually buy some today). So this gives me an excuse to go to Ikea occasionally, to buy the big tealight refills.

Oh, I have a piece of advice for fellow Ikea-lovers: don't wait until December to buy your Ikea Christmas decorations - because apparently they are not restocking things once they run out. The holiday section was looking sadly picked-over.