It's a Winter Wonderland... in our Hallway

Woot woot!!  The hallway is ready for the holidays!!

I tackled this area of our house last night, and I'm REALLY happy with how it turned out!!  I'd bought this deer head a while back when Target's "Stag Head" collection came out, and while he's been living on our bookshelves for the last month or so, he's made himself right at home in this little winter wonderland scene!

We (sadly) don't have a mantle in our apartment, so I like to decorate this area the same way I'd decorate a holiday mantle.  This year, it's a snowy woodland scene...

This table has actually been in our living room for the last year or so, acting as the drop spot for keys, mail, etc, but since we had to make space in the living room for our Christmas tree, this table had to move back into the hallway.

Initially, I wasn't a huge fan of having the table in the hallway - our apartment is pretty small, so to me it felt more cramped when you walked down the hallway.  The table is narrow so it doesn't actually take up much space - it was more "visually" cramped than anything else, but now that it's decked out for Christmas, I absolutely love it!

Well hello there Mr. Deer...

I can't tell if he's totally creepy or totally cute.

That blank stare looks totally "zombie killer deer" up close, but it's much less creepy in person.  I kind of love him - although I think he'd be even more dapper with a bow around his neck...

And the trees!!  I picked these up at Target for like $8 each, and I had a coupon for 30% off, so I think my mini forest only cost around $18 in the end.  I didn't love that they were all the same height though, so I got creative.

I still had some fake cobwebs from Halloween, so I just fluffed those up and stuffed them in the bottom of a clear vase to re-purpose them as "snow".

I then propped the other two trees up on whatever planters I had laying around - you can kind of see in the above picture that the "tallest" tree is actually on a candle votive stacked on top of a planter than I quickly painted gold (for continuity). You can hardly see them, so it looks just fine to me!

I also love how the "mercury glass" frames look all frosty here.  Originally when I had hung all the frames on this wall, they were empty, but I saw some mirror spray paint, and in a moment of curiosity decided to try it out.

I'd read that it doesn't come out as shiny as a normal mirror, so I decided to make it more like mercury glass - you just fill a spray bottle with water and vinegar, spray down the glass, and spray the paint, then wipe it off.  The water / vinegar mixture creates these cool splotches making it look A LOT like mercury glass...

The ornament garland was a DIY project that I worked on last year - click here to read the tutorial on that... super simple and inexpensive, and it has really held up!!

I was playing with the different settings on the camera and really like how crisp and clear the forefront of this shot came out.  

Despite taking these photos in the early morning light, its nice and bright...

And this next photo was a really proud moment for me... 

I was able to play with the aperture on my camera settings to get the background really blurred out, and the foreground really focused.  I'm still a total photography novice, but I'm always so proud when I manage to get a really great picture...

So that's our little hallway turned winter wonderland.  The rest of our place is STILL a hot mess, but we're getting there slowly but surely.  My goal is to have everything decorated and cleaned up by the weekend.

How is your holiday decorating coming along??  As slowly as mine??