The Kitchen in Peppermint

Yesterday I finished decorating the kitchen for Christmas.  In years past, I've used themes of red apples, cinnamon and gingerbread for the kitchen. Last year I expanded that to include more of a "candy" theme, by simply adding a garland of fake sugared candies on the small tree, and a few candy-themed ornaments.  This year walking through the crafts store, I saw cute little floral picks made of peppermint candies (fake of course), and saw cute peppermint stripe ribbon, and this year's theme idea was born!

On the kitchen stairs railing I have always had a green garland with red apples and pinecones and twigs.  This year I simply added a length of peppermint stripe ribbon.

On the inside of the back door, I added new swags that I picked up on sale at Michael's yesterday (they were 40% off, plus I had an extra 30% off my entire order, so they were CHEAP!).   I fashioned some fluffly bows from the same peppermint stripe ribbon, and used suction cups to adhere them to the windows.

On the inside of the window next to the garage door entry, I used a grapevine wreath with red apples as I've done for many years.  This time I just hung it with peppermint ribbon instead of red velvet ribbon. I added a very simple peppermint ribbon bow.  

At the kitchen sink, I put two small grapevine wreaths with red apples on the inside of the windows as always, but this year I added a garland on the window sill for the first time.

The wreaths got the same treatment as the larger on on the garage entry window.

The window sill received short curls of two different striped ribbons, some red apples, and some gingerbread-scented ornaments.  

The scented ornaments are surprisingly fragrant, even after having them for a couple of years.  We got them at Hallmark a couple years ago, and used them on the kitchen tree last year.

Finally, we put up a table top tree on a small table.  I used a collection of peppermint-themed ornaments for this tree.  (This is the tree that we had in the dining room last year - but we moved it into the kitchen because we're getting a new tree for the dining room this year.)  Some of these we had on our kitchen tree last year - primarily those that are gingerbread with peppermint accents.  I picked up a lot of these last week on sale (of course) at Kohl's.  I got the spiral ribbon icicle style ornaments from the Dollar Tree, and then I used a few of the candy picks from the craft store.  

Instead of winding ribbon around the tree, I experimented with cutting 1' lengths, and placing it in the tree here and there.  I tried just doing wavy lengths, but found that the curly ribbon looked better.  I think it looks more playful that way.  You can see one of them here in this photo.

I made a topper out of a big bow, and a big blown glass ornament, and one of the candy picks.

When hanging the ornaments, I followed the advice from this post in the Tinsel & Company blog, who taught me that I should wrap the hanging string tightly around the branch so that the ornament hangs close up to the branch, rather than hanging down a few inches below the branch.  I LOVE this tip, and I think it makes the tree look so much better!  Thanks Tinsel & Co.!

Here are some of the ornaments - I love them all!

We still have plans to build a gingerbread house village, decorating it with - what else? - peppermints and candy canes!  We hope to get that taken care of in the next week or two.  Until then, the kitchen is done!