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We finally made it to "The Most Wonderful Time of The Year" and I'm so excited to release my Christmas Newsletter to you all during the last week and final countdown to the Christmas Holiday itself. What a year and a highly busy one at that it's been.

Thank goodness for the break we get during the holiday season to if nothing else, slow down just a tad bit, enjoy the festivities of the holidays, be with our loved ones, enjoy late wake-ups or much needed naps during the day, sip holiday cocktails, savor good meals, perhaps travel to holiday destinations...

Smell the amazing scented candles and aromas of the holiday season...

But above all, just relax, take it all in and simply just BE!!!

This year alone like many other previous years has been so excessively busy for me. However, 2021 really drained me in such an intense way. The first three quarters were my usual busy life filled with a highly demanding work schedule. Yet, I did get a chance to get two small breaks in during the Summer season. However, this last quarter of the year truly tried to take me out.

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For those that are first time email subscribers and may not be familiar with who I am. Allow me to introduce myself...

I'm a multi-hyphenate creative working in two creative fields,

both Film & Design. I've been a professional Filmmaker for the past eighteen years having studied and finished my film degree in October 2003 from Full Sail University in Winterpark, Florida, which is a smaller city right nearby Orlando. I'm hired as a freelancer by various studios, networks and production companies to either produce their non-scripted projects in the reality television realm, or to coordinate their scripted projects in the non-reality television and film realm.

Simultaneously, I absolutely LOVE to stretch my creative wings by decorating and styling my home known to many as "House Piazza."

My love and passion for design and beautiful interiors led me to the launch of my very own Home & Lifestyle brand, Allured By Design®

in 2016. My brand has evolved and grown by leaps and bounds since it's debut year, now being a legally trademark registered brand. Yet, there is still soooooo much uncharted territory to explore. And, I'm truly looking forward to that in the new year and beyond.

However, a continuing constant for me as a creative in two different fields...has always been to merge my love and skill for both film and design under my platform. While I don't riddle my social media pages with a plethora of reels, I do pride myself on producing high quality video content whenever I'm able to. Or, moreso when my schedule allows. And, my Christmas videos have become a fan favorite for my loyal followers, and even new ones as well.

It simply allows me the opportunity to tell both a Christmas and a design story all in one. And, with Christmas being my most favorite holiday of all, it's of course a story I love to tell. However, this year's video is a bit different in style and story. My team and I decided to make it a little more playful and make it feel reminiscent of an old school home shot video.

Ya know, the ones so many of us I'm sure remember shooting with our families back in the day during the holiday season...When we were kids and our parents or someone in the family would grab the video recorder and just start recording away all of the great candid moments captured on camera at Christmastime.

With that being the case, I'm more than excited to finally share and debut to you all my 2021 holiday look and story

in my latest video titled...

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House Piazza Jewel Tones For Christmas

Without further ado...

PRESS PLAY!

CREATIVE CREDITS:
Interior Design & Holiday Styling: Allured By Design®
Creative Direction: Tachic Hickman-Piazza & Blair Ballou
Videography & Editing: Ballou Media Group
Music: Instrumental Version - What Christmas Means To Me
Photography: Stacy Marks

Hair: LaShanda T. Johnston

Makeup: Javetta White
Location: House Piazza
Handsome Italiano Husband: Charlie Piazza
Produced By: Tachic Hickman-Piazza

Share & Download the Video Link: https://vimeo.com/659171196

I went into this holiday season knowing precisely what colors I'd likely be using as a theme for this year, as I started thinking about it last year.

I typically don't think or plan that far ahead for the holidays, as I much prefer to allow creativity to come to me naturally and organically.

However, I knew my work and film schedule would possibly be another year of back to back projects leaving me with a very small window or rather no luxury of time to casually plan. So in the very least, I wanted to have an idea of what theme I'd be introducing this year as early as possible.

My House Piazza Classic Christmas Blue look from last year was such a hit and I fell so hard for that theme. I knew I wanted to keep blue in my Master Bedroom look for another holiday season, yet expand on it just a bit with an additional color added to the mix. While green is not my personal favorite color, I've always loved the way it pairs so well with my favorite color, BLUE.

I have so many beautiful decorative pieces, including artwork in my home with the pairing and blending of those two colors together. So it was kind of a no brainer that if I'd be using blue once again as a holiday theme in my bedroom, upping the ante would have to be incorporating what was a natural color choice.

Initially, I badly wanted to incorporate into my blue and green vision either ribbon or a throw resembling a traditional Scottish Tartan.

Clearly, I've been obsessed with the TV Series "Outlander" far too long, lol. No but seriously, that's truly what I had in mind. I'd begun looking for a velvet fabric in the form of a ribbon with those particular tartan colors but could not find it anywhere. I did find the tartan theme of colors but just not in the fabric I wanted.

I'm a very HUGE fan of velvet fabric. It's indeed a big part of my personal aesthetic as a designer and decorator. Velvet is styled all throughout my home in the form of toss pillows, book covers, drapes, throws and bedding all four seasons long. I'm not that girl at all that thinks or believes velvet is reserved just for the colder months. NOPE!

Give me "What Is This Velvet?" (from Coming To America) all year long. Yes, Please.

As the fourth quarter of the year quickly rolled around, I decided to roll in a different direction yet still using the same color vision I initially had. Instead of a Scottish Tartan look, I opted to go full blown jewel tone and peacock theme (in color) in my master bedroom and I could not be more happy with my decision.

Now I did manage to find a beautiful velvet throw in the tartan print I'd been looking for. However, what ultimately made me change directions was the moment I laid eyes on this absolutely, insanely gorgeous and luxurious hunter green throw I found at TJ Maxx. Yes, I use a lot of adjectives to describe beautiful things I love. It's kind of my thing. 😉

This bad boy rendered me speechless the moment I saw it. However, the moment I touched it and felt how plush and soft it was,

I damn near fainted. Yep, I'm THAT GIRL!!! Beautiful home decor speaks to me in a way that immediately affects my senses. When I tell ya'll that this is truly my passion and I'm so serious about this home decor life, BELIEVE ME!!!

For certainty that I was going in the right new direction, I remember bringing in some of my jewel tone ornaments into TJ Maxx to pair them for comparison and contrast alongside of both throws, the solid hunter green and the tartan one. A store associate said,

"Oh you absolutely have to go with the hunter green throw."

She goes on to further say...

"The tartan is beautiful! But the solid green throw is so luxurious and rich in color, how could you possibly leave this one behind, when it works so well with your ornaments?"

And, just like that...my decision was made.

Now some of you may remember that since I very first debuted my Master Bedroom look to you all back in 2017, I've always referred to the space as the Rustic Regal Retreat because of the many rustic and antique elements I have styled throughout the space, including my faux plastered back wall.

In addition, I refer to it as the retreat simply because it's the place my Husband and I retreat to daily for peace, rest and relaxation.

The regal part comes into play because my Husband and I are the King and Queen of our own castle and while it may not be an overwhelming massive mansion, everything about our home...I style with an intent to make it look and feel regal. And, if no other room in our home has that regal feel, our bedroom most certainly does. 

This is the exact reason the moment I saw this stunning, gold leaf

Italian Pompeii bowl from V Home & Interiors,

I knew it would add the perfect regal touch to my theme.

I mean seriously, do ya'll not see how gorgeous this bowl is?!?! 😳

I mean my Husband and I already think we're royalty.

At least in our own heads. 😂🤦🏽‍♀️😜

Our home has a formal name for crying out loud...

"House Piazza"

So, of course it would make since for our home to have a lavish and majestic bowl in our holiday look. And, with that I say to everyone out there, make sure from this point on, you always add a touch of regal to your home because we're ALL Kings and Queens of our own castles. 😉

Also, if you know how much I love all things Roman and Italian, then you'd know this Pompeii bowl makes total sense to be in my home.

I mean, my married last name is PIAZZA and you just don't get anymore Italian than that.

Speaking of the King and Queen, ya'll know my Husband always makes his one and only annual appearance in my holiday looks, as my Christmas Photo Shoot is always centered around a family theme.

In addition, it serves as our virtual Christmas card to our family and friends.

As much as he hates dealing with any of my brand photo shoots, he's learned after years of fighting it to just go with it and stop complaining. 

Or, moreso just complain to someone else but not me, lol.

Truth be told, he did fairly well this year with very few complaints.

We both had a really good time during our shoot and it was filled with lots of laughs and funny moments. All while my Husband was remotely working from home that day and taking part in set-ups and scenes in between all of his work conference calls and zoom meetings.

He was truly a team player that day and I'm so grateful.

Let's dive into the beautiful pillows I used this year for my holiday bedding look. Now ya'll know I have a serious love for gorgeous pillows, so of course my pillow look would be everything fabulous.

Last year I debuted this beautiful deep, decadent

royal/sapphire/cobalt blue quilt from West Elm on my bed. It was adrenaline rush beautiful!!! So much to the point, that I simply couldn't retire it and knew I wanted to work it into my look again this year.

However what I decided to do different to change up the look and theme was not only add the gorgeous hunter green throw, but I also ordered and purchased all new toss pillows for my holiday bedding this year.

The three blue velvet leopard print pillows in the back are custom.

While the front blue and ivory/natural tone velvet pillows and the beautiful front centered, white velvet feathered lumbar are special order pillows all from V Home & Interiors.

Now the gorgeous geometric print and patterned, white and grey velvet pillow is from one of my dear and fellow Instagram Design Bloggers, Naomi Vega of Glamorously Living Home. Naomi debuted this pillow in her collection this past Summer and I knew right away I had to have this bad boy. It's currently sold out on her website, but I have a feeling there may be a restock coming for this beauty in 2022.

Naomi's pillow is appropriately titled, "GLAMOROUS" as it most certainly added a pop of beautiful, neutral modern glam to my regal lineup of pillows.

Also to create a more refresh and renewed look for my holiday bedding this year, I added a beautiful white sateen quilt set and white sheets with a blue border...all from JCPenney and super affordable.

Those Blue & Green Jewel Tones Are

Hitting Right?

Almost everyone that knows my style of design, knows that I'm very BIG on details!! I believe in paying attention to the smallest detail, as it all works together to create the larger picture. In addition, it ultimately carries the vision through.

So a lot of added details were spread throughout my master bedroom further complimenting the overall vision of jewel tones and the integration of gorgeous hues of greens into my beautiful blues.

This is now my second year of adding a Christmas tree in our master bedroom. However, prior to I'd always sprinkle Christmas decor in our bedroom to make it feel like the holidays. In general, I never want the holiday feeling to only be felt in our main living room / open concept area. My Husband and I love to not only have movie night in our living room but also in the comfort of our bed. I say this to say exactly what I shared with you all in last year's Christmas Newsletter...

If you have the space to accommodate a Christmas tree in your bedroom, DO IT!! It's a complete game changer!! I'm talking about a total mood lifter and just a great way to start your day by its presence alone in your space the moment you awake. As I just mentioned above, I've been sprinkling holiday decor into our master bedroom for the last few years and each year it just seemed to become more and more sprinkles.

So it was only natural that eventually, I'd stage one of our trees in there.

Our King of Christmas: King Flock, Slim Artificial Tree (w/500 LED lights) fits so perfectly in our bedroom. Not too big, nor too small. Sheer perfection!! There is just something so very special about waking up to a beautiful well-decorated Christmas tree in your own bedroom. And, even more special getting all comfy and cozy underneath the twinkling lights.

It's just pure holiday magic and I highly recommend it.

As for me and my home, this is a new tradition we've started that we will continue. Neither my Husband, nor myself grew up with Christmas trees in our bedrooms. But it doesn't stop us from creating our own traditions that we've come to love.

It's the reason why I encourage any and everyone to not be afraid to begin your very own holiday traditions. You may just surprise yourself with how much you'll fall in love with something new.

Moving onto our Living Room Theme...

Last year I went for a warm golden glow look with lots of mixed metallics and some earthy vibes as well. This year, I wanted the jewel tones to continue in my living room but with some added pops of wine / plum red.

Initially, I had no intention on using red at all this year, until I found a beautiful mixed jewel tone ornament collection at Hobby Lobby that featured all of the below colors.

I'd already ordered this really beautiful white velvet snowflake ribbon for our living room tree and when paired with the colorful jewel tones, it was my Husband that actually said...

"Yeah Babe, this is the look we should do for the living room."

In other words, his way of saying he'll get the tree set up and leave me to do all of the staging and styling. But at least he does help me with the massive clean up at the end. So I'll take that.

Last year was my first year where I truly I adopted the motto of not having Christmas decor over run my home. I realized that it's really ok for me to evoke the spirit and feel of the holiday season by focusing on the rooms I love to see holiday decor in the most. Yet, without the need to have Christmas touching every surface within my home, as I'd done in previous years.

With that newfound realization, I opted for the same look and feel this year in my living room / open concept area. While my living room area is a nice open space, too much decor can make it feel much smaller and cluttered.

So my focus was much more on the execution of color and ensuring jewel tones made a clear statement. Yet, still allowing our living room space and our home in general to keep it's normal identity without feeling holiday cluttered.

From a personal standpoint, adopting that new motto during the holiday season has been such a stress reliever. Because Lord only knows the labor involved in prepping one's home for the holidays can be quite overwhelming and back breaking work to say the least.

As long as House Piazza is sprinkled with the right amount of holiday decor to make our home feel warm, cozy and inviting with the least amount of stress involved, that's truly the route I'd like to continue to stick with. Because ya girl sadly stresses VERY EASILY and oftentimes about the most simple of things or things that are not within my control.

So again, whatever I can do to alleviate spinning my wheels during the holiday season or driving myself crazy is indeed the lane I'd like to be in.

Another new tradition I began last year was doing away with staging decorative Christmas boxes underneath my trees. NOPE!

Not one single box was added.

I kept that same theme this year because I truly love how it looks much better than a hoard of boxes at the bottom of my tree.

Instead I created a bed of ornaments underneath each tree, as I wanted our trees to look as if we shook them and ornaments just loosely fell about. Now I'm not saying I'll never go back to staging Christmas boxes and gifts underneath our tree. At some point, I'm sure I may.

But at the moment...

I LOVE this look so much better!!

As I bring this newsletter to a close, I'd like to remind you all to make sure you're following me on my social media platforms both

Facebook and Instagram where I share daily and seasonal design inspiration. Also, because I've gotten into the flow of producing both a video and a photo shoot for my holiday content, it's become far too much material to share in one single blog post.

So as I did last year, my Christmas Newsletter debuts both my holiday video and the first batch of photo stills accompanied with my thoughts and details on the inspiration behind my holiday look.

Also like last year, my 2021 Holiday Look Book will follow behind my newsletter dropping right before Christmas. More than likely on Christmas Eve with a gallery of additional photos from my shoot not shared within this newsletter, including more images of my living room holiday look. So it'll still be fresh and new content.

Per the usual, my Photographer, Mr. Stacy Marks always captures a million shots leaving me with so many to comb through and share with you all.

With that being the case, the idea of a look book became such a phenomenal idea, as I know that's what ya'll are really here for. I'm not cray cray!! Even though my Husband tells me all the time that I am, lol.

Obviously the look book will have some wording accompanied,

(just like last year) yet very minimal...allowing you all the opportunity to enjoy just the visuals.

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I truly hope you all enjoyed my 2021 holiday look. I hope it gave you all some inspirational ideas for styles you may want to work into your own homes next year for the holidays, or even just colors you may want to consider throughout next year.

Also, I hope you all enjoyed my holiday video this year, which was as I mentioned much earlier in this newsletter a very different film and story direction from my previous Christmas videos. I worked with a new Videographer this year who brought an entirely new concept to the story I wanted to tell.

As much as my Husband and I get on each other's everlasting nerves because that's just marriage...The truth is we love to laugh and we love to be silly and joke around. So the new concept was to make our Christmas video evoke an old school TV sitcom feel,

(with a very nostalgic home video shot style of footage) starring us as the married couple having fun in our home during the holidays.

Again, I hope you all enjoyed it, as this is me wearing both my Film Producer and Interior Designer/Decorator Hat...merging both of my creative worlds together.

If you'd like to view my previous holiday videos from the past couple of years, click here and here. Or, you can always see all of my video content on either the home page of my website or directly on my

Vimeo Channel.

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas, as well as a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year.

From House Piazza to Yours.

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Until next time...

⚜️Laissez Les Bon Temps Rouler⚜️

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