Designer Ingrid Oomen lives in a beautiful traditional home that is bathed in neutrals and gorgeous finishes. When it comes to Christmas, she likes to continue with the same palette. Because of a lack of space, she skips the traditional Christmas tree and instead tucks tall dogwood branches into a pair of urns planted with roses and ivy. I love the way the shiny blue, silver and white balls play against the natural branches.     

I can not tell you how much I love these twig branches used on the stairs instead of a heavy garland. It  gives a wonderful hint as to what's to come in the rest of the house.

She continues with her twig arrangements even into the kitchen. This is such a gorgeous sculptural display. I would almost hate to have to take this down in January!

I actually use the same idea on my front porch. After we take the ferns out of our planters at Thanksgiving, we are left with all of the dirt. When we get our Christmas tree, we end up with lots of  branches that are cut off of the bottom to make it fit in the stand. I use all of the branches to create an arrangement in the urns by sticking them into the dirt.

Then I stick branches throughout and I slide on little silver and red balls ornaments. It couldn't be easier. To finish it off, I lay a string of 100 white lights wrapped loosely throughout.   

{pics 1-6 via House and Home}