Elegant Front Porch

What to do when you’ve invited 24 girlfriends over for a ”naughty or nice” sit-down dinner party? Call San Jose floral designer Jose Ibarra to come up with special Christmas decor, inside and out.

Pinecones with Pewter Ribbons

He started with the front entrance way of this Willow Glen home — a house he also decorated for Thanksgiving. While most folks feel pretty relieved to get a decent wreath on the door, Jose takes it up a notch by creating a whole natural scene — with a little sparkle — to welcome guests. He started with bare branches arching over the front doorway. With his secret — a $1.99 can of fake snow or flocking from Walgreen’s drug store — he sprayed sugar pine cones (the tall, skinny ones) with just a hint of winter. He tied the cones to the branches with burlap and pewter double satin ribbon. They dangle over the doorway.

“The homeowner wanted elegant,” he said, “but not overstated.”

Inside, he set a long narrow table and cascaded 200 dark red roses — three different kinds — down the center. You’ll find no vases here. Instead, he cut the stems off the roses and effectively tossed them onto the table. He added green orchids as well.

Roses and Orchids

He tried to “reinvent the idea of simple,” he said. “Not over the top, but new and different.”

Here’s the complete slideshow:

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 9th, 2009 at 10:03 pm and is filed under Decorating, Dining Room, Featured, Food and Drink, Home Decor, Home and Garden, Interior Design, Julia, Landscape, Q & A, San Jose, Willow Glen. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.