Red and Aqua Christmas Shelf Decor

Red and aqua Christmas shelf decor may not be the most traditional way to decorate for the holidays, but it can add a beautiful and cozy cottage feel to your home! Get inspiration for using a non-traditional Christmas color palette in your own decor!

Red and Aqua Christmas Shelf Decor

This post contains affiliate links. For more information, see my disclosures here.

I’m the first to admit that I have a hard time making up my mind… especially when it comes to decorating! (Just ask Donnie how many times he has hung and re-hung the art on our walls…oops! 😉 )

Take this year’s Christmas decor, for example. At first I was positive that I was going to go with a neutral color palette. Red really isn’t a color I use in our house much, so I figured that the neutrals would more naturally fit in with the rest of our home.

But then I kept seeing traditional Christmas decor everywhere on Instagram and on Pinterest, and it just looked so beautiful and festive! So I changed my mind and thought I’d go with classic red and green.

I started decorating these shelves with the traditional color palette in mind, but when it was all decorated, I couldn’t help but feel like something was missing. Some of my aqua jars and decor were sitting on the coffee table, so I thought, “What could it hurt to try them out with the red?”

Well, you know me and aqua. 😂

Once it was up there, I definitely wasn’t going to take it down! So, surprisingly to me, an aqua and red Christmas it is this year!

I have never done such a non-traditional palette before and I worried that it would end up looking too whimsical for my taste, but I think with little touches of black included, it gives a bit of a cottage vibe, which fits in easily with the rest of our house.

(Can you spot the red and aqua art peeking in from the door in Donnie’s office? He made those pieces as a child– I didn’t even plan that!)

The nice thing about incorporating the colors we typically use in our house is that I had plenty of items to fill the shelves easily– I didn’t have to buy anything new!

You can see how we created this entertainment unit with pieces from IKEA in this post.

I love “decking the halls” for Christmas, but I was already feeling like the storage bins we have for keeping our decor when it’s not the holiday season were taking up plenty of space, so I knew I didn’t want to add too much extra this year.

With the entertainment unit taking up the front of the living room space, there’s not a great place to put the tree here, so I think I will end up putting it in the sunroom (which is just off this room) like we did last year.

Typically we put the tree up early (that’s blogging life for you!), but with a recent trip, I haven’t gotten around to it yet, so my guess is that it won’t go up until after Thanksgiving. (Are you an early decorator? Or do you prefer to wait?)

If you’re looking for tips and tricks for styling shelves, these posts can help:

How to Decorate Shelves

How to Style Floating Shelves

Styling a Dining Room a Hutch

Shop Our Living Room

You can see the rest of this year’s Christmas decor in these posts:

Our Christmas Home Tour- Part 1

Our Christmas Home Tour- Part 2

Christmas Porch Decor

How to Hang Christmas Wreaths on Exterior Windows

And I am delighted to be joining some of my oh-so-talented blog friends who are also sharing their mantels, shelves, and vignettes all decked out for the season, hosted by the incredible Krista from The Happy Housie!

Taryn from Taryn Whiteaker Designs is up next with her gorgeous Scandinavian-inspired mantel, and you can catch the rest of the tours via the links below!

The Happy Housie // House by Hoff // Rooms FOR Rent // The Turquoise Home

Lolly Jane // Just a Girl and Her Blog / / Taryn Whiteaker Designs / / My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia

So Much Better With Age // Finding Silver Pennies // Home Made Lovely // Designthusiasm

tatertots and jello // Clean and Scentsible // All Things With Purpose // Tauni Everett

Craftberry Bush // Hallstrom Home // Rambling Renovators // Deeply Southern Home

Modern Glam // Summer Adams // Happy Happy Nester // Town and Country Living

Willow Street Interiors // Sawdust to Stitches // Life is a Party

Have a wonderful week!

This post contains affiliate links. For more information, see my disclosures here.