Happy New Year!!!  Hope you had a fabulous holiday.  I had a busy few weeks celebrating the holidays with my family and finishing up some personal home projects.  But now that the girls are back to school, it is time to get back to work for me!!

But first, I thought I would take a quick and fun 2012 rewind to see how Decor by Christine got to 2013.  So please bear with me and join in the fun as I recap some highlights from each month!

January

The IDS comes to town every January and once again my gang of interior designers and design blogger friends all got together at the Gala event.  I will be attending this years IDS at the end of the month!

Kimberley Seldon launched her Business of Design website.  Her first conference which I will be attending is also at the end of the month.

And I finished a client’s dining room.  New fireplace, lighting and reupholstered chairs. 

This was the dining room before:

And this was the after!  Huge difference, don’t you think?

February

I was totally honoured when Urban Barn invited me to design a chair for Urban Barn’s Custom Chairity Competition . 

Unfortunately my chair didn’t win BUT it did come in 2nd place for most favourite chair  When it was auctioned off, my chair raised approximately $500.00 for the Jays Care Foundation. I still wonder who purchased my chair and where they are using it!

Dabble Magazine turned ONE! And I continued to write the What’s Trending column for this awesome online magazine.

March

The family and I headed to Disney World over March Break.  Now that we are proud members of the Disney Vacation Club, we will be visiting a different Disney Resort around the world each year.

The custom furniture  and area rug I designed for a client (the same client as the dining room above) got delivered.  You’ll notice that the coffee table is missing since my client couldn’t decide on what she wanted in there. 

Home Depot launched their latest DreamBook and had a “Match the Look” contest to promote it.  Home Depot invited 6 Canadian Design Bloggers (including me) to choose one of their favourite looks or finds from the interactive DreamBook online.

You had to choose which of these products was my favourite look.  My choice was the marble Carrera for backsplash and counter tops.

April

This month I attended an event at Bo Concepts furniture store for the launch of a new line of furniture by Karim Rashid, where I got to meet him and crooner Matt Dusk. Yes, I know I am a bit of a social butterfly but I do enjoy attending these kind of events!

My budding equestrian won some ribbons at a local riding show!!

And the built-ins I designed for a client got installed!  I’m very proud of these designs and how they turned out.

The office:

Master Bedroom

And their daughter’s bedroom:  the handles hadn’t been installed when I took this picture.

For this same client, I also designed this mirror with a floating console table for her tiny foyer.

Here’s the mirror:

And now with the floating table/drawer.  It was painted in a high gloss black with crystal knobs…very chic!

I also participated at the media challenge for The Canadian Breast Care Foundation’s annual Yard Sale for the Cure.  I try to get involved in as much charity events as I can throughout the year.

May

May was a jam-packed month! My youngest sweetie made me this creative piece of artwork for Mother’s Day.

And she turned 5 years old!!

I went to NYC for Blogfest 2012 with my design BFF Vanessa Francis and got to meet a ton of other design bloggers from North America and some design superstars!

Here’s a bunch of us with Thom Felicia!  He was an absolute doll.We called it the Thom Felicia sandwich!

And here with Margaret Russell, the EIC of Architectural Digest!!

Another Dabble / What’s Trending issue came out!

Then I ended the month taking my oldest to see One Direction in concert at the Molson Amphitheatre as an early birthday gift!  My ears were killing me by the end of the night with all the screaming and crying!!

June

One of the big design projects I worked on all year was starting to wind down.  In this image, the custom drapes for the dining room had just been installed.  Excuse the IPhone picture…..I will be getting professional pictures of this project taken in the next month.  I haven’t really shown any pictures of this project except for the entertainment unit I designed. The colour scheme is blue and green which is carried throughout the entire main floor.  Can’t wait to show you the final reveal.

And another issue of Dabble Mag / What’s Trending went live!

July

This month I spent a lot of time up at Emerald Lake enjoying the summer with my family.  However, I did finally got to styling the same client’s family room with her new entertainment unit.  Here it is just installed.

And now fully accessorized!!

This is also her new chair from Crate & Barrel.  In the family room we decided to add some hits of orange to the blue and green colour scheme.  As you can see from some of my pictures I got really addicted to Instagram this year. 

And here’s her new custom ottoman nicely styled!

Oh, and we also finished her powder room in this fantastic teal wallpaper!!

August

I spent most of August at Emerald Lake at the Glamper finishing up the Bunkie!  I will be revealing the interior in the spring as soon as the new camping season begins.

Here it is getting built:

And painted!!!  It’s like my own little dollhouse!

And another Dabble Mag / What’s Trending issue came out!

September

This month I finally got back on Cityline for Dabble Day talking about fall trends in home decor!

Here we are after the show finished taping: Tracy Moore and the guest experts!

And I finally finished my dressing table area in my master bedroom.  I posted these pictures onto Pinterest, and I can’t believe how many people have repined my dressing table pics onto their inspiration boards!

October

October was a crazy month because I basically got a new baby –  with four legs!  Here is sweet adorable Marilyn Monroe who became part of our family!

And I got Project Pink & Orange moving along.  Wait till you see what it looks like now! Final reveal coming in a future blog post this month.

And another issue of Dabble Mag / What’s Trending went live online!

November

In the November issue of Canadian Living I was quoted for an article.  The article was called Sexual Healing and written by freelance writer Rosemary Counter.  In the article I talked about how to set the scene in your bedroom with some helpful tips.  Below is a screenshot of the first page of the article.

December

Exciting things happened to end off the year!  I got hired as a freelance production designer for a new HGTV show by the Property Brothers called Buying & Selling.  In Canada, the show will air on the W Network.  I can hardly wait for the episode to air so I can finally talk about the renovation and show you pictures. So stay tuned!

And last but not least, the last issue of 2012 for Dabble Magazine came out and I wrote about gorgeous glamorous gold in What’s Trending!  I love writing for this wonderful magazine and look forward to contributing to it in 2013.

Whew! Are you still with me?  If you are I commend you for sticking with me as I took this quick rewind tour of my 2012 adventure in home decor…along with some peaks into my personal life.

I really hope you stick with me for another fabulous year with Decor by Christine and my new adventures in 2013!!

Glamorously yours,

Christine xoxo