Hartland home is decorated with antiques, custom-made pillows and more for Christmas
This Christmas Julie Hunt’s Hartland home will be decorated with the Christmas decor and antiques she’s collected over the years, along with the pillows she makes.
In her rec room there are Christmas trees with pillows and vintage picnic baskets beneath them, her front porch has wicker chairs with holiday-themed pillows that sit near old wine casks filled with Christmas trees, and in her family room there’s a sofa with holiday pillows that has a table behind it topped with glass battery jars filled with holiday greens.
She’s found her antiques and Christmas decor here, in Canada where she was born, and in the Netherlands where she lived for a time. But her pillow business is relatively new.
The owner of Jules Pillows (julespillows.com), Hunt makes accent pillows out of old grain sacks, thrift store flannel shirts or just solid fabrics she likes. Then she adds a variety of shapes to them including Christmas trees, stars and vintage varsity letters and pennants.
Her fascination with those varsity letters and pennants led her to start the business in 2020, and it's grown from there.
“After my collection of varsity letters grew, I decided to find a purpose to reuse these special mementos. I started sewing them onto pillows, and I began selling them at craft fairs, and they were a hit,” she said.
This year she will be selling them at the Monches Artisans Holiday Open House Tour from Dec. 1 to 3.
She said when her antiques, holiday accents and pillows are put together, the look is warm and comfy. It’s also a look that changes from year to year.
“I’m always mixing it up and things are always changing. I bring up all my Christmas pieces, I sort through them and then I decide where I’m going to put them. And sometimes I decorate something and then I decide I don’t like it, and I switch it around,” she said.
Christmas trees of all kinds
Even her trees change from year to year in both numbers and how she decorates them.
This year her family room was done in a traditional style with a real, 9-foot tree. She wrapped the lower trunk in a faux fur tree skirt and set Christmas gifts wrapped in craft paper around it.
“The tree is decorated with ornaments that I collected over the years," Hunt said. "I have some old cookie cutters I collect. Some are from my grandmother. There are also ornaments my daughter made by cutting circles out of Christmas cards when she was young.”
This year her rec room has multiple trees and a rustic theme, with three faux trees placed on boxes, trunks or tables covered in plaid blankets to give them staggered heights.
“The ornaments on those trees are more simple and match the pieces I put on the fireplace this year," she said. "For example I have little thermoses, fishing bobbers and fishing floats, turkey feathers, little lanterns, snowshoes and antlers. ... I put some of my picnic baskets, a lantern, a minnow bucket and some of my pillows under those trees.”
Small faux and real trees can also be found scattered throughout the rest of the house.
They’re on the front porch in large wicker baskets and wine casks, in a little wooden goat cart in the three-season room, and next to an antique dry sink in a second-floor sitting area.
“I decorated that tree with fishing bobbers and lures and I put it in an old Scotch plaid cooler," Hunt said. "I put minnow buckets on the dry sink along with some miniature Christmas trees, and I hung a holiday scarf around the neck of a deer mount that’s on the wall over the sink.”
Combining holiday pieces with antiques
Each year, three of the four fireplaces in her home also are decorated differently.
In the family room she stretched a garland with dried orange slices across the mantel and hung wood sock stretchers from it.
The rec room mantel has Christmas stockings hanging from it and a green garland that’s topped with little birch bark canoes and snowshoes. On the hearth there’s an old metal bucket filled with deer antlers, a pennant pillow and a wicker trapper’s basket.
The mantel in the three-season room has a sign that says Farmhouse Christmas along with tall, thin wood Christmas trees cutouts. On that hearth there’s an old wicker basket filled with pinecones and a horse collar.
This year her kitchen takes on a traditional look.
“I have a magnolia leaf garland with berries and pinecones on a shelf above the hood fan over the stove, and I also set two large European bread boards on it. I put a red berry wreath on one of them," she said. “I decorated a portion of the kitchen island as well. There I put a large silver tray with a silver champagne bucket on it. I put a little Christmas tree in the bucket and I set out some of my pieces of English Ironstone ware.”
A large table nearby has silver platters topped with crocks that have little Christmas trees in them along with pieces of mercury glass on a table runner, a piece of fabric that once filled a continuous cloth hand towel dispenser in a business' washroom.
Other areas in her home where she’s combined holiday pieces with antiques are in the pantry where her collection of Santa mugs sits on an old three-tiered tray on top of an antique dry sink; on her staircase landing where thermoses, minnow buckets and skis are paired with little Christmas trees; and in the second-floor sitting area where a sap bucket holds a little Christmas tree.
So that the decorations in her home all flow together, she said she uses some of the same pieces in adjoining rooms and sets some of them on or in her antique furniture.
Thermoses are in the rec room as well as on the stairway landing, and old pickle crocks and large wood sifters can be found in the rec room and on the first floor.
“This year I put my collection of antique glass tree toppers on top of my antique pie safe in the entryway. I set some of them on the antique receipt holders I also collect. I also put a little Christmas tree in a goat cart in the rec room,” she added.
She recently talked about her pillows, antiques and Christmas decorations while Willow, her soft-coated Wheaten Terrier, happily followed her around.
Where do you find the pennants, grain sacks and flannel shirts you use on your pillows?
At thrift stores, antique stores or estate sales.
Where do you make your pillows?
I have a sewing room in the lower level. It used to be a guest room.
How many pillows do you make each year?
About 150.
How long does it take you to make a custom pillow?
A medium-sized pillow takes me two to three hours.
Have you participated in the Monches tour before?
No. I’ll be selling some holiday-themed pillows there, but also the pillows I make with the pennants. People like to buy them for gifts.
How would you describe the way you decorate your home?
Most of the decor in my home year-round and during the holidays is in neutral colors. I don’t use any bright colors. I like a lot of layering. It’s simple, but it’s not simplistic, by any means. ... I like to have a warm and cozy look.
When you decorate your home for Christmas, do you have an overall theme?
Yes, this year it’s silver and green.
How many ornaments do you have?
Probably upward of 1,000. I have all my children’s ornaments, too. They are the ornaments from when they were young. Some of them were given to them by their grandparents and from my husband and me.
Do you always decorate this much?
How much I decorate depends on if we are staying here for Christmas. If we aren’t here we don’t put up a live tree, and then I just decorate most of the first floor.
What kind of Christmas lights do you use and why?
I use the small white lights on all the trees except the three trees I have on the front porch. I left them plain. I like the simplicity of it. I never like anything that’s busy.
Where do you store all your Christmas decor?
In bins. I have them in multiple sizes. I have maybe 12 of them. We have a good-sized unfinished space in the basement.
When do you usually start decorating?
I start in mid to late November and hope to get the trees up by the beginning of December. But when I decorate, I’m never really ever done.
How long does it take you to decorate your home?
Probably twice as long as it should. Maybe three days? I do a lot of fussing. I try to find the right home for whatever I’m taking out of a bin. Maybe I need to get a nine-to-five job because I’m continually changing things. A Santa might sit in three places before I find the right place for him. But once the boxes go back into storage, I’m done.
If you go
What: 41st Annual Monches Artisan Holiday Open House Tour. A free, self-driving tour of 17 studios and other locations with artists. Holiday music, bonfires, wood miser demonstrations and refreshments at some locations. Food and beverages also available at Ox and Cats.
Where: Within a 10-mile radius of the artist community of Monches near Holy Hill.
When: 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Dec. 1-2, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Dec. 3. The St. Teresa of Calcutta church location is open only on Dec. 2.
More information: Call (262) 853-2731 or see monchesartisans.com.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Antiques, custom-made pillows fill Hartland home for Christmas
