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Getting Cosy for Christmas

by Carys - Stylist for The Prop Factory

Thursday 17th October 2019 08:35:39

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Christmas is now only two months away and our warehouse is buzzing with festive prop production. Our five new prop makers - like elves in Santa's workshop - are all busy creating beautiful and original decor for your pre-Christmas parties. Take a look at the glorious Christmas theme on our website. Already you can see so many delightful things - from giant hanging Christmas biscuits to a giant elf on a shelf - with the promise of more loveliness yet to come! Some of these items are actually now for sale along with many more goodies see them all here on our ebay shop.I wanted to share some images from a photo shoot back in 2017 at Coombe Trenchard, a stunning Edwardian estate on the edge of Dartmoor. Christmas is Prop Factory director Carmen's absolute favourite time of year and her passion for all things festive shines through when you see how well we can cater for a traditional Christmas party. The purpose of the photo shoot was to showcase our old farmhouse tables and natural vintage wooden folding chairs set for a festive feast in the cosy, but very grand, living area of Coombe Trenchard's historic Arts and Crafts house.But when I had a closer look at the table decor, I quickly realised how many of the trinkets that adorn the table have inspired our Christmas props collection - especially our giant props - and it's so nice to see how far we have come with this happy holiday season.Christmas is the time of year for get togethers and lots of food! How do you decorate a venue for Christmas when the main event is sitting and eating? The grandness of the room easily welcomed a traditionally dressed Christmas table next to the crackling open fire. Our farmhouse tables comfortably seat eight people and can be lined up next to each other to create a banquet-style eating area. Arranged singularly, if you don't mind more of a snug seating arrangement, you can add an extra chair on either end to up the amount of guests to 10 per table.The table tops have an attractive rustic finish so don't necessarily need to be covered by tablecloths, and this gives you a blank canvas for dressing the table. We wrapped up presents in perfect square parcels with red gingham ribbon and placed them on each table setting - rather like favours at a wedding - a thoughtful gesture and a table decoration in one!

This shape, with it's extravagant bow, is so quintessentially Christmas that we've recreated it for our Christmas present concertina wall panels. Each of the six panels has different printed pattern - wrapping paper style - and a contrasting velvet bow.The Christmas baubles and ornaments nestled amongst the tree foliage created a natural runner amongst the tableware. All of these were borrowed from Carmen's personal collection of Christmas decorations. I've never met anyone who collects Christmas decs like Carmen does - and she sources most of her most lovely vintage decorations from car boot sales. This photo shoot is very much scaled back compared to her house at Christmas, which was jaw droppingly special last year!Carmen also does all our prop designing so it probably shouldn't come as a surprise to find that many of these little trinkets look so familiar. If I study them now I can see how many of their characters have been turned into giant props.Based on the traditional little wooden nutcracker, we now have our own giant eight foot tall nutcracker cutout - who is new this Christmas - and we already had 2D wooden nutcrackers and wooden drumming soldiers that stand in boxes designed as wrapped presents.The little wooden red toy train and china Christmas bear remind me of the toys you would see scattered across the living room floor on Christmas morning along with a wooden rocking horse delivered with a big red glistening bow. And... guess what? These are now part of our prop collection too!Traditional and vintage children's toys have such a magic to them and now they are available as props to hire for your Christmas event! Imagine how fabulous they would look in Santa's grotto for children to visit.We finished off our Christmas table styling with ruby red candles in brass candelabras that add height and create a warm and inviting feeling to match the fireplace. The red gingham and crisp greens of the tree foliage remind me of our Noel and Joy christmas tree letters. These are already dressed with tiny decorations and stand up in hand-painted boxes. They look great lining the walls at a dinner party or at an event entrance. Or if your short of time to dress a tree hire our traditional fabric Christmas tree semi flat's!So there we are - cosy, traditional festive styling, two years on, becomes the spark for a new range of props. It just shows that you never know where inspiration will come from!

See all the props featured in this blog here.

See our whole Christmas collection here

Carys x


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