Designer touches enliven handmade treasures in family's holiday decor

When a designer is the mother of three teenagers, how does she decorate her suburban home for Christmas?

Designer touches are here, but the homey, family-friendly treasures are more important to Angie Gardeck of Algonquin.

Yes, she jazzes things up with new ideas, but she also displays the preschool art her children made years ago.

And she puts a great amount of care into an elaborate snow village -- appropriately placed so it's the first thing visitors to her home see when they walk in the front door.

Gardeck took the doors off her china cabinet and arranged the miniature ceramic buildings on its three shelves.

"The mirrored back provides so much dimension to the snow village," she said.

And much of the architecture is sentimental.

The blue house represents the first home she and her husband, Kevin,

owned, and the brick Georgian stands for their current home.

Turquoise and burgundy are Angie Gardeck's holiday colors, which work well with her turquoise-ringed china.

A designer trick comes out when you learn the chargers the plates sit on are from Wal-Mart, and the crystal stemware was her great-grandmother's.

"When I'm decorating someone's house, I try to take what they already have and mix with designer-type touches," said the owner of Design Services.

Nearby in the foyer, three tiny candleholders made from clay are part of the decorations on a chest.

The Gardeck children are very close in age, so the preschool and elementary crafts didn't change from one to the next.

"I have three of everything for an odd number grouping," said Gardeck, noting an important designer rule.

She found turquoise floral picks and added them to small trees that stand between the foyer and the great room.

"At night the lights on these trees pull you into the great room. It's a way to add new color without redoing my Christmas tree," she said.

Straight ahead in the two-story family room is the most important element in this decor, the 12-foot tree.

"Every time you get an ornament from someone you use it," said Gardeck, an allied member of the American Society of Interior Designers. "It doesn't have to be a certain color or shape.

"Little kids' stuff like their hands made into red birds are at the bottom, along with Popsicle stick stars, feet with glitter and reindeer from construction paper."

Moving up the tree, viewers see trip souvenirs -- from a Delft windmill to ornaments from Hawaii and San Francisco.

When Gardeck was younger, she made ornaments from Styrofoam and pins, and her daughters made some, too.

"The big stuff goes at the top so you can see what's up there," she said.

And another rule here is to insert big, pretty, traditional ornaments every now and then. A blue glass ball with glitter snowflakes is an example.

"They calm it down and give you a spot for your eyes to rest," she said. "It's like negative space, a spot to skim over so you can absorb the rest."

Red ribbon with gold trim is an important unifying element, but the tree is too large to carry lengths of ribbon all the way down from the top. So bows with graceful tails appear throughout the tree.

Finally, crystal beads not only give light and sparkle and add depth, but they break up the green and are another unifying element.

"Then you can use all kinds of different ornaments without being too chaotic," Gardeck said.

The bowl on the nearby coffee table is pure designer -- and its purple tulips are a surprise among the collection of glass Christmas ornaments in purple, red and gold.

"Tulips aren't really a Christmas flower," she said. "I thought they were just kind of a different thing to incorporate."

Usually this brown ceramic bowl holds river rocks.

"You can make the arrangements on top of things you already have for the height. I don't have floral arrangements -- where do you store those?"

The adjacent kitchen is bright and cheery with a candy decor.

A ceramic chef standing in the window behind the sink holds two of three gumdrop trees made by the Gardeck youngsters, with the last one at his feet. Angie replaces the candy every year.

Candy-striped bows add to the decorations, and the chef is surrounded by poinsettias instead of his usual vegetables and tomatoes.

The chandelier over the kitchen table is festooned with ribbons decorated with red and white stripes and red candies. Other delights are white and red berries, ornaments that look like wrapped candy and real candy canes.

Under the chandelier, a little tree is decorated with cookie cutters and Christmas cookie ornaments.

The napkins are each different Christmas towels from Hobby Lobby, held in place with Santa napkin holders.

And here's a final secret from the designer elf.

Observant visitors will notice cherished childish hand prints lovingly pressed into soft material, then painted red. They are behind glass doors in a kitchen corner cabinet.

"We display everything people gave us and kids have made, but it's not overwhelming," Gardeck said.