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December 21

Hmmm. Think I oughta straighten those lights?

I'm glad I didn't promise when I started this virtual advent calendar that I'd be all chatty every day, 'cause I'd have been lyin'! Gotta run ~ See you tomorrow!

December 18

Sorry if it seems I didn't put much thought into tonight's installment of the virtual advent calendar. I had a sweet little girl here all afternoon, then got busy doctorin' a batch of white chocolate/candy cane bark. I'd put a tad too much peppermint oil in the mix so then I had to go buy two more one pound bags to melt down and add to it. Now it tastes great, but I've got three pounds of candy and not that many teachers and hairdressers to pass it out to!

Be back tomorrow with a better post. Promise!

December 14

Happy Friday! This little set-up is atop the piano. Hey...there should be chocolates under that glass dome! Oh...there were. Never mind

I wasn't really prepared to post tonight. We've got our favorite boy here and the new Harry Potter to watch. I remember I was whining about the big brown blob of a family room a couple weeks ago. I painted the tables and found a nice 8ft square rug online and I'm likin' it a lot better, so I thought I'd share the results.

Should've painted those tables a looong time ago. Hadn't ever really thought about it til now! I'll be back tomorrow with a fun new December Dollar Days offering.    til then!

December 13

This little vignette had no plan or much thought put in to it... I received most of these lovelies in the mail yesterday and just wiped off the nearest flat surface. Voila! Melissa stopped by a bit ago and without prompt said, "I Love this tabletop!" so I'll leave it. For now. ;-) The SWEET pink house and church both came from the etsy shop of the very talented Mary Holcombe  More close-up pics of her awesome work here and here.  The fantabulous assemblage piece in the back was offered by Donna Layton in Speckled Egg's current Holiday Gift Show. (click on Donna's name for lots of good close up shots of this wonderful piece of work) I don't think this was online for long at all til I came along and snapped it up! woo hoo! I love this so much I plan to keep it out in my studio year round.  Unbelievably, she still has awesome pieces left for sale...you should check them out!  So, back to the instant vignette. :-) The huge tree to the left I bought at last year's day-after sale. The way it towers over 'the village' it kinda reminds me of the town square tree in The Grinch!

I've been seeing lots of great 'cones' on various blogs. Wanted to try some myself but I wanted them to be real sturdy, so I could pack them away year after year. I found these paper mache ones on Lisa Risler's site. Wow~ she has tons and tons of crafty supplies! Well, with all the wallpaper I've got goin' on some may think it odd of me to buy more of someone else's but I saw that Donna was offering a real pretty selection of papers handpicked with Christmas in mind so I got some. I put a cone together today, and think I shall stop already! I had fun playing with the papers, but I've got too much else to do and not enough room left on the tree!

Wow~ how was that for a link-filled post?! I best go get started on that to-much-to-do list now.

:-)

December 12 ~ Give-away winner picked!

Not sure why I decided to show this corner of the kitchen today. Maybe because I had a 2yo all day and a clean corner was about all I could ask for! As soon as that tree comes off I'll show you a better view of that FAB child's desk and chair. Supposedly it's a french antique. I'd just bought it before I started decorating and was like, "Here, we'll put the tree on this!" So without further ado, the winner of the drawing is...........................................................................................................................................

D A W N from DawnsIcySun. Congratulations Dawn! Let me know if you'd be likin' a plate or a bracelet!

Tomorrow I'll go back to December Dollar Days. I'm going to offer what I almost offered for this give-away until I thought to give a bracelet.

I joined in on Karla's Holiday Home Tour today. What fun! I did catch a few ladies in between chasing a two year old all day. Now I see the posts are up to 135. Yikes! Great participation! Although I really doubt I'll be able to catch them all tonight. I thank those of you that did stop and visit me today.

Well, I'll close with this big dollop of sweetness. We had a little photo shoot after someone's mommy got home from work today. Seems I'm becoming the go-to Grandma with a Camera!

December 11

 

This is the third and final tree we have up this year. It's in the front living room. I made the bottle cap ornies last year. I adore the red and white stripe jingle bells! Martha did those for K-Mart this year. Wow. If I love K'Marts Martha so much, I bet I'd really love Macy's' Martha stuff! Eeek. It's probably better that I don't live near one.

Thanks for all the grandchild love yesterday. Yes, we are very blessed to live by these sweet angels. Tonight was the Christmas performance at 2 year old Kadence's pre-school. We all crammed in to the classroom and (thankfully) the program barely last 7 minutes. Gosh they crack me up at this age. Just a big ol' basket of puppies

Not that we're partial, but we just don't think little girls come much cuter than miss Kadence!

DON'T FORGET TO SIGN UP FOR THE DRAWING! IT'S ON THE DECEMBER 8 POST BELOW. I'll PICK A NAME TOMORROW EVENING, WEDNESDAY THE 12TH.

December 8 ~ 200th Post Give-away!

 

I am under strict instructions (from myself) to rap my knuckles with a ruler if I start apologizing here for not being completely prepared for tonight's post. John and I drove out to Ferndale for my fav lunch in the world (a portabella mushroom and other grilled veggies on top of grilled polenta!) and a little antique shopping which yielded a bag full of vintage shiny brite ornies. I fretted all the way home about losing light for photographs and needing more time to finish a project. Well, we had an awesome day and I know you'll say "that's what counts!" so I'll tell you part of the give-away now and the other part tomorrow.
Several people have emailed wondering if I could make the bracelets a bit longer or shorter. I can, but leave a comment on this post between now and Wednesday the 12th and for the winner of the draw I will custom make any of the three lesser expensive bracelets for free. My gift to you! (or take $30 off the $50 one).  AND just in case you don't want a bracelet or know someone who would like one, I am introducing a new item on etsy tomorrow (after I get good photographs!) which also lends itself to customization, which I will gladly do for you instead.  Come back tomorrow and see what it is! But leave your comments HERE.

Edited to add: Here's the four different styles of bracelets in case you don't have time to follow the links above:

December 5

I cannot tell you how much I've been enjoying the decorating part of Christmas this year! After too many years of pulling the same ol' themed and matchy ornaments and stuff out of the same ol' boxes, I've just gone a whole 'nother direction with colors and vintage mismatched and maybe even too much as opposed to practiced restraint. It's fun and that's all I care about at this point. Each picture from my virtual advent calendar this month is (in case you hadn't guessed) little snippets here and there around this decorated house.

I find myself answering the phone lately, "Grandma central!" Today was fairly typical--had 2yo Kadence all day while her mama worked. She and I went to Melissa's house this morning to sit with the new baby Madison while Caleb was taken to a dentist appt. Now I'm fixin' to go take Caleb to cub scouts. For the most part I wouldn't have it any other way, but I am happy to say that I have the next 5 days to myself and lots of projects in the works. Yahoo! I may even get started tonight. After cub scouts, that is!

It's Christmastime!

It's the first day of December and I reckon most people pulled out their advent calendars today. I do not have one. Not one that I want to look at all month anyway. So for this year I'm having a virtual advent calendar. Here is the number 1~

I did have good intentions for making one. I found a fabulous piece from which to build on

But never came up with a real WOW vision of how I want to finish it, so I'll have it to look forward to working on next year. Today we went to the only craft fair I choose to go to at Christmas. I bought pieces from my fav's Sarah and Elona. It just doesn't seem like Christmas without a new copper fairy from Sarah. LOVE her stuff. Have been buying from her for probably 10 years now. I buy for myself more often than not, but I've been really good to me the last few days so I only bought two fairies as gifts.  Elona does really swell work, too. That link I gave is her feedback on ebay. You can click several 'view items' to see her fun original pieces. Every time I see her I try and convince her to get on etsy! She'd be a hit, I just know it!

Well, I guess I'll see you tomorrow with numero dos!

Not too many interested gals in the magazines offered below, heh? Maybe we're ALL a bunch of magazine junkies! I'll draw a name from those few who posted tomorrow afternoon. Cheers!

When you're a hardheaded person like me

You have to learn so many lessons the hard way. Looking back, it would seem a lot easier to just listen to people. Like the time we bought the black mazda fresh off the lot. Everyone I knew (and strangers alike) told me you DON'T want to mess with keeping a black car clean and you DON'T want to lose thousands of dollars in equity the moment you drive it off the lot. I know how frustrated they must have been when I ignored them because now no one listens to me when I try to pass on the same advice! I often wonder, mostly when dealing with our kids, "Why on earth did I have to go through that if my own kids can't even learn from it!?" Well, (the universe answers) we are all here to learn our own lessons for ourselves. A lot of people tried to talk me out of white carpet when we built the family room 5 years ago. Well, it's basically white. It may as well be white, for all the dirt hiding it does. (That was sarcasm. Funny enough; the colors black and white serve opposite purposes in cars and carpets when it comes to hiding dirt. And the learning continues.) It looks SO PRETTY when no one walks or eats or plays on it. But we pretty much live in that room so I have to call the carpet cleaner once or twice a year. Every time John and I are hauling the behemoth tables out the side door to spend the day on the patio I swear THIS IS THE LAST TIME! We are going to install hardwood or replace this carpet! hmm. Maybe having typed that just now I'll save my breath today. Speaking of these behemoth tables. You know how good the furniture looks when it is in Costco? Maybe it's the prices that make it look so good. A couple years ago we got a coffee table with two drawers, each the size of a deluxe Japanese hotel room. A sofa table and an end table. All for $500. Now, did I question that? Knowing full well the coffee table alone, if it was made of anything close to real wood, would cost at least twice that? No, we don't question it. We buy it. And within 2 months the first whack of a toy on the table reveals that it is really just paper coated pressed board. Board that is pressed with iron I think because I've never tried to lift anything so heavy in my life. And uuuuggggllly?! Oh man, I can just hardly stand to walk in to that room anymore. Those tables look like crap in a box. And now they sit next to brown Costco 'leather' sofas. Yes, dear hubby thought "What a deal!" when he walked in to Costco to pick up a prescription one day; they had a matching couch and love seat AND ALL FOUR ENDS RECLINE! OH. That did it for him. I cannot begin to explain how heavy a couch becomes with all that reclining mechanism built into each side. Somehow he conned a friend into helping him drag these monsters home and I just didn't have the heart to make him take them back so now I refer to our family room as the big brown blob and only go in there out of necessity. And by the way, the leather is pretty much just spray-on. Every time a cat walks by it a scratch shows up. I've hated our living room for a while now, and after reading the description above you probably would, too! But with a big Christmas coming up I have to make it look nice somehow. I've started by painting the tables off-white. Did that yesterday. I hope to have decent pics to share soon. For now I've got to go help John drag the tables outside. While emptying the coffee table drawers I realized that a) I'm a magazine junkie and b) I know what our next Dollar Days offering is!

Most of those Legacy's look new...but I can't make the time to go through them all. Just wanna move 'em out! So leave a comment here, and you can have them all for a dollar plus $4 shipping.