Happy Valentine’s Day & See Ya!

Hi everyone! Just wanted to pop in to let you all know that I’ll be back in March or there abouts. I’m in the home stretch as far as getting my house ready to list and I really need to concentrate on finishing up my bathroom remodel and then just cleaning and depersonalizing.

I'm not packing up my stuff yet so here’s a little bit of Valentine's decorating that I did do. This is my foyer tree this year.

I used the same sticks from last year!! But this year I used fabric hearts instead of the scrapbook paper ones I usually use -  How To Make Hearts From Cereal Boxes.

I replaced my mitten garland with this fabric heart one.


This is not VDay decor but I wanted to show you anyway. I found some vintage potholders last week and I pinned the prettiest one to the center of this pillow. How cute is that! Vintagey toile goodness! LoVE it!


I hope to start looking at houses in a few weeks as well (I need the motivation to keep up this pace)! I’ll do my best to take pics of the contenders! Probably won’t post them until I get back to blogging though.



So, Happy Valentines Day, thank you so much for stopping by and see you in a month or so!

Out On The Porch

 
….is this.

This is what we see from the dining room. A colorful collection of birdhouses!

I repainted this birdhouse that I got at Goodwill for $4. It was a sage green and white so I made it more me.

Because I’m not a sage green type of person. I’m an apple green type of person.

This is really all I did this year out on my cold screened porch. Since we’re moving I didn’t want to do a whole lot since I didn't want to have undo a lot!

If you’d like to see what I  did out here last year go here for last year's cozy winter porch – fireplace and all (sold the fpl to a neighbor during the summer).

Hope you’re having a wonderful weekend! Looks like a winter storm is headed our way and I wish I still had the fireplace. Brrrr!

Decorating For Christmas

or maybe I should say not decorating for Christmas? I didn’t even do a quarter of the stuff I normally do, but that’s o.k. I just don’t want to invest in the time to pull all that stuff out AND put it  away (we’ve already started packing some stuff up for our move next year).

But I thought I’d show you what I did do this year.

Starting with this little garland I made from a box of knit gloves/stocking I found at Big Lots. I think they’re suppose to be ornaments.

I just tied them on to some Christmas ribbon and hung it above my sofa. I figure this can stay up through winter.

Now I had the best intentions to make another garland using these yo-yos above. But just never got around to it and don’t know if I will (I can’t believe Christmas is so soon – I just got started with my shopping!!!).

But if you want to try it – this is what it’s supposed to look like. Cute isn’t it? This is from the Holiday 2010-2011 issue of Quilting Arts Gifts Magazine.

It has soooo many really cute ideas like these no-sew ornaments that I was going to do in various red fabric and hang off a white tree (maybe next year).

Every year I do a china tree in my dining room. I think it’s a fun tree for a dining room!

This year is no different except I used a white tree and added some of my vintage monogrammed silverware.

Last year I hung small plates as well as the cups.

If you can’t find already made up ornaments (I’ve been lucky with TJ Maxx), a few years ago I took little teacups and saucers from the thrift store and glued the two together (example above). You could also use those play children’s tea sets.

If I had room I’d do a tree  in my kitchen and hang kitchen stuff off it! Fortunately I don’t :)

Finally, I’d like to show you the beautiful burlap table runner the Becky @ Sweet Cottage Dreams made for me. She had a give away last month and I was lucky enough to be one of the winners!

As I told her, I had been wanting to make one for the longest but never got around to it. So how perfect that I won one of hers!

Look at the pretty double ruffle she added! Thank you Becky – I really really love it!

Well gang that’s it for me until next year. I’m going to take a break from blogging. I plan on reading some good books, my daughter and I are working on a puzzle and I’m going to watch season 6 of Gilmore Girls (again) plus a whole lot of other things that have nothing to do with decorating or renovating.

I hope you all make time to really enjoy this holiday season and I hope it’s filled with nothing but good things for each of you.              

How To Make Your Own Dyed Bottle Brush Trees and Other Holiday Decorations

 
              (Christmas 2009 photo)
Hi everyone! I hope you all had scrumptious Thanksgivings and everyone got along! We had a wonderful day (the weather was summer like). We had dessert on the porch! Of course this morning it was in the 20’s – that’s Georgia weather for ya.

I’m decorating for Christmas this week (I’m not doing too much this year since I don’t want to have to pack up a lot of stuff) but I thought some of you might like to know how to make your own dyed bottle brush trees since it’s so easy and they’re so inexpensive compared to ones you can purchase.

Plus you can customize them to your colors. I (of course) did mostly red, yellow and silver last year. These would be pretty in pink, blue, green etc!
Click here: How To Bleach and Dye Bottle Brush Trees

This is a really really easy wreath I made last year out of pom poms!
Click here: How To Make A Pom Pom Wreath

Here’s a red and white tree I made from felt along with some bottle brush trees.
Click here:How To Make A Felt Rosette Tree

A yarn tree - which has got to be the easiest tree to make. All you do is get a cone (Dollar store/Michaels/etc) and wrap yarn around it until it’s totally covered. I added a pom pom to the top. You can also see a bit of a tree that I decoupaged with scrapbook paper.

                  (A button tree & glitter snowball)
I was really into making trees last year! This year I’m making my some easy garlands.

Above are unfinished birdhouses from the Dollar Tree that I decopauged one year with Christmas scrapbook paper and some letters to spell “JOY”. Have a look through the Archives for more ideas. You can search by category or just look at November/December posts from previous years.

I’ll be back next week with some Christmas decorations and then I’m taking a break until January or so. I won't be working on any house projects during that time so I'll have more time to finally catch up with you all!

Thanks for dropping by today and have a wonderful weekend!

Cozying Up For Fall

Hello everyone! Long time no see :)



We have some very early mornings as our daughter has some 8 am classes. So that means she has to leave at 7 am for her drive into Atlanta, which means we’re up before the crack of dawn. Let me just say…we are not early morning people - dog included!



On those mornings my husband and I enjoy our coffee by candlelight. It’s a gentle way of waking up on those "it's waaaay too early I should still be sleeping" days! We don't like to rush in the mornings. I once worked with a woman who made time to take a bath every morning. She'd have her coffee in the tub - I always thought that was so great that she would start her day in such a relaxing way!


I know a lot of people don’t like to burn their “pretty” candles but I don’t have that problem. Use and enjoy what you have is my philosophy because otherwise what's the point of having nice things.



I really love finding unusual candles to mix in with my regular ones.  I buy them here and there, now and then. I'm not one to go out and just buy a whole set/collection of anything. To me that takes all the fun out of shopping!



I also took all our throws out of storage (ottoman with a lid in the living room). I like to have them handy so you can throw one over your lap if you want one.


It’s pretty cozy on those early mornings with the candles flickering, a throw on my lap and hot cup of coffee in my hand. Makes getting up in the dark almost bearable!