Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Tackle it Tuesday

As you can tell, I love blog parties...they are just genius! I would never have stumbled onto some of the best ideas and met the nicest ladies if not for Blog Parties. They are just too fun! So today, over at 5 Minutes for Mom, it is Tackle it Tuesday. Basically you pick something that you have been procrastinating on or something that is just sort of nagging at the back of your mind all the time and you tackle it. So today my project is my cute Parting Favors for my Cookie Exchange coming up on Sunday. I know! I know! They should be finished, but that's why I have to tackle them today. Here's a sneak peek at what I have before me...I don't think it will give too much away to the ladies who are coming to the exchange and reading my blog.
So tonight after work, I'll be printing, cutting, mixing etc to get these puppies finished. I can't reveal what I am going to do with them today, but I will post next Tuesday about what I did with them...and just a hint...I'll be participating in more than one party...I'll get to post on all the Tasty Tuesday parties...yeah! Okay off to work, TaTa for now!

Monday, November 30, 2009

Vintage Christmas Monday

Over at Anything Goes Here it is Vintage Christmas Monday. I love this little party because I LOVE vintage Christmas. My favorite decorations are heirlooms from my grandmothers or Salvation Army Treasures. Today I'd like to share one of my SA treasures, my pink ornaments...they're just too cute!
This adorable tree occupies a space on my Vanity in the Master Bathroom. I picked the pink balls in July of 08 and started brainstorming ideas...I just love how the pearls (which also come from the SA and yard sales and one strand was my grandmother's), the boa and the feathers just work together to create a tree that is just lovely.
It is definitely a girlie tree...lucky for me PC indulges me at this time of year and let's me be as girlie as I want. BTW - I call this tree...Marilyn. Tata for now!

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

And the break comes to an end

Before I head off into next week already, I think I'll share a favorite from the week. On Black Friday while thousands of people were out and about trying to get the best bang for the buck, I stayed home, watched old movies, and made old fashioned Christmas decorations with an old friend. It was a very relaxing day with great rewards.


Our friends - Randy & Theresa came from Bakersfield for Thanksgiving and stayed (just like in the old days when family and friends joined you in the country and stayed awhile) overnight. While the boys were golfing ,T and I are staying in and "crafted" little villages..ala Martha Stewart.
They turned out so cute; however it did take all day to do the few we completed. We were noshing on leftovers and watching movies, so maybe it didn't take that long. One twist to Martha's instructions...we used cereal boxes as the chipboard.
Now, I have to hit the ground running...BIG week this week, both at school and at home...Cookie Exchange! I can't wait! TaTa for now!

Apology and an Outdoor Wednesday

This part of the post is an apology; I am sorry for disappearing from the blog world, I have no excuse other than life got in the way and something had to give for awhile. It happened rather quickly and I am still unsure of how much time I can devote to this thing I love to do; I love posting on my blog and I love reading so many of your many blogs. I have been seeking balance and now think I am ready to try this one more time. I do love this art and I missed it. It's good to be back.

With that said, I am participating in Outdoor Wednesday hosted by A Southern Day Dreamer! It seems as though one of the Sycamore trees in our front yard is thoroughly confused by this weather. One day it's cold the next day it's sandal and shorts weather.

Poor tree, it doesn't know if it's coming or going...I feel like this quite often these days and the tree struck me...as if it is saying "it's okay to let go for awhile...life goes on and restores itself in one way or another." It makes sense to me.

Happy Thanksgiving Eve..I know for many of us that means lots of last minute preparations, but what a Joy tomorrow will be! Ta Ta for now!

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Welcome to the First Annual Christmas in July Party!


I am so excited about this party - Christmas is such a wonderful time because of the get-togethers, decorations and just the spirit of Joy!! Some of you are ahead of me and I don't want to keep you waiting so I will put up Mr. Linky now and add my post after dinner (it's still early here). Thank you to all who are participating or gathering ideas. I feel very fortunate to have such creative, graceful and dynamic bloggers stop by my little Internet corner.
This little guy is one of my collection - he has such a sweet face. I started collecting snowmen about 10 years ago without really knowing that I was collecting until one Christmas I looked at my mantel and said "Hey - I have a lot of snowmen!" I can't wait to see your holiday homes and traditions!Updated - 9:00pm - wouldn't you know it - computer is giving me fits - so I have to keep shutting down and starting over! I have already peeked at Jo's' and Robin's Posts. These two ladies are very creative and have beautiful Holiday homes! I thought I had many more photos than I actually do, but I think I'll manage. First I would like to show you the rest of that wooden Santa from this morning. He sits next to one of my favorite trees - the wine tree.
The base of this tree is sitting in a wine glass surrounded by corks. The tree was $1.00 with lights and the glass was a gift. The corks come with the bottles.
The ornaments were made by Momma. They are actually wine charms that get used about 3 times throughout the season. It is such fun tree! The topper is a wine bottle ornament that Momma gave me - isn't it the cutest!?This is the Thanksgiving Table- yep you read that right - Thanksgiving. We have about 16-20 people every year. I start decorating on the Veteran's Day weekend so that our family can enjoy the holiday spirit at Thanksgiving. It is the only time that we all get together at our house during the season, as we go to the In-laws for Christmas morning. It's sort of a joke now - it's called Christmas-giving. I really enjoy it because there is no expectation of presents - it's just the family together in a joyfully decorated home! It gets everyone in the spirit!
PC has been in-charge of deep frying the turkey for the past three years. It works out really well because before deep frying I use to slow cook the bird for about 20 hours. So now my oven is free and the bird is just as juicy.
This is Momma's prize Manger scene - she collects them. It is so beautiful gilded and bejeweled and has the most precious baby Jesus.
The library becomes the Angel room at this time f year. I have been collecting angels since I was a child of about 9 years old. Most of these were gifts including the ornaments on the tree. The photos of the collections are from 2 different years, I change things up a little each year. You have seen this before - but I just love it. I also love how the columns look all wrapped up like a pretty package.
We weren't really expecting the snow storm that we received this year, so I sprayed the french doors to the scrap room to ensure that we had a white Christmas. This tree sat was part of my grammas decorations - I was so thrilled the day Momma gave it to me for my home!This year we had a white Christmas. There were 5 teenagers snowed in with us for 4 days. Thank goodness we had gone grocery shopping the day before. If you look at the entertainment center -I have the Mervyn's (sniff, sniff) village displayed. I have been adding 1 piece a year for about 10 years. NOW I have to start a new village.You can see most of the snowmen collection - I really like snowmen! See the teenagers? They are exhausted from playing in the snow. The blankets draped on the couch were made for each of the kiddos by PC's momma for their first christmas.My laundry room holds my childhood raggedy Ann & Andy. And can you see Santa's clothesline?What you see here is Momma preparing for the bake-a-thon that is about to happen in our home. We have hosted a cookie exchange for the last two years. The first year about 12 women showed up and we had a blast. This year people were asking me for invitations be cause they missed last year and wanted to make sure they were still invited. I use THE expert advice of Robin over at Robin's Web. She has everything that you would ever want to know about hosting an exchange on her site. Momma and I put a lot of hard work into creating a relaxing get-ready for the holiday atmosphere. We host this on the first Sunday of December in the afternoon. This year our theme was gingerbread men. So we put together a recipe booklet for everyone ( we made 30!) with he theme throughout. I wish we had a picture of the invitations - tooo cute. Momma did most of the work this year because I got really bust at work - I don't know what I would have done without her. This year's theme is Snowmen.
While I was away for a conference (the weekend of!) Baby Girl and Momma baked a lot of cookies. This was Baby Girl's first baking project - she did great! She had to roll and slice 8 dozen cookies and then she made another batch of a different kind! But Momma had to tell her a few times to stop texting.
I mixed the dough for these little guys and got a few rolled out but poor momma got stuck with the rest. But she did wait for me to come home to decorate them. They tasted as good as they looked! It was a chewy gingerbread recipe (I'll post it tomorrow for foodie Friday).This was the table for the first year we did the exchange this was our table. I was thrilled! You can see my Santa Collection in the china hutch.We give a prize to he most festively dressed and it is stiff competition for those serious about getting the prize!The second year was unbelievable! SOOOO many cookies. It really is a fun thing to do, we serve appetizers and desert, wine, eggnog and Hot apple cider. I strongly suggest this tradition!

Thanks for stopping by or joining the part today. Hopefully you can take away some inspiration for the upcoming holiday, after all it is only 167 days and 22 hours away! TaTa for now!

Mr. Linky was being weird so we have to use the comment linky...sorry.


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Thrifty Thursday - Christmas in July!



Today I am participating in Leigh's Thrifty Thursday. She hosts this fun day over at Bloggeritaville. Be sure to check out all the great buys these bloggers have found and many have transformed. Also keep Leigh in your prayers, as her family is going through a rough patch.
My Thrifty find is but a ploy to remind you about tomorrow's party! Please join me for the 1st Christmas in July Party! This darling little Santa is wood and stands about 18 inches tall. I had just finished decorating this corner and thought "it needs something". So off to the Salvation Army I went..and there he was for $1.50! I display Santa's in my dining hutch and this little shelf is in the dining nook. Perfect! Okay - off to visit some blogs. Mr. Linky will be available around 9:00 eastern time - I'm soooo excited!
I will give away 2 prizes to randomly selected individual (my first give away!). I will announce the winners on Sunday Morning. The guidelines are listed below - let's have some bloggy fun.
Here are some suggestions (we don't do rules here)to participate:
1. Post photos of one or more of your favorite decorated rooms or vignettes (give us a tour).
2. Post any get togethers you may have (I host a cookie exchange) with the deets so others may "borrow"the idea this holiday.
3. Post any recipe that you serve only during the holiday or give as gifts.
4. Post any creative craft that can be used as a present for teachers, co-workers, etc.
5. Post any traditions that you have - I LOVE traditions.
6. Post any tablescapes (idea bloglifted from Between Naps on The Porch) that you have created for the holidays.
7. Don't forget the most important part of christmas - family - post any photos that you have of your family enjoying all of your hard work , love and creativity.
Remember the more photos the better! Be sure to tell all your blog friends about this event so everyone can participate. Be sure to grab the Christmas in July button at the top of the post and display it in your post on July 10th. Just leave me a comment by Thursday July 9th 9:00 Pacific Standard Time and I will include you on my post.
I forgot something...Collections - do you have pictures of special collections?




Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Outdoor Wednesday - Balloon Glow

Once again I am participating in A Souuthern Daydreamer's Outdoor Wednesday. I love this blog day - all of the posts are so beautiful. My Outdoor adventure today is about man-made beauty. While PC and I were in Ohio, we went to Coney Island Amusement Park with Momma on July 3rd. The park hosted a "Balloon Glow" and then fireworks. It was a visually spectacular day. I had so much fun running from balloon to balloon as they were inflating each one. I laid on the ground, stood on tip-toes and even used PC's panoramic stitching feature! We have been to a few balloon launches when the children were tiny, but by the time the balloons were inflated and launched, it was daylight. Don't get me wrong, seeing all the balloons take flight is magical, but this was just as magical. However, the balloons do not take flight after a "glow", the pilots simply have the "glow" for the beauty. We loved it! Let me share: First they started inflating what we thought "might" be 4 or 5 balloons. Then they just appeared from behind the trees and multiplied into 15 balloons! It was so fun to watch these giants grow from the ground in a matter of an hour. Watching all the hard work by so many people who knew that they weren't taking flight was humbling. To take pleasure in simply lighting a fire.... And then they got their "Glow" on. There was a marching band playing music most of the day and now they were orchestrating the movement of lights from balloon to balloon. Spectacular! On our way of walking out of the park, the carousel was glowing too, isn't it darling?
Then on to the fireworks - one of my favorite things!

You could "feel" these fireworks, as Momma said "from your toes to your nose." It was such a fun day. I am so happy that we went, because it rained all day on the 4th, so we only watched the neighborhood fireworks from my aunt's (use to be gramma's) front porch. That was just as nice too, as I sat and remembered my childhood and twirled a flag with my cousin. I was so thankful for being free to enjoy the day and my family, my only wish was for more time.

Thank you for stopping by, now I'm off to visit all the other bloggers OW adventures. TaTa for now!