Part I: Virtual Christmas Tour

It's that time of year! You are cordially invited to my virtual Christmas Open House! (Not that you don't know how, but I thought I'd throw out a few decorating pointers as we tour...)

Decorating your home for the holidays can be exhausting... because our house is small and there's not lots of storage, I've stored all the decorations in the attic in marked storage containers. The day before I begin the task at hand, the "hubster" cleans off the carport area, brings out several folding tables, and then hauls all 12 or 14 boxes down the stairs. We set the boxes on the tables and I begin the "sort". I keep all boxes on the carport except THE ribbon box. This keeps the house relatively straight as I progress from room to room.

I know that this will horrify some of you, but I change my decorations yearly. As much as I love some of my things, sometimes it's just nice to play outside the sand pile and do it up differently. I do NOT use every decoration every year. (12-14 boxes? Are you kidding?)

This year, my woodland themed animals wandered into the living room rather than hanging out in the dining room. With that change, came some color changes...even though I am a traditional green and red girl through and through, this year, I used turquoise in the living room area.

My foyer is Annie Sloan duckegg blue, so this color selection blended nicely.

I love birds and through the years I've collected bird ornaments, many, many nests (many) and bottle brush ornaments. I have a special place in my heart for the little owl fellow below. I buy most of my Christmas items AFTER Christmas..love those sales!



Pictured below is just one of many (nests)...
you know the old legend...
If you have a nest in your Christmas tree,
you will have good fortune in the new year.
Well, I'm not superstitious, but it never hurts to
have a few nests in the old tree.

 

I bring in a huge box of ribbon. I have kept every scrap of ribbon I've ever used at Christmas through the years. Speaking of bang for your buck...that's wired ribbon. And at 50-75% off....it's a steal. And yes,

I untie each bow every year, wrap the ribbon and put each type ribbon in a zip loc bag.

I work out of the ribbon box every day that I decorate...did I mention that while my house is small, decorating it is a labor of love and takes as long as the White House to decorate?

I know, I know...when are we going to lose the brass fireplace screen?

Well, let me tell you a little secret, while I love birds, I have a horror of them swooping down my chimney. So the answer is...never.

(Something to do with seeing Hitchcock's The Birds when I was younger.)

My garland is laced with mushroom hummingbirds, blue birds, nests and a butterfly.

The Peter's pottery vase was an anniversary present and holds feathers, seed pods and glittered curly twirly things...the "hubster" is a glitter hater. Can you imagine?

I made and beaded the crazy quilt stockings several years ago.

My sister gave me brush deer...ever one to help me along with the "annual theme".

Also, notice the large containers of Christmas ornaments. Speaking of a thrifty way to decorate!

They add pops of color everywhere. You will see them throughout the house.

So you don't like themes?

Let me explain. Sometimes they are overdone and I don't like that either.

But themed decorating, if it's used correctly, can be a wonderful "jumping off" point when you are having decorator's block.

So don't frown so when I mention the "T" word!

I am not a purist in the purest sense of the word.

This vignette has absolutely nothing to do with woodland animals,

but every woodland needs a gnome with red underwear.

This was my mother's secretary and some years I gussie her up and some years I don't do as much.

This year I just added a chickadee tassel, some greenery, and a checked bow.

The mercury glass heart says "Faith" and I think that's a guiding principle..so Faith it is!

Here we go again...when are we going to let go of the oak entertainment center?

It's too great for storage...again, never.

It houses my redware plate collection, my salt glaze pottery, books and on the top in the middle is the "hubster's" grandmother's dough bowl...no, it stays.

I have a thing for Mackenzie Childs...however, due to champagne taste and a beer budget...this bird box

(on deep sale) is the only thing in the whole catalog I could afford...but look at that detail!

She sits by my chair in the living room..oh, the stories she can tell about the rich and the famous.

More of those ornaments!

Because this is such an involved process, I decided to invite you back tomorrow for the dining room and kitchen tour. I think you've really had quite enough of me tonight..

We will tour and talk about editing tomorrow.

Thanks for coming along...

BTW: pardon the autumn blog header...it was the tour or the header...I went with the tour!

Fairy Tales....

Today the Coach and I drove to the edge of the Delta to see the progress of my sister, Leslie's,

Fairy Garden

 

Welcome to the Fairy Garden!

. (Notice hand built ladder being tested by its builder.)We all agreed it is great.

To understand our fascination with all things FAIRY...you must know that

our grandparents (on my father's side) lived in a fieldstone house surrounded by huge old oak trees.

Grandmother was somewhat eccentric (imagine that!) but had a great imagination. We spent many fun

hours at that house roaming the yard and poking in the abundant little doodle bug holes that were

 around the bottoms of the oaks. There were tons of acorns, feathers, sticks, seeds and assorted other

enchantments that led to stories of fairies, gnomes and benevolent birds and such.

When we spent the night with Grandmother,

Leslie and I slept in the "guest" bedroom at her house

and it was grand to us!

The bed was a  four poster "pineapple" bed with the most wonderful feather pillows

and a pink satin feather quilt! You felt as though you were sleeping on a cloud.

Before we'd go to sleep Grandmother would read some of

the poem Hiawatha to us and then tell us stories about the creatures in the oak trees..

.(I personally liked the story about the little pink bird who lived in the pink house and used all pink china...)

So when Leslie called to tell me she was making a fairy garden in the shade of an overgrown bush in her front yard, it did not surprise me one bit.

I felt you'd like to see bits and pieces of what is under construction.

 This carefully constructed house is one of the centerpieces of the garden. The entire garden is only in its infancy...there are so many possibilities and we spent quite a while discussing them...

even though it was rather warm. (Remember she's the outdoorsy one...I prefer a/c.)

However, when it comes to fairy business, even I will hang around outside.

Here is another house with a frightful cat at its door.

(My sister has always loved cats as much as I detest them. She once trained one to leap out from under the couch and scare me senseless every time I walked through the living room. I hear you laughing, Leslie.) 

This little kitty seems to be as ferocious as those she trained so long ago.

We moved the American flag..it's scale was wrong.

Notice the angel on the left...she's also

afraid of said kitty.

So she just sits aimlessly outside the house as if waiting on the beast to leave the premises.

 

Another part of the garden is the Lily Pad...which is currently under construction (oh, there's that flag again)and hasn't been landscaped as of this morning. (The vintage wagon was an early Christmas present from a friend's mother.) My nephew said that the Lily Pad sounds like a bar...which is just might be or it might be a tea room for the fairies...they've got to unwind somewhere..

My contribution was the frog...I'm the realist in the family.

This is Leslie's rendition of a fairy topiary. I like the pennies...and the touch of pearls.

There are other little parts of this fairy town but they are still under wraps...the wooden fence that runs all around the area...at night there are tiny white lights that light the path of the fence and outline the various structures....metal scrolls outline the wood fence...very fairy-ish. Ferns and woodland flowers must still be selected and planted. Paths must be installed and blue glass pebbles added to a coming water feature.

Mulch is coming in by the yards and more structures will be added in the trees... LIKE  MAYBE A PINK BIRDHOUSE WITH A PINK BIRD WHO USES ALL PINK CHINA!

Now, you might think we are loony...

but I am now past 62 (see below) and she isn't far behind...so we are to that glorious phase in our lives where we don't really care if anybody thinks we are loony...

We are carrying on a family tradition of looniness and fairy loving, 

"Scatter Shooting" & Decorating Tips for the New Year

A quick post to wish you all a Happy New Year and some ramblings from me to you...My son and his family will soon be moving into a home that was built a number of years ago...we've been mulling over color choices and I thought you might enjoy seeing the process unfold.
We are dealing with 1960's and 70's colors...particularly avocado green in a bathroom! So daughter in law, Robin and I pulled this avocado Fire King cup (shown below) from one of the display tables in our shop, Dwellings, and began formulating a design plan and color palette. (Click on image to see close up.)

This green is so very 60/70'ish that we decided to treat it as the "neutral" in the room. Below you will see the fabric that I am using in my "office" at the shop and we decided on that color palette which uses medium blue, turquoise, avocado and lime.

(To make shelves in the office, I turned dresser drawers on their sides and stacked them in the corner.) If you will look closely you will see the colors we chose.

Precious melmac plates from the era give us good strong shapes to use.

The little girl with the goose statue adds orange as the contrasting "pop" of color!

Close up of the colors we like.

My motto has always been, when you are handed a decorating problem (ie avocado) and don't have a million bucks to throw at it...use common sense and incorporate the "offending" color. But make sure you use colors you do LOVE with it! We will show you how this works as we move along.
Moving right along...I found this cute little white hamper this weekend

and have it priced reasonably at the shop.

It is small and would make a wonderful little addition to a little girl's room

...or maybe painted and put in your little ball player's room!

Next...onto my latest obsession...teabag roses! Heavens!

It's always something!

I can't say I'm responsible for this idea,

but these are the cutest little paper roses!

Let me tell you how they were made.

Directions:

To make, use a "used teabag".

Cut off the string and top of the bag,open the bag,

empty the grounds into the garbage, and rinse the bag well.

Then let the bag dry.

(The steeped tea dyes the paper a beautiful aged color.)

When dry, cut the paper in half lengthwise.

You will have two sides to make two roses.

At this point, fold one of the papers lengthwise.

I begin rolling the paper around a toothpick to make the center of the rose, remove the toothpick, and then continue scrunching and rolling the paper until it makes a little rose.

I trim off the bottom and hot glue the rose to the desired surface.

If you want to make roses for later use,

I'd suggest paper clipping the bottom to hold it until you need it.

Above are the roses used on my wicker baby shoe tassels. (For sale at Dwellings.)

Below are the roses used in small silver baby cups

with tiny bird's nest and a card of welcome.

(These are also for sale.) Cute baby gift!


I also decided to make a small sewing basket containing old wooden thread spools.

For these roses, I used old dress patterns!


Enough of my "scatter shooting"!!
Hope you're all healthy and happy!

"Twittering and Fluttering"

I found two new blogs today and they both use lots of birds' nests! Well, that attracted me right off...they had the cutest ideas...who are they? Well, one is Liberty Biberty and the other is Treasures From the Heart Gifts. I liked their "stuff" so much that I pinned several things on my Pinterest boards! I've really had a great time on Pinterest...I hope you are using it. It's just the greatest virtual bulletin board I've ever seen.

With all the "twitter" about birds' nests, I decided to "tweak my leaf pictures from yesterday...see below AND photo some of my bird nest collection. Some nests are purchased, some are my own creation...if I were a bird, I'd use mine because they are crocheted from the softest prettiest yarns. They even have built in feathers and moss! (You do know that if you have a nest in your Christmas tree, that good fortune follows you all year, don't you?) Wonder what happened to my good fortune? We had two flat tires on the same day, my brakes went out and my dishwasher said Adios, and the knee catastophe... all in the space of a month.

Some of my bird related items....old bird pencil box. Wonder who the sweet little chickadee was who used this box to hold all her pencils and treasures?

Nest watercolor I picked up at the Flea Market, Peter's bluebird and straw and pine cone nest.

Living room arrangement of dried florals and a small feather nest in right bottom corner.

Small signed, handcarved and painted Chickadee that I also got at the FM. (I am like a bird detective.) The next three pics are my crocheted nests. I sell these at Christmas. Each has added feathers, moss and a small egg.




I love the look of the golden eggs in the nest in the compote...some people may be getting the idea that I have bird fever...or are some kind of loon...that's bird humor.



Entertainment center nests...hummm, this is sort of boring. I promise, just a few more...

White porcelain birdie I picked up at an Estate sale...ok, I'm stopping. This has made me question my sanity...no wonder people think I'm always "fluttering" as the hubster calls it...I need to re-evaluate. But before I do...I changed out the pictures in the guest bath...remember this mini makeover? Well, those leaf pictures looked sort of out of place and since I had two from the previous "red" bohemian look...I began to "think"...uh, oh.

Once before the boho look, they were oriental prints from Kirkland's. I took out the pics and cut up a beautiful placemat and framed the pieces for the red guest bath. Now, what could I do with them? Tear them apart again..cover the mats with tissue, Mod Podge, paint on white swirls, spray paint the frames Hammered Brown, copy some free bird related (yikes!) prints from The Graphics Fairy and whala...

Now, I'm not bragging, but I think they are just plain pretty.

They look much better than those leaf prints...so if anyone thinks I'm a little over the top with my collection of birds...then the look below is what you will get from yours truly...that's one mad chick!!

Come by and party with us At The Picket Fence

and The Shabby Chic Cottage

and at I Believe In Love click here

and Frugal Friday at Shabby Nest.

and Funky Junk Interiors.

Hope all your collections get you all in a flutter,