Just Hanging Around

For me there is just something happy about garlands and buntings and hanging decorations in general.

Maybe it's the association of celebrating.

Whatever it is, hanging bits of pretty make me smile.



When I first joined Pinterest, one of the first boards I created was called Hanging Around.

I have pinned all sorts of hanging things....

fabric, shells, rose petals, globes, paper, ribbon...

you name it, I've pinned it.

The last time I went to Canton, I saw a sweet little garland created from doilies.  This garland also had letters hanging from it (I can't remember what it spelled out), as well as, baby shoes, ribbons and bits of this and that.  It was pretty, but not quite what I wanted.  So before we left I made a second stop (I had already purchased a huge bag full of textiles) at the linen lady's booth to pick up a handful of doilies in just the right neutral shades.



This was so insanely easy to make!

I took several yards of seam binding and simply folded the end of each doily over it and ran a zigzag stitch across the doily and seam binding to secure it in place.

Voila! 

Easy and pretty, to boot.

More Catalog Inspiration

As I was flipping through Pottery Barn's April catalog, I came to a screeching halt when I saw this photo.

The table was not what caught my eye... sorry Pottery Barn.

It was the books.  Specifically the stamped numbers on them.

I have lots of old books scattered around my home and I also have book innards (as I like to call them) lying about too.

When I make journals I use unloved library books, purchased from the library. I gut them and use the covers/spine as a base for the journals. So I have a lot of book innards.

Just what I needed for this project.

 Because my books were too bright I made a tea bath for them and I'm a messy crafter so I did this outside.

And I remembered how hot the bath was when I went to push the book down with my finger.

Of course, I didn't bring out any type of utensil for pushing/flipping the books.

And just so you know, in case you too want to do this, a stick tends to get mushy and quite worthless as a pushing/flipping utensil.  Best to remember to bring out some tongs with you.

Once the books were the color I wanted, I laid them out to dry.

A heat gun helps speed this process up.

Now for the fun part.  The part that this project was all about.

I simply used some number stamps (foam worked best here, because I was able to conform the stamp to the tea warped spine) and Tim Holtz Distress Ink.

Distress Ink is totally the best.

In my humble opinion.

Once the ink was dry (in no time at all) I was able to get to work creating new and pretty vignettes around the house.

Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

A quick and fun project.

Thank you, Pottery Barn, for the inspiration.

Let the Festivities Begin

I had a couple of days of
baahumbugness
happening this week.

But thankfully it passed

and I was able to enjoy putting up some of the
Christmas decorations.

Even though I didn't put everything out this year and kept it all pretty simple,

the house sure is looking all sparkly and festive.

I hope you have a beautiful weekend!

Color

For the most part, I am a muted color kinda gal.

I've never been much into bright and bold colors.
But that seems to be what my December Daily is.

And pastel colors have never really grabbed me.
But I seem to keep going back to this post and gazing at the photo.
(and not just because they look sooo yummy!)

I'm somewhere in between.
I like color, but more of the dusky variety.
(as long as it's not too dark.)

Am I making sense?
Or have I put down too many words here... making it sound complicated?
(I do that sometimes... make things much more complicated than they need be.)

What seems to be complicating to me at the moment
are my Christmas decorations.

They used to be deep jewel-toned.
But two years ago I got rid of all of it and went mainly neutral.

Now the crux of it is,
I'm craving color again.

If anyone needs advice on how to make a simple life much more complicated,
let me know.
I'm sure I can give you a pretty nice and hefty list.
;)

Have a beautiful Wednesday.

She Just Can't Stop

...crafting Christmas decorations, that is! And I still need to get my Christmas cards made and mailed... ack!

Here is another project from Teresa's 12 Days e-zine.

A front door hanging, but I have put mine just inside my front door. I didn't really vary too far from her original design. But I did use different materials than she did... fabric, fringe and left over bits of this and that.

Like I said, I still need to get my Christmas cards done, but I SO want to make one of these! Oh my word! I think it's just gorgeous and would look so lovely hanging on the mirror above my dining room sideboard.
And also, I want to finish my Lineage of Love garland that I started in Pam Garrison's class, so I can hang it up too.

But, alas... I'm off to get those cards started! Have a beautiful day!

I've Been Framed!

Okay, well not actually me. It's my dining room wall.

About six months ago, I decided it was time to retire the wrought iron adornments that were previously hanging here. Coincidentally, I made that decision the moment I found the gorgeous antique oval frame. From that point on, I was on the hunt! They had to be the right patina of weathered gold, made of wood and not 65 dollars. That last one has been tricky to find around here. Which is why at the moment there are only three. But, I'll be back on the hunt full force, after the New Year.

As you can see, I've spent the last couple of days dressing them up.

This first one, is my take on one of Teresa's latest e-zine projects. Hers was actually a wreath, but I decided on a garland instead.

I was going to glitter a few of the leaves with some silver glass glitter, but really just didn't have the time, so added the jingle bells instead.


For this one, I took the vintage image plaque, that I already had, and just glued some gold foliage to the back. I had a few extra paper holly leaves left over from the garland so I tucked those in too.

And this one, will no longer make the dogs bark at the front door.

What?
Let me explain...
The big jingle bells used to be attached to a thong of gold vinyl, that was made to hang on a door knob. It was ugly. But I used to hang it on the front door anyway. And the dogs learned, a long time ago, that at this time of year if they heard loud jingle bells, then someone was opening the front door. Which of course means, if you are one of my crazy dogs, that you must run as fast as you can, while barking as loud as you can, to the front door to either greet or eat whomever it may be. But unfortunately for them, we got a beautiful, new front door this year and I wasn't about to mar it with that ugly jingle bell thing. So this is what I did with it instead. And as you can probably guess, there was A LOT of barking and running and confusion during the alteration.
Funny dogs.

Till next time, have a beautiful day!

Holiday Home Tour

Welcome and come in, come in! It's chilly out there, isn't it.

Ignore the dog, she's just trying to sneak out for a romp, even though she knows better.
Well, you're in luck. I just put the kettle on... would you like a hot cup of tea?

Did you have a nice weekend? I spent the whole weekend feathering my nest for Christmas. Feel free to look around!

This is our sitting room, and where we put our tree every year.


Our dining room.

You can never have too many candles lit while dining, if you ask me.


And here is our family room.

Come stand by the fire place and get good and toasty before you have to go.

Well that's it! Thank you for stopping by to visit.

I wish you a happy and cozy Holiday Season!

*************

I just found out that the shell ornaments that I made last year are being featured here. She has all kinds of cute, beachy ornie ideas.
Have a beautiful Monday!

Decking the Halls

That's what I've been doing instead of laundry.
So, I thought I'd share just a few picture of my Christmas decorations.

This is my mantle.

There were a couple of close ups on the last post.

The other side of the mantle (it's a corner fireplace).


Stocking hung by the chimney with care.

I made the stockings several years ago and am still pleased with them. The nail heads of the nails holding them up there were driving me insane (ocd... it's okay, you can say it) so I covered them up by tying creamy vintage buttons onto them with twine.

The top of the entertainment center. Ignore the speakers (according to my Farmboy, they are a must have regardless if they are aesthetically pleasing or not).


The sideboard in the dining room. The old music book (love it) is opened to a song titled "The Elf".

I'm not about to keep it real and show you the dining room table though. It's completely covered with crafting stuff, as is the kitchen table and my desk in my studio space. I'm hoping to get control of that soon.

I actually have quite a few little vignettes set up around the house and half finished decorations that will hopefully get done and hung up before next week, but let's go ahead and move on to the front porch now.

I whipped this up last night.


And this is a little corner of the front porch.

Once again, please ignore the ugly bits. In this case it would be the extension cords. I've been trying to figure out what to do with those, but I'm still drawing a blank. They have to be there because they are what is lighting up the wreaths on the windows and the deer in the yard. Yep, that's right! I've got some white trash deer in my yard and I LOVE THEM!!! They have crystals on them so they glitter and they turn their little heads. (heehee)

Okay, now for the tree. But first I would like to thank all of you who stood behind me in my quest to replace the Charlie Brown tree.

Good news! We succeeded!
So since tradition has been thrown out the window for me, with my parents now living on their paradise island, I decided to take it a step further and an get a non-traditional tree. I wasn't too sure how the Farmboy was going to take it, he's a pretty traditional kinda guy, but he loves it as much as I do.

I know, this is a really odd angle for a picture, but it was the best way to show you the color of it. It's a gorgeous champagne color tinsel tree...not quite gold and not quite silver. I've always wanted a tinsel tree. Since I was a kid in fact. I'm pretty sure that desire came from watching Charlie Brown every single year. Don't get me wrong, I love a real tree... the smell and just getting to go to a tree lot to pick one out (no cutting anything down here in North Texas. There's nowhere to do that, but the lots are still fun). We had real trees when I was little and I loved them, but I always thought the tinsel ones where such a cool novelty.

Anyway back to the new tree. I hung a few balls on it so the Farmboy could see it a little dressed up when he got home. Worked like a champ!

This weekend when Capin' Davy Cannonswine comes home we'll put the family ornaments and the star on it. I'll make all three of them listen to Christmas music, drink hot chocolate and then drive around town looking at Christmas lights. They will complain the whole time about it (the Farmboy will do it silently), but that won't phase me at all! I know someday when the boys are grown they will think back about it with fondness and then make their kids do it too.
:)

A Little of This and a Bit of That

A few things that have been keeping me busy...

I taught a card class for my Crafter's Business group. We had our holiday get together and part of our merry making was creating cards. I taught one and one of our organizers taught another one. Loads of fun!

Pretty kits ready to go.


And this was the final product. The great image is a French postcard download that I got from Ranjini of Scrapologie. She's posting a vintage Christmas image a day, this month, as a sweet holiday treat. She also has a selection for sale in her Boutique.

I've been slowly decorating. I got E to pull everything out of the attic last Thursday (I won't go up there... it wiggs me out and makes me wish, for a moment, that we lived up North where basements exist). But once everything was down and my house looked like a storage room (a very messy one I might add) I felt overwhelmed and left it like that for a couple of days. Yesterday I started opening boxes and placing things here and there. However, seems I'm not even going to use half of the stuff in all of those boxes.

My Farmboy was bitten by the Christmas bug a couple of weeks ago and agreed that it was time for a color scheme change. And quite frankly, I really like looking at my everyday stuff and didn't want to put it away, so the majority of it is going to stay out and I'm just accessorizing around it. Oh, and when the bug bit the Farmboy, he started picking out pretty brown and champagne balls which was totally crazy, because I had been trying to think of a way to convince him that that was what we needed, but hadn't mentioned it to him yet! Then last night, I went to Target, which I had not been to since before they put out their Christmas stuff and low and behold, those seem to be one of the popular colors this season... and I didn't even know. The planets are aligned evidently.

Teresa is in the middle of her Comfort and Joy ezine. The first project was a crown.

Here is mine. So far this is the only one I've done. I'm really hoping to do some more of the projects before the end of the week.

I finally tried my hand at bleaching bottle brush trees from the craft store.

For some reason I was shocked at how easy it was. I really love them this creamy yellow bleached out color. I got busy when I was doing the bigger ones and forgot about them. Note to self... forgotten trees sitting in bleach become brittle and have a tendency to look like drowned rats once finally remembered and dried. I would really like to find some really large trees to do this with. Like 10 -12 inches high. Anyone know where I can get some? There are a couple of vintage ones just this color at my local antique store, but I can't justify the price they want for them.

Let's see, what else. Oh, I've been making Christmas presents.

These are totally inspired by the article in the latest Somerset Life. And they really weren't as difficult as I expected them to be. That's always a good thing.

And lastly, I had E put up the Christmas tree last night. Would someone PLEASE convince my Farmboy that it really is time for a new tree!

He loves this tree so much because it's a symbol of, well several things actually, because he purchased it after his divorce. But I really think it's time. I "lived" with it like this last year. Yes, I know... you're as shocked as me. He did manage to get some of those dark areas to light up last year, but not all of them. It really is a sad little Charlie Brown tree with some of it's lights not working and branches drooping pathetically. I just don't know that I can pull off another Peanut's gang transformation again this year. He's coming home tomorrow night from being out of town for over a week now and I'm crossing my fingers that he will finally agree to a new one. So do you think I should leave it as is for him to see or maybe hang a few balls on it first. Let me know what ya think.

I'm off to finish decorating and do more creating. Have a beautiful day!

More Decor

The last couple of days have been great! I've spent them puttering around the house and creating just for me. I can't tell you how wonderful that feels... creating stuff just for me! I haven't done that in SO long. Although, I really should be working on Silver Bella swaps, but...

So one of the things I've been doing is more Halloween decorating. The pictures I shared before were of the sideboard in my dining room. This week I've spooked up my fireplace mantle. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE how it has turned out. I feel like I'm starting to get kinda good at this whole styling thing! I should probably thank Heather Bullard at this point. She is such an amazing inspiration when it comes to styling and decorating!

Okay, let me show you. Please keep in mind that I think these photos could really be better. The lighting is odd in this room and my Farmboy took the tripod with him when he went out of town this week. I was going to retake them this morning, but Mother Nature has decided today is not a good day for it... it's overcast and rainy. Oh well.






I think I really like how this photo turned out. First of all it's a photo of my great grandmother and her siblings. I printed it on transparency and then layered it over a piece of sheet music that I had lightly dry brushed antique white paint on. I attached that to an artist canvas that I painted black. I rubbed silver pearl powder stuff (sorry I can't remember what it's called and am too lazy to get up and go see) around the edges then wrapped black velvet ribbon with an old rhinestone buckle around it. In person, it has this really nice eerie glow to it.


Let me introduce you to Edgar Allen Crow. HA! I crack me up!



The banner is a tutorial from the Sweet and Sinister Blog. I think it was the first one... I'm always behind... they are on like the 527th tutorial now, I'm just finishing the first. Anyway, this is my version of it. Love the simplicity and of course the polka dots!


Our fireplace is kinda strange. It's a corner fireplace, so it opens at the front, as well as on one side and the mantle wraps around the corner. So here is the side.

Well, that's just one of the things I've been up to. Thanks for taking a peek!

Have a beautiful day. :)