New Year's Eve

Can't believe the last weekend of the year is upon us.

Have a wonderful New Year's Eve.

Christmas Day

Christmas Day was spent just north a NYC. We spent just over two hours driving from Philadelphia. Thankfully it was a breeze crossing the George Washington bridge with the light holiday traffic.
Not on purpose, no really, Mick and I are shirt matching.  : )

Spent two days with Eric, Kristen and her family.

Hopefully Eric put his deer door bell on his apartment door. He could leave this up all year long considering he has two mounted deer heads hanging on his walls.

His gifts were all wrapped with a craft paper theme.

Christmas day dinner was turkey. Served on a beautiful decorated table.

Gone are all Christmas's with everyone at home. We are so blessed to be able to see both Amie and Eric even thou we couldn't all be together.

Christmas Eve

Prior to our Christmas Eve dinner of prime rib we walked the streets of Philadelphia. It was in the mid 50's, not my typical Christmas Eve weather.

The mosaic wall was really neat. It's actually an entrance to a pub.

Amie had the apartment looking so nice. She painted the canvases herself and the feather wreath is one of my thrift store finds, minus the bow. She made the garland by stringing pom poms from a craft store onto string.

A silver tree decorated with gold balls.

My favorite photo from Christmas Eve. I love the photo opportunites the streets of a ctiy have to offer.

Pennsylvania Ballet

My first ever ballet and it was The Nutcracker. This was Mick's second ballet. He saw a performance when he was at Columbia. The theatre, in Philadelphia, is beautiful. I wish I could have taken a photo of the ballet but it was not allowed.

Amie suggested we attend and made all the arrangements.

I didn't want to blink during the performance for fear I would miss something.

Amie is making plans for me to come back in the spring and attend another ballet. Leigh Anna, meet us there!!

Wordless Wednesday

Merry Christmas

Have the merriest day. May this day bring peace to all.

Wordless Wednesday

Holiday Mantel

My ode to Eric and Amie holiday mantel.

The deer antler from Eric and Amie has a current obsession with mercury glass. 

I realize this is not to everyone's taste but I love it.

I'm going to leave this vignette up all though January.

Wrapping Mess

Is it me or does everyone have a huge mess when they wrap gifts?

I wrap in the kitchen so I can occasionally glace up at the television.

Some of the finished gifts separated out and ready for delivery.

Such a busy time of year.

Wordless Wednesday

Yankee Candle

If you have an artificial tree and even if you have a real tree, there is nothing better than the smell of Yankee Candle's Christmas Wreath.

I've been burning the Christmas Wreath scent for years and it smells exactly like pine. I have noticed that it's getting harder to find. I hope Yankee is not thinking about discontinuing.

Christmas Greens

I like to decorate with fresh greens at Christmas. I trespass at an "undisclosed location" to cut my greens. Mick has name recognition with the company that owns the property so I cut hoping that if I get caught I can name drop.

Not quite sure if I'm liking this arrangement. Maybe when I light the candle.

This is the first year I've put greens on the kitchen counter & I'm liking how this looks.

Even with all the greens I don't have much of a pine smell. Although, I have a way to fix that.

Wordless Wednesday

Christmas Tree Craft

A Styrofoam cone.

Sprayed with adhesive and then wrapped with yarn.

The Scotch super 77 is amazing. I used it on a couple other projects around the house and it worked better than any other spray glue I've used in the past, bought at Michael's using a 40% off coupon.

I now have a forest on the sofa table.

I'm not quite sure about the old barn board running down the middle of the sofa table. Mick bought it for $5.00. It was cut to fit the kitchen table but I didn't like how it looked.

Bleached Bottle Brush Trees

At the end of the Christmas season last year I bought a package of 21 bottle brush trees.

Over the weekend I bleached the trees using a mixture of one gallon of hot water and a 1/4 cup of bleach. I then soaked the trees for about 20 minutes. One tree took a bit longer.

 I've seen bleached trees that are then decorated with glass balls and glitter snow. I preferred to leave mine plain.

 I wasn't sure if I would try the bleaching the trees. In fact ,Amie had to talk me into the bleaching.

I really like how they look. Although, I would not bleach any of the old bottle brush trees that I have.

Thanksgiving Day

Our 22 pound turkey looked and tasted wonderful. I need to roast turkey more often.

I used the same tablecloth, napkins, plates and place cards, etc. as last year. Although, I did have to make six extra place cards.

I bought a Groupon from a company to print photo books. Going to make a six inch by eight inch book of our Thanksgiving. Will include recipes on a few of the photographs. Amie got me started with Photoshop instructions. I keep a cheat sheet & hopefully I can figure it out.

We had pumpkin pie, apple crisp and raspberry pie squares for dessert. I eat pumpkin pie once a year. Like turkey, I should make pumpkin pie more often.

We had a wonderful meal and day, except for the part about the Dallas Cowboy's winning.

Wordless Wednesday

Blog Anniversary

Today is the start of my fifth year of blogging.
I.Can.Not.Believe.It.
This will be my 910th post.
I.Can.Not.Believe.It.
How or why I keep going, I can't even explain.
I've had the blog entries printed into three hard cover books. When 2011 is over I'll have that printed into a book also. (I used the company blog2print.)
Since I can't have a post without a photo, a Salt Shaker Snow Globe.

A large salt shaker, from an antique store, filled with white glitter and a bottle brush tree, also from a antique store.

Next I want to make Mason Jar Snow Globes.

  Above image from Antropologie.

Thanksgiving Day

I have so much to be thankful for, today and everyday.

Wordless Wednesday

Antiquing/Thrifting

Our local thrift store had several boxes of old glass ornaments. Since I have lots several already being

stored in the basement, decided to only buy this one box, mainly because of the red ornament with the gold crown.  

 This shoe gadget, used by cobblers, was bought at the local antique shop.

 My "O'de to Michelle Obama."

 I wore the pin to work today and received a complement. All the pins Michelle wears costs in the hundreds of dollars. Mine was $3.00.

 I thought I remembered a project using a whisk broom that I saw on Pinterest. I was wrong, the project was using a whisk scrub brush. If anyone has ideas on what I can do with this. No, sweeping involved thou.

 A white feather wreath, it's beautiful and all the rage now. We bought it for 50 cents. I'm letting Amie have the wreath.

Please believe me, this is the first I've purchsed anything while antiquing & thrifting in several months. I've been concentrating on cleaning out. We showed up at the thrift store with a donation bag. Thankfully, more left the house than what was brought back in.  

Butternut Squash

Mick bought at a grocery store butternut squash, grown at a local farm, for 29 cents a pound.

 I wish I would have had him buy more than five.

I've already cooked the squash and sealed in bags for the freezer.

Have you figured out that our Thanksgiving menu includes Butternut Squash?