Comin' Down

Our tree was really beautiful this year.  Perfect size, perfect shape.  The branches were really sturdy and did not droop with heavy ornaments. I admire the people who have coordinating ornaments on their trees; I, however, am not one of those people.  I have every ornament my kids have ever made (noodles and cheerios glued to cardboard cut out stars included), plus every ornament I have ever received as a gift.  It is a beautiful hodge podge of memories, and I love getting my ornaments out every year and taking that trip down memory lane.

Usually, I leave my tree up until New Year's Day.  This year, though, I think she is coming down early.  Like today.  My allergies can't take it.  My nose won't stop running, I have a persistent cough, and my eyes are terribly itchy.  Some of this is because it has been above freezing and I am allergic to all of the molds outside, but I have a feeling a big culprit is the lovely tree.

So goodbye tree...  how lovely are your branches.

Also coming down are the mantle decorations, as they are made of live boughs as well.  Good bye Christmas in the family room.  I will leave the rest of the house decorations up through New Year's.

I have been obsessed with mantle decorating lately.  I look and look for ideas and change my mind all of the time.  Here is my latest obsession...

This is the living room and mantle of one of my favorite bloggers, Nicole, from Me Oh My!  She is so creative and has an incredible sense of style, mixing graphic with traditional.  I think I am going to paint a large chevron striped painting for my mantle.  I am also looking for just the right antler accent.  Perhaps a couple of these from Ballard Designs...

I am also obsessing about round mirrors like this one (also on Me Oh My! )...



Or this one from Ballard Designs...

The quickly approaching new year brings thoughts of new decorating!  

Creativity

This morning the Cute Puppy woke up at 6:00 am.  This is much better than the 3:15 am wakeup the other morning, and her usual 5:00ish on all of the other days of break.  She is used to waking up with me on work days between 5:15 and 5:30 am.  She can't help it.  She is growing so fast and is hungry all the time!  I took her outside to go potty, fed her breakfast, and then we went back upstairs.  She went right in her house and I got right back in bed and slept until 7:00.  Ahhh... much better. 

Since 7:00 am, I have been lost in blogland.  I decided to go through my list of "Creative" blogs, read them all, and decide if there were any to delete.  So far, I am about 2/3 of the way through, I have deleted one, and added two more.  I am also feeling extremely lame and not creative after checking in with some of my most inspiring, favorite creative blog ladies.  While I read, Cute Puppy played happily with her toys.  She makes up lots of games, her favorite being "I am going to hold a big toy in my mouth while I try to pick up my other toys but it's really hard and I can't do it so I try and try."  After about an hour of this game she got bored, so I helped her out.  I put two big dog biscuits inside her Puppy Kong, and for the last 20 minutes she has been trying to chew them out.  Here she is, happily working on her job.

I am currently working on a little knitting project for Christmas.  I can't show it to you yet because it is for someone who reads this blog.  I will take a couple of pictures of it in progress and finished, and share after Christmas. 

While I was happily browsing in blogland, I came across the most cutest little knitting project ever.  I am going to for sure knit a whole flock of these little guys to decorate my house and to give as gifts.  I have always had an obsession with tiny little creatures like this... fairies, elves, and gnomes.  (Remember the gnome craze of the late 70's/early 80's?  Yup, I had that book!)

I am a huge fan of painter, Rien Poortvliet, and I was obsessed over this book for years.  I wonder what happened to it?  Hopefully, it is still on the bookshelf at my mom and dad's house.  I am going there later today to drop off some gifts, so I will definitely have to check for it.

Here is my next craft.  I can't wait to get started!

You can find the free pattern here.  Hopefully, I will be able to show you a picture of my little elves soon!

Christmas Shopping

gets me in trouble!  I love Christmas shopping from catalogs.  I am up before dawn with this terribly cute but terribly early-rising puppy, and the only thing to do is shop!  (Well, okay, I could be grading...)  I have been looking through catalogs and browsing online and I have found quite a few gift ideas for people on my list.  I have also found quite a few gift ideas for myself...

I am addicted to a new website/clothing line that I would like to share with you.  It's called Shabby Apple, and I learned about it on another blog I read called Sewing in No Man's Land.  I just ordered a skirt from the Tinsel Town collection and I hope it gets here before next Saturday because the Darling Husband and I have a Christmas party to go to.

The site has mainly women's clothing and accessories.  It also has some kids and preteens stuff and some very, very cute maternity dresses that my friend Janelle would look adorable in!


Happy shopping!

Shameless...

I admit it.  I shamelessly allowed Shutterfly to embed a link on my blog so that I would get $10.00 off my next order.  Now if you look at my blog you will get a sneak peek at our Christmas card, which kind of takes the fun out of it.  But, I don't have that many blog readers so not too many people will be affected.  Ha ha.  Anyway, I do LOVE Shutterfly, and I just yelled to the Darling Husband about how much I love ordering my Christmas cards from Shutterfly and what a wonderfully easy website it is to use and how I was so happy because they also sent me a $10.00 off coupon which I was able to use on my card order and how I just think that it is about the easiest part of Christmas, so I guess they deserved the plug.

If you want to order your cards from Shutterfly, let me know.  I have two more $10.00 off coupons that I can give to a friend.  First come, first served.  Let me know!

Photo Card

Merry Bright Greeting Holiday

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