Merry Christmas!
cottage, holiday decor
I hope your day is a blessed one.
holiday decor
The Cottage Living Room at Christmastime
cottage, holiday decor 
My holiday foofiness was hung around the cottage early enough that I've had plenty of time to enjoy it this season. But with Christmas just around the corner, I'm already starting to be sad about seeing it packed away.
Maybe I will leave the lights and ice garland over the window? It can be a "winter decoration" instead of a Christmas one.
For now, I'll be savoring it all for the time left with the sparkle and glitz.
It certainly makes me happy to see.
Maybe what I need is something new to set out in January, something to look forward to?
Isn't it silly to be missing it before it is even put away? It could be that I'm already missing my Dewdrop, who will only be home for a short time to celebrate with us. And missing all of the fancy, cocoa parties, outings, and gatherings.
Honestly, I just LOVE the entire season soooooo much, that I hate to see any of it go! Next year, I really need to plan a Snowbird's Song art weekend again, so I can squeeze even more festiveness out of wintertime.
The countdown is on
dogs, Dorkies (Yorkshire Terrriers), family, holiday decor, Sugarwings
Our family is on the countdown to Christmas and trying to fit in as many festivities as we can.
Sugarwings and I went to see the plays Elf, Rudolf and Annie…
checked out the holiday displays at Legoland… (although, Dorothy and Toto were faves, even if they weren't Christmassed up like the rest of the bricks)
we’ve sipped cocoa by candlelight and the twinkling of the tree…
are going to go to see the Nutcracker movie…
and have been making as many holiday crafts as we can.
We had a gathering to craft with friends too, and the group took a field trip to the Lecompton Territorial Museum to see the Midwest’s largest display of vintage Christmas ornaments.
Lecompton was important during the Civil War and is a town full of history.
And great, old ornaments!
In between, I’m trying to get things wrapped to place under the tree or in the mail and flying off to loved ones. Trying is the key word there- heck,I’ve not even finished shopping, let alone wrapping.
I hate to see the whirlwind wind down, I’ve been loving every minute of it.
But before you know it, Christmas will be here. And that means Dewdrop will be back from North Carolina to join in on our fun!
A Book Club Christmas party
Books, cottage, holiday decor, We're having a party 
I couldn't remember if it was my 4th or 5th annual holiday book club party, so I looked back at my blog (which is my journal, and the only way I ever know when I did what) and saw that I'd started hosting these in 2011!
Here are some past parties:
This year, I was inspired by a pot of glittered, blue poinsettias to tend toward being a little more colorful than the typical gold and white color scheme of past parties. Our white tree has multiple settings for color choices. On a daily basis, I set it on white and twinkling. But the minute Sugarwings walks in the door, she resets it to rainbow. I thought I'd use her favorite setting for this night too.
Aren't the flowers wonderful? I always buy a pot of poinsettias, and try to purchase the one with the most blooms, and normally choose ones with just white. This year, I saw a glittered, ocean blue plant, and had to go for it. Especially since it had over a dozen flowers on it. (or to be correct, I think you are supposed to say "brackets" for these plants, not flowers, right?)
I always cut the blooms off and put them in vases, instead of leaving the plant as is. They last quite a long time and I can spread them around the house, using them in many spots.
And lately, I"ve been finding crystal wine glasses on sale for pretty cheap and they have been multicolored too. So, heck why not go with it? It ended up being a change that I really enjoyed.
I even added some pink and blue shiny brites to the gold and silver ones on the chandelier for the night and like it so much, I've leaving them for the season. They look nice with Sugarwings' favorite light setting on the tree, too.
Since the party was for the book club, I added some vintage books to the tablescape.
Dinner was a rainbow spiral pie (that suited the colorful room, didn't it?), baked parmesan chicken, greenbeans with potatoes and mushrooms.
And two kinds of homemade bread.
I had such a lovely time with these bright and interesting ladies.
After dinner, we draw names for gift wrapped, used books that everyone brings to swap.
I ended the night, looking around the room, and enjoying how clean and festive the house looked. I adore the holiday decorations and seeing all of the lights, but our cottage isn't always as tidy as it should be.
While decking the halls, I do a deep cleaning and at first everything looks sparkly and spiffy. Since I do the decorating early, messes have a chance to encroach December passes and having a party midway through the month is a great excuse to get a fresh start and bring back that sparkling feeling. It isn't often that the whole place is all cleaned up and shiny at the same time. We have 5 dogs, heat with wood, and have a craftaholic kid who creates clouds of paper flying around her like she is Edward Scisssorhands.
As I said goodnight to my husband, I commented on how happy I was to have had such a pleasant evening and to have clean, pretty surroundings.
Then, I woke up about 1am to a dog crying hysterically to go out. And then to be let right back in. And again a couple of times that night. I drug myself out of bed each time, half awake, not realizing that she had such a tummy ache that she'd made a mess, and paced around, walking through it.
Not so clean anymore….. I didn't even get a full 24 hours of spotlessness.
Mopping and sanitizing after a sick dog isn't nearly as much fun as cleaning and spiffing to get ready for a party.
The Plaza Lights- from a very special viewing point
celebrations, flowers, friends, holiday decor, jewelry 
Our pal, Angie lives in an apartment overlooking the KC Plaza with a glorious view of the holiday lights.
The view inside is pretty dang great too. Angie arranged a delectable feast of loveliness for us after a day out together, lunching, shopping, and laughing.
The city looked magical from her window.
It was a day filled with pretty things.
And fun photo ops.
With some silliness thrown in.
I wore my favorite, new Santa shirt (AGAIN, it seems to be my uniform for December along with my decade old, red velvet coat), and found a set of placemats to match it. But since they cost more than the shirt did, I didn't buy them. Actually, besides lunch, and a bag of old fashioned, hard candies, I didn't do much purchasing. Just browsing and enjoying the over the top, holiday displays the stores had out.
We went to the Kaufman center to see the trees and flowers, which are a major mood enhancer this time of year. When the Kansas landscapes are grey, brown, dreary, and dead, it is heartening to see flowers in bloom. I bent over and got some deep whiffs from the pots of white stock and the sweetness of the blooming plants really made me happy inside.
I'm rarely a red or green person, and don't decorate my home in these colors for the season, but I do love pops of these festive shades in jewelry or clothing in December. So, I made myself some silver earrings with red and green semi-precious gemstones. While I was at it, I made enough to pass out to friends too, and took some to lunch that day for Beth, Karla, and Angie to choose from.
In the past, I've painted ornaments as little gifties for friends, and it was nice to see that Angie has some of them on her sparkling tree.
Her home is perfectly coordinated, and she has such a gentle touch with decorating, it is always an honor to see something I'd made in her home.
She crafted gift bags filled with everything we'd need for a winter's night of relaxation at home. (Wine, chocolate, and a good book!) and topped the package with this sweet collaged image.
It was a special day, ending with an even more special evening. I'm blessed to have good friends who could take a day off to simply enjoy the season with me.
An ugly little tree gets a makeover
holiday decor 
Beyond ugly, huh? I saw this at the flea market and couldn't walk away, because under the hideousness, there was good stuff lurking.
First of all, this is big time, VINTAGE.
Second, lookie at the OLD tinsel!! I love that stuff and it is becoming hard to find some this ancient to work with.
And of course, tiny, shiny brites cannot ever be ignored, right????
Yep, I bought and stripped the monstrosity. It was only $15, and in my guesstimate, there was that much on it in pretty bits to reuse.
Not to mention the faded, old tree itself. It is so old, the branches have become a taupe color, which you can see through to the original dark green here and there.
The tree itself is such a cutie, that I kept the decor on it simple. I plopped it into a white McCoy pot, and left the star on the top as is, then draped it in vintage pearl necklaces. A glass bird is clipped to a branch to coordinate with the flock of feathered birdies I've added to the mantle where the tree is sitting.
In the last couple of years, I've covered the paintings that hang over the mantle because they were too springlike for Christmas. This year, I left them up and incorporated the bird and roses of the artwork as a theme in the garland draped below.
Because I was too lazy to go to the effort of getting out a tall ladder and tacking up the burlap over the paintings. Because I wanted a new look.
Here is how the room looks with the burlap and wings up.
The pink mercury glass beads look nice with the pink roses in the paintings. And I'm always happy to have some birdies flitting about.
A better photo of the mantel itself would have been a good idea, huh? You can see the fireplace in the background of this kitchen picture, though.
Kinda.
Elfing around with pinecone pixies
fairies, friends, holiday decor, We're having a party 
My pal, Tami, once again invited a group of local Peeps to her lovely home for a holiday crafting day. She is always generous with supplies and ideas to share with friends. This time, we were elfing around and making pinecone pixies.
Here are a few of the ones that I made. She provided a basket full of pine cones, and plenty of felt, along with the little wooden balls for heads and other tidbits to put together.
I'd brought this chunk of firewood, deer, and tree to make this display.
But this character looks more like a Yorkie than Santa's helper, doesn't he?
See what I mean?
Or maybe more like this?
We had a holly jolly time making these, and soon the room was filled with the fun lil guys.
It was hard to stop, even though all of mine didn't turn out as good as I would've liked. This poor sprite looks like she has smoker's wrinkles around her mouth where the ink ran. I can almost hear her throaty voice saying, Ho HO, Ho, between coughs….
Her sis turned out a little better. She is sitting on a spool.
Tami's halls were decked, her home is always so tastefully and vintagely festive. I do not know why I didn't get more pictures, dang it. But at least I took this pic, look at this unique and fashionable tree.
Between eating a yummy, pitch in lunch and assembling elves, we also worked on a few other projects. There were some butter pat plates available to work with.
I'm afraid my finished product is rather plain, but the plate itself was so simply sweet, I wanted to keep it pretty much as is.
I also made a little doggie ornie.
And a bottle brush tree snowflake too.
With all of the laughter, warm conversations, and of course- treat snacking, I don't know how I managed to get so many things made.
What a nice day! Thanks, Tami!!
Thankfulness, hugs, and gingerbread
celebrations, family, Food and Drink, holiday decor 
I can't imagine a nicer Thanksgiving. Kia helped me prep quite a bit the day before and we had a pretty laid back Thursday, with all of the chopping done ahead of time.
We even baked a double batch of gingerbread cookies on Wednesday, which made for a fun morning of playing with icing and sprinkles before getting dinner in the oven.
After cookie masterpieces were created, we popped a little turkey into the oven (for the few of us that were not vegan) and headed out to the woods to enjoy the sunshine and the last of the fall colors.
We didn't go far, just out in our back yard, we have ten acres that have a few trails through the trees.
While out there, we visited the fallen Grandfather Tree, which we have harvested to make slabs. In the future, it will be a dining room table.
For now, it is fun to climb on.
And jump off of.
The grandfairies found a few fun places to climb around.
And Avahni showed off her fire fighter training by carrying people around.
Dororthy enjoyed it.
Twinkle isn't as fond of the hugging.
But the girls are.
After a festive dinner with lots of toasts and laughter, we started decorating gingerbread again, this time some premade houses.
Every year, I get a couple for the littlest grandfairies to pile up sky high with globs of candies, but didn't even think about getting them for everyone to play with.
But after watching the Halloween baking shows with Ryan, he and I thought we should probably try our hands at making some houses ourselves.
I certainly had plenty of toppings! We do NOT eat these, they are just for display, so we use candy that has been around longer than Dewdrop, back when Sugarwings first crafted a house. And I buy the 25 cent, clearance decorations after Christmas to save up and use too.
The only fresh stuff we have is for the cookies that we eat, and they are dye free, organic goodies.
Oh, yes, I do buy fresh fondant to play with too. You have to have that soft and pliable, it doesn't save like hard candies do.
The big girls like the fondant as much as the little ones do. Thia made a unicorn with hers.
This looks like it will be a holiday tradition around here, we had such a good time with it, that there is already talk of gingerbread birdhouses for Easter. And maybe even some more houses at Christmas dinner? Although, we usually spend the evening playing games that the kids get as gifts from Santa after dinner on that day, and decorating cookies in the afternoon.
I am truly blessed to have a family who can enjoy a relaxing day together, while pitching in to help with cooking so that the day wasn't all about slaving away in the kitchen and dozing in front of a game on TV.
And I was thrilled to have them want to make Gingerbread Houses! I'm not really a Thanksgiving person, for me, it is just the gateway to the holiday season, it is hard to hold back and not start rushing headfirst into Christmas before Thanksgiving is over.
This season, I decided there was no reason to hold back and went for it. I was glad to have my trees up, and the twinkling lights strung for atmosphere. And loved having these houses to do, even though they are a traditional Santa thing, not a turkey thing.
(with a side of Turkey!)
The kids were calling the meal, our "Healthgiving" Dinner, we kept all of the items freshly made, with no processed foods. With everyone helping, that wasn't hard to do. There were circus tricks on the aerial rig, a walk in the woods, crafting, massage therapy, and we all took turns giving a Huzzah! for what we were feeling grateful for.
The laughter, warmth, and hugs were much appreciated.
What a nice holiday! I hope you had a happy one too.
Christmas tag books in the Boutique and a sweet wedding, at the BEST weekend
antiques/junking, Books, celebrations, friends, holiday decor, vintage paper/collage art, wallpaper
I'm still enjoying the bounty of paint pours from my creative binge this summer and am now using the pieces to make holiday tag books.
You can purchase them HERE, in the Boutique.
I seriously adore the technique and the look of the swirled paints. Acrylic flow painting is the BEST!
I'd gone with Beth to attend the wedding of The Other Karla's son in St Paul and brought crafty goods (including these painted tags) with me to play with in the hotel room, then found a bounty of beauties at a flea market on the way there.
Once I got started on making these, I couldn't stop. I was a bad friend and sent Beth out on her own to have lunch with her Minnesota nieces while I stayed in my jammies and made book after book after book that day, till it was time to get ready for the wedding.
Because- WOW- look at this paper I'd found!!!!! How could I leave it uncut, when I had all of these pretty, painted tags to make things with????
I'd also bought 1928-29 women's magazines from December with lots of helpful Christmas tips, along with an old book of hymms that included Christmas carols.
And stacks of holiday ephemera.
And did I mention that it was 13 degrees outside? And I'd driven through mini blizzards to get there. Yes, I was content to do hotel crafting in my jim jams and had a beautiful, wonderful, magical day.
It was the BEST.
Not only did I have a fab night with friends, then a day at a flea market on the way to the wedding, I had an entire day with the most magical of vintage supplies, topped off with a night of dancing and laughing til my sides hurt at the wedding.
Or did my sides hurt because I was way to old to dance that hard and that long?
Either way, it was a perfect weekend. Laughter, road trips, making things, attending a lovely wedding. Yep, the BEST.
I had never met Karla's son, but soon realized he was a catch. His wife won my heart quickly too, when she told us about the family tradition of using this vintage cake topper.
Karla made ribbon wands that were waved in the air when the couple entered the reception, and soon we were all dancing and waving them around out on the floor. Not only were they pretty to see flying about, but they had magical properties.
When we twirled them about, we were FANTASTIC dancers. We were the BEST.
And personally, I can't dance and have less rhythm than, well, I can't actually think of anything or anyone with less skill on the dance floor than I have.
Between the laughing and the ribbon wands, my dancing skills suddenly became amazing. Everyone's did.
Yep, it was the BEST.
Our respect for the bird is slipping….
celebrations, Food and Drink, holiday decor, Sugarwings, We're having a party 
Sugarwings and I LOVE decorating for the holidays, but we try to hold back and wait til after Thanksgiving. Our reminder to each other is, "We must respect the bird!"
Last year, our home was on the holiday tour plus I was hosting a holiday workshop (A Snowbird's Song) and I had a great excuse to ignore our rule and toss tinsel everywhere on November 1st.
And this season, we started our holiday fun a bit early by attending the play, "Elf" at the KU Lied Center. We decided to throw a mini dinner party before the show, and simply had to have appropriate decor to serve our meal, right???? Heck, it wasn't our fault that the date of the play was before Thanksgiving.
Sugarwings was in charge of the tablescape and made up this Candy Cane Forest, from the story.
Cocoa parties are a big part of our Christmas celebrations, and Buddy the Elf loves cocoa too. Typically, we do not have our first cup until the tree is up and lit. We made an exception, and served hot chocolate with organic candy canes and marshmallows in both vanilla and peppermint. She made a banner from one of Buddy's quotes.
He does have some of the best quotes.
While she crafted a candy cane forest, I hot glued some felt and feathers into elf hats to wear that night.
I was kind of surprised that we were the only group decked out for the theme, but was proud of my girls for rocking the look.
We served finger foods and things we thought elves would like, although we didn't go whole hog with Buddy's list of elves' favorite food groups:
1- Candy
2-Candy Canes
3- Candy Corn
4- Syrup
We decided to compromise on our respecting the bird rules and leave our tablescape set up. I dodged a bullet on breaking the rule even further by being very busy, and having a couple of trips come up to prevent me from pulling more yule goodies out of the closet.
But I'm twitching with the need to tear into the storage closet and fling lights and ornaments from one end of the house to the other!