A Bit Of British Styling On My Sideboard

Clara Jane and I have been decking the halls for Christmas.

The first area we tackled was the sideboard in the family room.~

The sideboard is a William IV piece from Britain so I went for an English country look. Or, what I imagine an English country look is. I've never actually been there, but I think I've seen enough BBC costume dramas to fake it.  You Brits reading this will have to let me know how close I am.

I started with a garland of cinnamon sticks, apples, twigs and greenery; fake, of course. ~

The ceiling slopes down on this side of the room until it is only 7 1/2 feet tall. To give the illusion of height, I pulled the garland up to where the ceiling meets the wall and added a large, red bow. It's a decorator's trick that we often use when hanging draperies to give a window more presence.

I'm minding two little girls, one and two years old, every Monday for a few weeks and will have my own one-year-old grandson here over the holidays, so all decorations have to be well back out of reach on the sideboard.

Clara Jane is helping weave a string of beads through the pierced compote dish. ~

The pedestal bowl dates from the mid-1800's. I picked it up for next to nothing because clear glass never sells well in antique stores. Because this one has a pierced edge to the bowl it always dresses up nicely with some ribbon or beads wound through it.

Some shiny apples and a pomegranate give an old time Christmasy touch. My dad and I always shared a pomegranate at Christmas. No one else in the family liked them and it's always nice when you are one of six kids to have something special you share with a parent. Dad isn't with me anymore, but I keep the tradition up.

The bowl shares space on a vintage, silver edged tray with a green depression glass dish of sugared nuts and a candle kept contained and far back from little fingers. ~

A little tree I covered with buttons from my Grandma's button box and a wooden Santa carved by my brother in law stand in front of a triple mirror. ~

On the opposite end of the sideboard is a darling wooden soldier painted by a friend, a vintage book bundle tied with lace and a pinecone and the letters JOY that I dressed up with gold foil. ~

All done but for the sconce chimneys drying out after a wash! ~

I have to show you one more photo. That's tiny Maeve guarding the tissue paper. I'm thrilled that her fur has grown back in and she's feeling well and playful after two months on the homemade cat food. I honestly thought I was going to lose that girl and it's Christmas present enough for me to have her on her way to wellness!

My Music Christmas Tree!

I can never resist vintage music books when I find them in flea markets and thrift stores. The artwork on the covers, the aged pages with music notes dancing merrily across them and the thought of people gathering around to hear someone play these songs draws me in every time.

This Christmas I was determined to use some of those books to make one of the wreaths or trees made entirely of sheet music that I've been admiring on blogs and Pinterest the last couple of years.

I won't say this was a quick craft. Thank heavens I settled on covering a 10" styrofoam cone and not an entire wreath! ~

The process is simple, but it does take a few practice shots to get the roses shaped nicely.

My music pages were 12" X 10" each and I cut them into four sections. I stacked the four sections so I could cut them all at once and rounded the corners to make the rough shape of a circle. Then, I cut a spiral into each circle. ~

Be sure to leave a round piece at the end of the spiral. You will need it to push a pin through when you assemble your tree. ~

From the opposite end from the round piece, begin rolling the spiral tightly until you have wound all the way to the centre. give it a pinch with your fingers at the bottom and release the paper. It will begin to unfurl into a rose shape.

Stick a pearl topped straight pin through the centre of the rose and make sure it has gone through the centre of the round piece that is now covering the bottom of your rose. ~

Stick the pin into your styrofoam tree.  I added a dab of hot glue to my roses to make sure they stayed put, what with grandkids and cats that are sure to be touching them. ~

If you are as lucky as I am you will have a supervisor for the assembly process. I feel I should put an 'inspected by Clara Jane' label on my tree. ~

Keep on cutting and rolling, pinning and gluing for the next four days until you have the whole form covered. I cut the sheets into smaller sections to decrease the size of the roses as I moved toward the narrow end of the cone. At this point I'd stabbed myself with the pins and burned my self so many times with the glue gun that I was seriously considering handing the whole project over to Clara Jane to finish! Instead, I roped my friend Wendy into rolling some of the roses.

You won't need to finish the bottom of the styrofoam form unless you are attaching it to a base that raises it up. I was putting mine on a hand turned wooden base that I had in my stash and some of the white styrofoam on the bottom showed, so I added a bit of fringed trim to cover that up.

That brought the whole decoration up to 19" tall and makes a showy piece for my Christmas decor.

There are lots of musicians, professional and amateur in my family and I'm hoping they love this ode to music as much as I do! ~

I'm sharing this with:

Vintage Charm Party
Simple Saturdays

An Upcycled Link Party
Creating Christmas

Sign, Sign - Everywhere A (Christmas) Sign!

It's been a Christmas craft marathon here for the last two weeks. A month ago I said I'd have a booth at the craft bazaar in the neighbouring, small town.  I've no idea what possessed me to agree to such a thing except that it was the first one for the organizers and they didn't have enough people participating.

The fact that I didn't have any crafts made for such an event should have told me this was a bad idea! As fate would have it, I was very busy with work leading up to the bazaar and it all had to be done in about 12 days.

When all else fails, paint signs!

My sister was getting rid of a sign that she had purchased at a thrift store, intending to paint it over to her own taste. That got a coat of white paint. I traced the lettering on a stencil to make painting a little faster than doing it freehand. I chose a rusty red colored exterior paint so this sign can be hung outdoors.

What to paint the next one on? Aha, I had some new, wood shelf boards that I picked up at a thrift store for $1 each. A friend cut two grooves in the boards and I drilled holes for a wire hanger.

I really liked the idea of a countdown to Christmas sign. A cedar closet freshener already had the hook attached and 3 coats of chalkboard paint was all it took. It is easily removable to write on.

This one is done with green lettering shadowed with bright red. ~

The third sign was the most fun for me to make. My sister wanted an 'Oh Deer' sign.  I couldn't seem to find just the right sort of deer image for such a cheeky sign until I came across an elf and deer picture my granddaughter had drawn for me.

Love the funky take on it! I scanned the picture and sent it to Picmonkey to invert and turn to black and white. Once that was done, I printed it out, and trimmed it as close to the image as I could ~

I painted a coat of Modpodge on the ink side of the design.  Then you position the picture, glue side down, on the board and smooth out any bubbles. Leave overnight and in the morning, dampen the paper with a sponge and slowly begin rubbing the paper off until the image appears more black than grey.

Here she is all done! ~

There's still lots of time to paint whatever sign grabs your fancy.

For the most fun of all, immortalize your tiny tot's artwork on a Christmas decoration to bring out year after year!

I'm sharing this with:

What's It Wednesday

My Version Of Frozen

This is my way of doing Christmas decorating that works for adult entertaining and still gives the grandkids some fun.  Like every other kid on the planet, my grandkids are obsessed with the movie Frozen.  While I'm not going to use Disney characters in my library, I can bring enough snow and ice into the theme to please all the Elsas and Olafs out there.

If it's white, crystal or silver it goes on the black Christmas tree. ~

The angels my daughters made for me so many years ago keep their place of honour over the mantel. A snowy owl and a couple of snowflakes hanging from the urns will work.  On the fireplace a grey and white winter angel presides over a bowl of "ice chips". ~

I'm still in declutter mode and determined to work with only things that I have on hand.  I WILL NOT BUY A SINGLE ORNAMENT!  Remind me of that when I go shopping at Michael's tomorrow.

A wind storm kindly left me lots of fallen branches in the yard and I popped a few in a vase with some 'passed their prime' silk poinsettias.  It doesn't really show in the pic but the poinsettias perked up nicely with some glue and glitter.  The branches are perfect for hanging some dollar store snowflakes.

The library is the first room you enter from the front door.  It's a very dark room and difficult to photograph so you'll have to trust me that there is plenty of glitter and sparkle in here. ~

The larger set of bookcases gets the frozen treatment as well with silver branches, ice chips and Christmas photos. ~

The great thing about using old decorations is I don't feel bad about cutting them apart to tuck into places. ~

If it says snow or ice to me it finds it's way into the library.  Lots of little things are down for the kids to explore and play with. ~

This is the kind of grandma house where kids get to touch things, even the antiques.  One of my grandmas had a house where nothing could be touched and the other one had a house where kids could actually have fun.  I know which kind of grandma is the kind you actually want to visit!

I haven't done much with the other end of the room yet but I'm sure more winter things will make their way there as I root through the Christmas bins.  If I'm lucky, the kids will want to take something home with them and the clutter will become my daughter's problem.

This is the end of the room near the front door. ~

Well, that's the first day of my very late start to Christmas decorating.

But, what would a post from me be without a cat picture.  Clara Jane just had to get up on the chair with the polar bear that the kids tormented last year.  He looks like he has a bad case of mange now. That's the polar bear I'm referring to, not the cat. The cat is as fine a specimen of pampered, rescued feral cat as you will ever see!

Next post I'll show you some close ups of how I do the bookcases up without spending a penny!

What Makes A Perfect Christmas?

It takes beautiful decorations. ~

With last minute decorating client calls to do their homes, mine was nowhere near done.  No blog posts could be written to show the clever ideas I had all worked out in my head.

A white Christmas is wonderful unless storm after storm makes the roads treacherous and shopping for gifts difficult. ~

I didn't see the beauty, just the difficulties that it presented.

A trip to the market to pick up the fresh, organic turkey I ordered brought the news that my order was the only one lost.  Ekes!  I could be mean and give them a hard time about it, but they were obviously terrified to tell me.  I shrugged and asked what alternative they suggested. They offered to give me all the parts of a fresh turkey, unassembled, but that was a bit too Frankenstein for me. Instead, they gave me a frozen, organic turkey for less than the cost of a grocery store bird.  Yay!

Surely, that is the last of the snags and all I have to do is finish sewing a Juliet costume for one granddaughter, clean the house and decorate it. ~

And then, the ice storm hit Ontario! ~

Trees toppled under the weight of the ice and hydro lines came down.  Thousands of homes were without power. ~

My power stayed on, but would the kids be able to make it home for Christmas?  It seemed to be problems and more problems! ~

Then, I realised the problem was me! I couldn't see the beauty of the ice and snow because I was too busy looking for cobwebs and dust.  I didn't have faith that the roads would clear and the travelling would be fine. I was putting all the emphasis on a picture perfect, Hallmark card home and not on the scent wafting from the kitchen and the anticipation of spending the special day with those I loved.

The house began to fill with people.  My nephew and his family were without power for five days and couldn't stay in their frigid house anymore.  They didn't care what decorations hung from the chandelier, just that the house was warm and a turkey was roasting in the oven. ~

Grandkids came through the door with all the excitement of Christmas Eve on their faces.  For Clara Jane, ten kids in the house, throwing toys for her to fetch, was the best part of the day. 

When she needed a nap to recover her energy, two little girls made sure she was petted. ~

Artificial snow from the village was sprinkled all over the floor from kittens and kiddies alike. ~

Everyone was happy! ~

No one seemed to notice what was left undone.  They talked and laughed while the little ones fetched the basket of toys to play and dangled garland beads for kittens to bat.  No one cared that the turkey had been frozen as long as it came golden brown from the oven. Seventeen sat down to a bountiful dinner.

My granddaughter, Serena, said to me, "Grandma, you can never leave this house because IT IS JUST PERFECT!"

I looked around and agreed because it had the best decoration any home could have.~

It was filled, from top to bottom with Joy!

I hope each and every one of you had a perfect Christmas!

 

Seeing Red At Christmas

Just in case you were wondering if I was doing any Christmas decorating, I am. I'm doing it again and again. As fast as I put it up, the kittens (commonly known around here as 'The Barbarians'), are pulling it down.  The tree has gone over twice!  If I want any Christmas touches in this house at all, I'm going to have to rethink my strategy.  The only way is to take it all down and go with things that they can't eat or use as toys.

They declared open war on me while I worked on the buffet in the family room.  Making no pretence at helping, they ganged up on me, scooting in and grabbing things to run away with.  I was actually seeing red in more ways than decor by the time I was done!

The colour scheme started when I bought this pair of coal oil lantern sconces at auction.  They had been electrified and were missing the hurricane shades.  The shades were easily replaced for $6 each. Ask me what I paid for the sconces.  You know you want to.  $9 for the pair! ~

A couple of poinsettias that were on sale for $5 each got a bit of dressing up with some red and white snowflake patterned fabric I had in my stash. ~

Clara Jane did have a go at eating the plants but she seems to be leaving them alone now.  Don't worry about her eating them.  The head of the Canadian Poinsettia Growers Association assures us it is a myth that they are poisonous to cats and they would have to eat a whole forest of them to get sick.

Let's pretend we are joining Queen Victoria at Balmoral Castle for Christmas.  I figure I'm safe to use old books, snow globes and a hand carved, wooden Santa. ~

The holly berry garland was a $4 thrift store find.  It's lost a few of it's berries to The Barbarians I'm afraid, but still looks okay.  The partridge in the feather nest is an experiment to see if I can add a few more birds without dooming them to a horrible end. ~

A trinket box in Balmoral plaid holds a string of gold beads and a couple of reproduction Pottery Barn glass balls that were a gift from my daughter. ~

A print from 1900 reminisces about at even earlier time. ~

Before the rail line came through, draft horses pulled barges up the river that runs behind my house. I've found two horse shoes buried in the bank and this print is a favourite of mine.  It gets a bit of vine and some mistletoe to dress it up.

Some Christmas cheer is in a decanter that dates back to William, Queen Victoria's uncle, who reigned before her.  So does the sideboard itself. A star shaped candle is safely tucked away in a hurricane holder.  The girls are drawn to flame and I have to be careful with candles. ~

It's a simpler look than I would normally do and yet I'm happy with it.  ~

Best of all, it has stayed intact for 24 hrs.!