Merry Christmas

Many of you noticed I won the Christmas tree contest on Scot Meacham Wood's blog.  There was a panel of judges whose work I really respect so taking home my second award was really quite an honor.  But I'm actually quite surprised I won because it wasn't the tree I planned on entering. 

I just didn't have the time to get it done in time.

My initial thought was to have a tree centered under the Moravian star pendant

in the guest bedroom.  Since you weren't able to make it for Christmas this year, 

I would clean out the guest bedroom and set the tree up in the center of the room.

The stars being a guide for sailors, I thought a tree decorated with marine signal flags

would be the perfect theme and I would want them all basically the same so they would look

like a sea of stars on the tree.

I would use hang tags to make the ornaments and trim them

into the basic marine flag shapes...

...and use silver glitter to give them a little bling.

The tags would also be perfect to write a few 

prayers, dreams, wishes or messages to the universe.

I would add a little Love and Joy.

I've never had a tree centered in the room before; it would be a little unconventional.

But it would be a wonderful place to sit and enjoy the sea of stars.

May love and joy come to you.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas is Packed Away

I had the best weekend filled with rest and relaxation.  How about you?

The living tree is planted outside although I can't help but feel guilty everytime I see it.  It looks so sad and lonely out in the cold.  Am I transferring?

I undecorated the pruned tree today.  It took me about three days to decorate and about 15 minutes to take apart.

I don't know why it took me so many years to figure out I should just take all of the ornaments off and place them in a basket rather than wandering around the living room with ornament boxes laid out on every surface looking for the box each ornament came from.

And then I set up all the boxes on the dining room table to make quicker work of putting everything back in its place.

All the lights are neatly wound up and packed away ready for next year.

But the day wasn't without incident.

Broken item of the season.

And I was unpleasantly surprised to find a big patch of mold growing under the tree!  I'm not sure what happened.  Perhaps the tree stand leaked?  I've scrubbed it up and there's a little stain but I swear I can smell it.  I think it has to go.  Thank god I'm too poor to have nice Persian carpets.  I'd be more ill.

Everything is packed up and put away in the basement except the outside lights which I usually leave up until somewhere between the Epiphany and the date that a former neighbor left me a note in my mailbox that the lights should come down.

Hey, while I think of it, did you know you can keep paperwhites from getting too leggy by giving them a shot of gin?

Yup.

Read about it at Yankee Magazine.

Although we've been really lucky with warmer than average temperatures and no snow since October, there's cold weather coming.  So we're all snuggling up and hunkering down for what we hope is a very short winter.

Still working on my damn goals for 2012.

How 'bout you?

Christmiscellany

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday.  

The cats were surprised by little gifts left in the tree by Santa.  Three little mice were more exciting when wrapped and tied with twine than they were once they were open.

And speaking of surprises, look what I found in my mailbox on Christmas Eve:  a personalized pillow cover made by Deb (from the Loyalist Cottage) and her husband just because I make them laugh.  Isn't that sweet?  I love it and it's just perfect in my living room.

Deb sells her handmade and hand printed pillow covers on etsy and was recently discovered by HGTV magazine who will be showing one of her alphabet pillows.  If you want one, you should order now before she goes viral.

The Christmas table.  I covered the table with a vintage linen laundry sack, totally unironed, so it's more casual.  I wished I had a few green plates to pick up on the natural theme with the skinny tree and paperwhites as a centerpiece.  Mix and match every day plates were used with my hodgepodge of  brown transferware.

I saw my transferware on Pinterest with someone seemingly desperate to know the name of the pattern so I thought I would show the different patterns I have and list the makers and names in case anyone is interested.

This is one of my favorites.  The most masculine of transferware if masculine could be applied to any transferware.  This is J&G Meakin and I believe the pattern is called Romantic England.  It says it's dishwasher safe so it can't be too old.

This one is Johnson Brothers, WindsorWare in the Dover pattern.

These plates were my grandmother's and it's another one of my favorites.  It's Mason's ironstone in the Bow Bells pattern.  It has an aesthethic movement feel and not too flowery.

I can't remember where I picked this one piece up but I really like the swirling scalloped edge.  This is manufactured by Clarice Cliff of Royal Staffordshire and the pattern is called Charlotte.

The back is almost as beautiful as the front.

The "Other Tree" in the dining room is now only a memory.  My research on living trees said the tree should only be in the house for 7 to 10 days.  The weather today and tomorrow are supposed to be quite mild so it seemed the perfect time to get it conditioned to the outdoors again, to give a good watering and  to get it planted before cold and snowy weather sets in.  I dug a hole a few weeks ago before the ground froze so it's ready to be planted.  It was feeling very dry so I hope it's okay.

The Boston fern still looks pretty good after being cut about nine days ago.

I got a lot of comments about the garland so I thought I would so a few closeup images.  I bought this at a garden center but I think it would be a fairly easy DIY project.  This one is two different kinds of pinecones, walnuts and sweet gum pods.

And the other one is slightly different using wood chips and little bundles of grapevine in lieu of walnuts.

I've had these for four years so it seems they would last at least several years.

I don't know about you but I'm beat.  I'm happy this is a short week and New Year's is much easier holiday in terms of preparation; in fact, I hope to spend a lot of time in PJs, watching movies, and planning for new year's projects.

My Christmas Card to You

I'm normally a very humble and self-effacing person so I hope you'll forgive me if I gloat for a moment about winning "Best Tree" in the Holiday Decorating Contest on Scot Meacham Wood's "The Adventures of Tartanscot" blog.  The contest was judged by a panel of esteemed judges and prizes were awarded in three different categories.  I'm excited to have won what I think is the best prize:  Christmas ornaments from Gump's San Francisco that will be hand selected by Scot.

In all seriousness, I'm absolutely thrilled to have won.  There were some really amazing submissions and being chosen is a real honor.

Thank you all again for following along during the Christmas season.  It's been a lot of fun sharing the season with you and I'm blessed by all of your wonderful feedback.  Here is my Christmas card to you.

Merry Christmas to all!  May all the joys of the season be yours.

Steve

The Lights are on...

 

I swear...I just about had to do the limbo to get the cedar garland, the moon

and the attic window candle all in one shot.

But let's back up a bit.

On Sunday morning, I took a few swigs of courage, grabbed the ladder and cautiously popped my head up to make sure nothing was up there.  I think it's scary because when I was buying the house, the inspector said there was bat poop up there and it totally freaked me out.  The owner had an exterminator come who said no, absolutely no bats.  When I moved in, I heard things running around up there and called an extreminator to come check it out.  A family of squirrels had chewed their way in through the eaves and was running around under the floor boards.  They were evicted and the hole was patched.  But that's the whole story behind my irrational fear of the attic.

With a little bit of work, it could probably look like this...

...I'd put a ripped up Victorian sofa and several stacks of dusty books and The World of Interiors would be dying to get up there to do a photo shoot.  But for now, it's just creepy.

But back to the magic of Christmas. 

...I climbed up with my little helper spotting me on the ladder

and squeezed my butt through the tiny door...

...to place the candle in the window. 

Thankfully I can turn it on from downstairs with a little remote.

Et Voila!

And as the sun set...

...the sky turned a brilliant heavenly blue...

...and the Angel Gabriel appeared in a bright -- Oh, I guess that's just the moon. 

But I'm pretty sure that's the Star of Bethlehem to the left. 

I just love white lights in the dark of winter.

Here you can see the scale of my house next to the three-story Victorian next door.

All I need is a little snow for the perfect picture, but I'm not asking for any right now.

On to do the tree!

Decking the Halls

I took advantage of the warm weather last weekend.

It was 67 degrees (19 C for the rest of the world) last Sunday so I thought it would be the perfect day to deck the halls outside.  

I love my Werner Ladder.  I got it with American Express Reward Points.  I swear it weighs 100 pounds and I pinch my finger at least once each time I use it, but it gets in to some really awkward places and I always feel safe.

I screwed really large cup hooks just above each of the porch columns from which I hung the cedar garland.

I think my house was made for Christmas.

We're quickly approaching the darkest days of winter--solstice is only two weeks away!-- so I love having white lights to brighten up the darkness.

Now I just need to get up the nerve to get up into the scary attic again to do my candles in the windows.

Someone asked if I was going to gussy up the wreath.  I was really liking the simple green square on the black door so I added a black and white striped ribbon and called it done.

I think the ribbon is all the gussy it needs.  

To stay with that reduced color palette, I flanked the door with pots of white pine and yellow dogwood twigs.  No green and red.  I think it's really refreshing.

I'll take a photo of the entire house as soon as there's no car parked in front.

I'll probably do a little decorating in the garden tomorrow and then I'll focus on the inside.