A Fun Surprise

I have had this little clipping of a Rosemary "Tree" pinned to one of my bulletin boards, inspiration board, if you will, for probably 6+ years.  You can see it has a tear and multiple pin holes as I've moved it around. I'd been hoping to grow one.

When my daughter came home from college for Christmas she brought me a surprise!  The most beautiful, simple, Rosemary Christmas Tree!  It smells divine.  

I found a couple of recipes that use rosemary but haven't made them yet.  The trick will be to keep it alive inside now this winter.  She found this at Trader Joe's, a store I have yet to explore.

When I can't smell it, I just run my fingers through the branches and the beautiful scent is released again!

Have a great weekend!

Simple. Red. White. Vintage.

Merry Christmas to you all!!  Yes, I know it's the 27th but we can celebrate until Epiphany and I love this time of the season.  All the preparations are done and now it's just to enjoy the time with the newborn Baby Jesus.

I thought I'd post a few pictures of our simple Christmas Mantel all decked out in white and red. 

My second daughter put it up and I really loved it!

I received this framed snowflake a couple of years ago in an ornament exchange from Janelle at The Farmer's Wife.  She used an upcycled sweater as the background.  This can stay up all winter!

Of course old books are always perfect for decorating!  

These books didn't sell in my booth so home they came and I'm happy to have them here again!! 

We still have two sides of our family to get together with so the festivities continue....

I pray that these days are blessed for you as well.  

Book Page Tree Topper

My 4-H club has made ornaments to decorate a tree for the towns Parade of Trees for a number of years.

Last year we made a "book" themed tree.

It was a tricky place to take pictures so I apologize for the photo quality.

After the kids had made the ornaments at a meeting, I realized we needed a topper so I came up with this.  I took pictures to post about it last year but never got to it.  So it goes.

So thought I'd share the "how to" now.

You should be able to click on the slide show to enlarge it and pause it.

The other ornaments consisted of little banners stamped with words and tied up "scrolls" of book pages.

We had little people reading books.

Also, there were little flowers from book pages.  Then they glittered up some glass balls.  I really didn't get a chance to take too many pictures.

I still love projects made from old books!

 Let me know if you have any questions. 

May your Advent be full of peaceful moments.

Seller's Remorse

Two years ago I bought and sold this set of wooden carolers.

I decided they were too big to store in my already full storage areas and it would be hard to find a place to display them at Christmas.  They would need paint touch ups if I put them outside for the season.

And, now I came across these pictures this morning and remember how neat they were!  And, fun!  This was my then 11 year old posing with them.  The day was in September and mild so she's barefoot.

What great props they would have been for family Christmas pictures!!

Oh, I hope they went to a happy home and are on display somewhere singing Praises!

The Baby Cave

A few weeks ago, I finally got a chance to take time to take pictures of our granddaughter's nursery or "The Baby Cave" as her mother calls it. A lot of the room is DIY so thought you might be interested in seeing the projects. 

Some details:

1. Silhouette prints: downloaded via free downloads on the web, frames from Target

2. The "Crib Halo"

Both blogged about here.

This little dauschund was inspired by this dog from Etsy.  

We also made the big crib bolster in the back.  Since crib bumpers are no longer approved because of safety issues for the baby, my daughter came up with the big bolster idea.  It looks nice and can easily be pulled out of the crib for when the baby is in it.

The fabrics came from Carousel Designs. The fabric is really nice and reasonably priced.

3. We made the bunting to hang on the window.

4.  The crib skirt is three layers of ruffles on three sides of the crib.  Sounded innocent enough.  "Sure, I"ll make the crib skirt for you!  Just help me plan it so it's adjustable as you lower the crib."  said I.

For some reason the plans were difficult...it took months to finish it. It took 24 strips of fabric in varying lengths to make this.  Just because it was confusing and made me think way too hard!  It took both of us to figure it out. However, it is pretty and it is adjustable!!

We used rick rack, black burlap and ribbon to make the bunting.  All glued.  I know, right?  All just glued.

5. Pinwheel made from book pages.

6. Bookshelves made by baby's father.

7. Ruffled lamp shade.  She used ribbon with a long stitch (with machine) down the middle and gathered up and glued on an old shade.

8 Adorable print from Etsy (frame from Target)

9. "A" from Hobby Lobby spray painted with metallic paint.  My daughter said it fell over in the grass after she sprayed it and the grass imprinted a design that made it look like real metal, bonus!!

10. Little elephant blogged about here.

11. Little picture holder that I won from Connie from Miss Maggie's House.

12.Dresser now changing table: I bought it at a garage sale for $20 and my daughter painted it.  It is so nice!

13. Jewelry holder from T.J. Maxx now holds hair accessories.

I love picture books!! And, these shelves!

The print in the frame is actually one of the cards from a baby shower.
(See end of the post for dimensions.)

My dad used to say this to our kids and my daughter found this on Etsy.

Butterflies scattered throughout the room.  See this post for details.

This a really pretty and easy upgrade to a lamp shade.

14. Cards from Rifle Paper Co. Frames from Target.

Mirrored closet doors.

17. The wreath blogged about here.

18. This is a chalkboard decal the sticks great on the mirror.

15. Ball garland we made by wrapping yarn around styrofoam balls.

I hope you enjoyed the tour!  The room is small, but has a lot of personality.  I think my daughter did such a nice job and the room will certainly work for years to come.  

**Edited** There has been a lot of interest in the book shelves in her room.  Here are the dimensions if that will help you make your own:

The big shelf is 37.5" long.

The small shelf is 25.5" long.

The rest of the dimensions are the same for both.

6" deep

9" tall at the back of the shelf

4.25" tall at the front of the shelf

Also, they have since moved....You can view her new "big girl" room here.
Now there is a baby sister!!  You can view the new baby nursery in this post.

Saturday Digest

**Have you ever paged through the room gallery at Restoration Hardware?  This link is to the baby & child site but there is a lot to take away for inspiration for any room!  Click here and then browse by clicking the arrows on either side.

**This almost brought tears to my eyes.  So simple.  So creative. What a Wonderful World with shadow puppets.

**Magic Jelly (who does wonderful vintage illustrations) made a small online flip book to show case her work.  Worthy of a flip through for sure!

**And, last, but certainly not least, Nest of Posies is a new blog to me and is offering five free downloads of chalkboard like Christmas prints.  They are low resolution, but really print out nice at 8"x 10".
Since I was trying to keep my "free download" still cheap,  I mounted mine to mat boards that I had and will set them on easels.  They would be quite grand in frames though. And, of course if you don't need to print out all five like I did!  You could also resize them in your photo editing software so you could buy smaller frames to keep the cost down.

These are so neat!  A big thank you to Nest of Posies!!