A Valentine Spark

Hopefully I'm coming out of the January slump I've been in. I spent the day sprucing up the house for Valentine's Day and getting a little crafty. It's a start.

I started with the shelf in the kitchen. I decided to use the heart banner that I made last year and it just kind of went from there.

I find that as I "steal" items from one part of the house, then I work on filling in that empty space. So often it is total chaos as I move things around. For example, I took the ironstone pitcher with greenery in it from off the TV cabinet and moved it to the kitchen shelf. Once I got things how I wanted them on the shelf, I moved back to the living room to work on the TV cabinet.

I spent a little time working on this little chalkboard that I made a couple years ago from a plastic "silver" tray from the Dollar Tree. I kept it simple.

 

 

 



I spent some time making a new banner for the living room. I had a couple banner kits from Target and I just personalized them with my own hugs and kisses.

 

 

 

 

It's very simple, but I have to admit.....I kind of love it.

 

So then I just went around the rest of the room sprinkling some red and some hearts here and there.

 

 

 

 

 



I'm happy for something a little different. You know how I love to change things up around here.

How about you? Do you feel like you're finally breaking out of the January doldrums? Got any Valentine décor going on?

If you'd like to see our house decked out for Valentine's Day last year, you can click HERE.

Passing Down the Christmas Spirit: Part 2

In Part 1, I told you a little bit about how the Christmas spirit was passed down to me from my maternal grandmother. Today, I want to tell you about my Dad's mother.

I'll be really honest, I don't have many memories of Christmas shared with my paternal grandparents. You see, when I was very young, they became "snowbirds" and would spend winters in Florida. And eventually they moved there year-round. Most of my memories of them when I was very young are summertime memories of when they would come north and spend weeks with us at a time. Or when we would spend time in their summer cottage on Lake Erie in Canada.

A picture I took of my Grandparents, my parents, and my sister on a visit to Florida. About 1980.

Since I was so young, I'm pretty sure most of the Christmas memories I do have are in my mind because of photographs I've seen and stories that have been told.....like the one about the Christmas when my sister ate too much of Grandma's Christmas fudge and, well....you can just imagine how badly THAT turned out.

And so when I found these photos from Christmas at their house, I was delighted. What treasures!

Me and my sister at Grandma and Grandpa's house on Christmas. I'm the short one.

 

Me and my Grandpa.

Nevertheless, my Grandmother still managed to instill some Christmas spirit and memories into me, my sister, and our cousins.  She did this through the special Christmas ornaments she hand-made for all of us.

I have memories during visits to our house, of her sitting in front of her "program" (General Hospital) and constantly working with her hands. She loved sewing and crafting and was always trying new things. One of the results was the collection of ornaments she made for us.

On my tree I have snowmen,

Christmas houses,

beaded bells,

and all the cousin's favorites....the felt chickens!

Last Christmas, one of us (I can't remember who) posted a picture of one of Grandma's chickens on their tree on Facebook. What unfolded was so sweet. We began talking about our ornaments and memories of Grandma making them. One cousin even shared how they always have a "Grandma tree" at their house.....a small tree that holds only those special ornaments made by her. Isn't that great?

The whole Facebook conversation made me think about how blessed I am to have had the influence of Grandparents in my life and what a heritage they have given us. I sit here with tears in my eyes writing about it.

So, my Grandma also passed down her Christmas spirit to me. Maybe not in the memories of Christmases spent together, but when I place those ornaments on the tree each year, I'm reminded of how important her family was to her and how much she loved each one of us. That is a true blessing indeed.

2014 Christmas Home Tour: The Mudroom And Living Room

Greetings and welcome to the first part of my Christmas home tour!  I took so many photos that I decided to divide up my tour. Today we'll look at the mudroom and living room and next week I'll show you the kitchen.

 

If you're here for the first time...welcome!

I'm so excited to be joining Jennifer Rizzo's Holiday House Walk link party. Did you see all the amazing homes in last week's House Walk? Oh my! Such inspiration! Make sure to take a look at all the other amazing home tours that are being linked up this week.

Now normally I would off you a hot beverage when you arrive. And today....everyone gets a squirt of hand sanitizer on the way out as well. Ha! Yep, I have sick kiddos at home this week. Fever, stuffy noses, coughing.....blech! Seems that there is a bug going around their whole school district. Having the kids home made my little Christmas photo shoot a bit of a challenge as well. I'm quite sure you didn't want to see kids bundled up on the couch or thermometers and medication taking up room on the kitchen counter. But I did my best!

So let's start with our mudroom!

 

 

I love these little trees that I purchased at Target a couple years ago. I use them differently each year. This time I "planted" one in an old galvanized bucket and dressed it up with some burlap and ribbon. You'll see another one in my kitchen in the second part of my tour.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let's move into the living room. I love tradition and I use most of my decorations from year to year in different ways, with maybe something new thrown in. This year I used a lot of the ironstone that I've accumulated over the last few months.

 

I also generously used fresh greens from our back yard. I MAY have gone a little overboard....NAH!

 

As much as I enjoy seeing other homes decorated with non-traditional colors or neutrals, I love to decorate with the traditional colors. I always find myself drawn to some black and white with pops of red, real or faux greenery, and a little bit of sparkle as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 







 

 

Our mantel and hearth are pretty much the same as last year. I did add a couple little ironstone syrup pitchers with some pine.

 

 



 

 

 

 

I also added these little chalkboard tags with our names to our stockings. You may remember seeing them on my Thanksgiving table as name cards. After Thanksgiving they quickly made their way over to the stockings. I didn't even have to rewrite our names!

 



 

 

 

Some more pine and ironstone.

 



 







 

 

 

 

And our tree....covered with ornaments that mean so much to us because of the memories they hold.

 

 

 

 

 

So that's it for this part of the tour. Join me next week for a peek at my Christmas kitchen.

 

You can click HERE for a look at my Christmas tour from last year too.

Passing Down The Christmas Spirit - Part 1

I think we've pretty much established that I love to decorate our home for Christmas. Some people look at it as a chore, some look at it as an expectation, and others choose not to do anything it at all. For me, it is a joy. (Not to say that I wasn't exhausted the other day when I was all done.) but I love doing it, I really do.

I also love to Christmas shop (although I am VERY behind this year.) I love to buy thoughtful gifts for people. I try really hard not to buy something for someone just for the sake of giving them a gift. I love to give gifts that are thought out based on what I know somebody really wants or needs.

I've said before that my parents always made Christmas special for us. From the tree to the decorations to the gifts to special times together with family and friends....as a kid, it was a magical time. I have wonderful memories of Christmases past. 

Over the years I've also realized that a lot of how I feel about the celebration of Christmas was passed down to me from my Gramma. (Yes, I know that's not how you spell it, but that's what she was. Not Grandma or Grandmaw....just my Gramma.)

She loved Christmas! It would actually all begin on Thanksgiving day. By then she had received the Sears and J.C. Penney Christmas catalogs in the mail. It was a given that we would write out a wish list for her to shop from. So my sister and I would pour over the catalogs and make our lists.....dog-earing pages, circling toys we hoped for, writing down sizes. Then we would have to explain our list to Gramma, so she knew EXACTLY what she was looking for when she went to the store. We didn't have extravagant Christmases. We didn't get everything on the list. But what we received from our grandparents came directly from those lists we made because Gramma knew it was our hearts desire (at least for that year anyways) and she loved to make us feel special.

(I'm sure my mom has lots of pictures of Christmases past with Gramma, but this is the only one I could find that I had. It made me laugh though because this was so typical. Gramma was down on the floor, making sure all the grandchildren's gifts were passed out.)

And the house would be decorated too. Usually it was the same decorations that were pulled out, including the many ceramic figures that Gramma had painted. There was a Santa that played "Jingle Bells," and a set of carolers, amongst others. Every year she would buy a new ornament or two to add to the tree. Part of the tradition was that when we arrived at their house we had search the tree to find the new ornaments for that year.

 

She also did a lot of baking and  bought lots of candy for Christmas. It was also tradition that on Christmas Day, it was my and my sisters job to arrange all the cookies and candy in special Christmas dishes that she had also painted in ceramics class. Maybe that is why I love Christmas dishes so much.

We would have a big Christmas meal and the main dish was roast beef. Always. (And I've discovered over the years, that is not common.)  Gramma would send Grampa to the meat market (not the big chain grocery store) ....where they knew the butchers by name....to buy the roast for Christmas.

We had a lot of traditions and it was always very special. Gramma put her heart into  every detail. She passed down her spirit of Christmas to everyone in our family. I miss her often, but never so much as at Christmastime.

And so I do what I do at Christmas, not to try to impress anyone or because I feel like I have to. I do it because I love my family. I was given a great gift from my parents and grandparents and I hope that someday my children will realize that I passed the Christmas spirit on to them as well.

The December Chalkboard Calendar: It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

Yesterday I decided that since it was December 2nd, I'd better get started on the December calendar for the chalkboard. So in the morning, I erased November. And then I stood there and looked at the blank wall. And nothing came to me.

So I decided the best thing to do was to walk away and come back when I was feeling a bit more inspired. I really loved the December calendar from last year and I wanted to make this one special too.

When the boys came home from school the wall was still blank and they commented how "weird" it looked. As soon as everybody was settled in with a snack and doing homework, I tried again. I looked on my Chalkboard Love board on Pinterest for some inspiration. I tried to copy a couple things and it just wasn't working. I needed to do my own thing, and....FINALLY....it all started to come together.

So I present to you.....the December chalkboard calendar.....

Happy December! It's the most WONDERFUL time of the year!

Setting The Table For Thanksgiving

This year I will be hosting my family for Thanksgiving and yesterday I decided to do my table's dress rehearsal. I love puttering around, mixing and matching, and grabbing things from around my home to make a pretty table.

I fell in love with Lauren's table over at The Endearing Home....especially the beautiful Thanksgiving napkins she found at Pier 1. They were a bit of a splurge, but I kept reminding myself of all the "fraying" Mom and I did for napkins for my Easter table....so I went for it. Thankfully, they were on sale and I had a coupon, so that helped. And they were the only thing new that I purchased for the table. Everything else I already had.

So the napkins were the jumping off point and I knew they would look nice with my black and white dishes. I never intended to use the turquoise dishes though. We could have as many as eleven for Thanksgiving dinner, and I so I started experimenting with different place setting combinations so I would have enough for everyone. That's when I started pulling out the turquoise. And as I looked around my home, I started finding more....first the Ball jars (fancy, I know), and then the candlesticks and tray....and it all started coming together. Once I had that all in place, I started contemplating adding some Fall colors, but I decided to keep it simple with just a wire basket filled with pinecones.

Here are the three different place settings I came up with. The clothespin chalkboard tags I used for place cards came from Target (okay, so I did purchase those too. I forgot.) You can see the details of the napkins better in these photos too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

If everyone does wind up coming, we will set up another table for the kids. I love Thanksgiving! The good food and time spent with family is special. I love when there's a chill in the air and everyone is just content to stay inside and spend time together.

 

 

 

 

Last year, I wrote a post about our Thanksgiving traditions if you'd like to read about that.

 

And if you need more inspiration for your holiday table, here's the Thanksgiving table I put together last year.....just for you!



November Is Here!

It's hard to believe that we have already flipped our calendars over to November! The weatherman is already predicting cold and snowy days in the near future. Our calendar is filling up with birthdays to celebrate, doctor's appointments, days off school, a wedding to attend, and of course Thanksgiving.

The kids are already getting excited about putting up the Christmas Tree. But it seems to me like we just took it down a couple weeks ago!

 

 

Back in the Summer, I wrote about being intentional. This season of the year is also an important time to do that. It can become so busy with activities and things we THINK we have to do. It can become really easy to forget the importance of and the reasons why we celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas if we aren't intentional about how we spend our time and what truths and memories we want to instill in our kids.

 

I've actually had the idea of making a "Holiday List" (incorporating both Thanksgiving and Christmas) to try and focus our attention. We'll see how that goes.

 

What are YOU doing to prepare for the last two months of 2014? (Yikes, I can't believe I said that!)

 

 



An Easy, Last-Minute 4th Of July Centerpiece

We made it back from our vacation after a REALLY long drive home. We had a great week though. Good weather, lots of swimming, beach walks, playing games....we even completed a large jigsaw puzzle.

The only photos I have to prove we were on vacation are two of us eating lunch at Ben & Jerry's. Yes, LUNCH! We were on vacation after all. I just didn't think much about taking photos all week. I was just relaxing. I know....bad blogger....and bad Mom. Oh well!

I've been trying to post here all week. I wanted to come up with some kind of decorating for the 4th of July. The inspiration just didn't come though.

So here's what I did instead....

* unpacked

* took my daughter to a doctor's appointment

* watched the US play in the World Cup

* tried to eat a little healthier

* made up a new recipe

* took my daughter to the library

And today, I

* ate my lunch out on the deck and watched my son play in the yard.

While I was outside I noticed that our hydrangea bush WAY back near the back of our lot was in full bloom. I ran in and got some scissors and went back and cut a few flowers to take inside.

As I cut the blooms and arranged them in my white pitcher, the inspiration came. Here's what I ended up with.

 

 

So the moral of the story is....you can't force inspiration. Not even for a blog post.

 

 

But if you are having a get-together tomorrow and still need a little decoration for your table, it's not too late to pull something together. Just use what you have.Find some flowers (or weeds) from your yard or grocery store, gather any red, white, or blue container and extras you may have and.....voila! Easy peasy, lemon squeezy!

 

 

 

I hope you have a terrific holiday weekend! Be safe! And don't forget to take some time to think about what a blessing it is to live in a free country. Freedom isn't free. It has come through the sacrifice and service of many. Let's be thankful!