2010 in Review

Rhoda at Southern Hospitality has lured me into a recap of 2010.
Because I am one to never want to miss out on something, I am joining in on her party!

I have to say it was kind of neat to go back through my posts of 2010 and see all I have accomplished. I picked one for every month. I'll link them back to the original posts, so if you see something you like you can follow it and get more info about it.

Are you ready? Alrighty, here we go!

If you remember, in January I started "Decorating A-Z."

Every week my projects involved a letter of the alphabet. Of course, I proceeded alphabetically.

January 2010: Scarlett

February: Eh, not really anything outstanding, let's move on...

March: Laundry Room

April: Master Bedroom (aka Truvy's Beauty Shop)

May: Nothing earth-shattering. Let's keep moving

June: Lemonade Stand

July: Painting the Fireplace

August: Jenny's Bedroom

September/October: Entertainment Center, Bathroom Organizing

November: Christmas Mantle

I want to say a special "Thank You" to all my followers and faithful readers!

I have a few things in the pipes for 2011. You can rest assured that my

"have-to-make-it-cuteitis" as well as my inability to stay satisfied

will provide more blog fodder in the coming year!

I hope that 2011 proves to be your best year yet! Happy New Year!

"Toile" a Good Night!

Yes this is a re-do of a post from last year.

Some suey.

(private joke among my SIL and her family, but I'll let you in on it).

One of Sandy's favorite expressions when she got frustrated with her hubby was to say

"So sue me!" Her son, who was about 4 or 5 at the time, got frustrated with his dad one day and said "Some suey, dad!"

Anyway, here is one of my favorite Christmas pictures. My youngest, at the age of 3, watching the "grown-up" kids Christmas program.

May you all take some time to sit in awe of the manger.

Have a wonderful Christmas and be thankful for the ultimate sacrifice.

Come "Clocher"

Here's my environment as I blog on a wonderful Sunday morning:

Isn't that lovely. What a nice way to spend a Sunday morning. We have a Christmas musical at church today, but hubby and I decided to sleep a little later, relax a little longer and go to the service at 3pm.

But I digress, onto the business of the day.

I'm a few days late, but I'm linking up with Marty at A Stroll Through Life for her cloche party. Ever since I started blogging, I've seen those little glass domes all over blog-land. People make them out of cheese domes, upside down candle holders. All kinds of things.

I love them.

I have 4 cloches on display for Christmas. Let's start with my fav:

This sits on top of my curio cabinet in my dining room (thanks Mrs. Savvy for the help on figuring out what that piece of furniture should be called!) It is my favorite vignette of this season.

Afterall, it does represent the reason for the season!

Next up is a cloche that I stalked at my favorite flea market until it went on sale for 1/2 price:

I love the base on this one. It is like mossy stone.

Here is a tiny cloche that I got at the same flea market (actually the same booth) as the stony cloche above.

I love this guy, so vintagey, so Christmasy, so lover-ly.

Coming up are the cloches that are in my kitchen:

You all know I love me some ornaments. I especially love red and white ornaments. These were perfect to go along with my transferware creamer and white cake plate.

Here is my newest cloche addition. My friend, Jenny, gave this to me for Christmas this year. She makes fun of my bird addiction, but you notice that she is an enabler!

Drop by Marty's for some more ideas of things to go under glass!

Decked Out Dining Room

Man, this time of year is busy for a blogger!

There are so many parties going on and I want to go to them all!

Sometimes I feel like I'm chasing my tail.

I'm going to try to keep up ya'll just hang in there with me.

Today I am joining in with Savvy Southern Style and All Things Heart and Home today I am sharing with you all my dining room.

Here is how it looked last year:

And here it is one year later:


The past year I have changed out the light fixture, added shelves, hung roman shades and added an old window as a divider.
Let's mosey around the room:
This wall is my silhouette wall.

I have a silhouette of me and each of the kids from the wedding.

To go along with the silhouettes, I simply added white and silver plates, a couple black and white pictures, some greenery and a couple ornaments to dress this area up.

Scarlett sits below the shelves and she gets a little spiffed up for the holidays, but

she doesn't need much help.

I just add an ornament to the silver tray, some pepperberries to a topiary, and another ornament to the lamp. Done.

Moving on around the room, here is my favorite vignette this year.

It sits on top of my china cabinet

(I don't really think it is a china cabinet, but I don't really know what to call it.)

And finally as you walk out of the room here are some hand drawn pictures of my kiddos:

Thanks for stopping by! There are lots more parties coming up, keep checking back!

Little Touches Here and There

Okay, so maybe little is an understatement.

If you saw my house IRL, you would probably laugh in my face at the "little touches" comment. Honestly, I don't think there is a surface in my house that hasn't been touched by the Ghost of Christmas Decorating.

It's a disease, Have-to-Make-It-Cute-itis. I'm sure there's a twelve step program for people like me. I just haven't looked for it yet. They haven't covered that kind of counseling in my school counseling program, so I just deal with it on my own.

Anyway, there is another party that I'm a-linking up to so I have to share with you all some of my vignettes. Boy, do I have them. Rhoda over at Southern Hospitality is hosting, so come on over and play Tom the Peeper with me and check out some of these ideas.

I have lots and lots, so I am organizing them into categories and I will try not to talk too much. We'll see how that works out for me.

Up first are my vignettes with plates. I love 'em, ya'll know that. So of course they will creep into my holiday home.

I explained here how I got that little plate stuck in the middle of the larger one.

These sweet reindeer I painted using my kiddos' hands to make the antlers.

Next, and largest group, are the vignettes with ornaments.

I know, it is SO original to use ornaments for decorations for Christmas. You are all amazed with my creativity.

But I am totally addicted to ornaments. I could shop for ornaments in the middle of a summer heat wave or the day after Christmas and get equally excited. As a result, I have many.

I have them hanging from the banister:

I have them hanging from lamps:

I pile them into bowls and other containers:

Along with some mercury glass ornaments, I have some ping pong balls that I painted "HO" onto.

I was so excited when I had the idea, I didn't even want to cover the black writing that was on one side of the balls because I would have to wait for paint to dry. I just turned the balls so you couldn't see it!

I also scatter ornaments, and other things, on top of the kitchen cabinets:

I like to think that most of my decorating involves greenery, lights, and stuff that I use most of the time(plus some ornaments here and there) instead of having to change out my entire house when December rolls around.

Here are some ways that I add greenery to put Christmas around:

We're almost done...here are some of my favorites sights around my house.
This is the view on the wall as you go downstairs:

This sits on my kitchen island. I fell in love with that gygo ornament (imagine that) and had a moment of inspiration the other night about where to put it.

You can also see my roman shades in the background that have inspired my new hints of blue.

I went pretty simple on the dining room table. Just a favorite nativity scene and some more greenery, all set on a tray:

Last, but certainly not least, is what I think is my favorite vignette this year. This one sits on top of my china cabinet. While I have more pieces to the Willow Tree nativity set, I just went simple with Joseph, Mary and Jesus and set them under a glass cloche.

I'm also joining up here, come see!


Thanks for stopping by again!