Welcome to my Holiday Home Tour!

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Thank you, Tracey (Notes from a Cottage Industry), for hosting this Virtual Holiday Home Tour! As you probably already know, Tracey's blog is filled with beautiful photographs, inspiring quotations, project how-to's, gorgeous home decor, amazing transformations, as well as a list of all bloggers participating in today's "Holiday Home Tours." So grab a cup of hot chocolate, get comfy, and have fun visiting everybody's homes!

(Our family had planned to decorate this past weekend but Spotty, our 15 year old kitty who often makes appearances on my blog, has been quite sick so we didn't decorate; therefore, I'll share pictures from last Christmas with you.)


I'm a total product of the 50's, as are these angels and reindeer. (I have a thing for vintage Christmas decorations.) Behind them is my mother's crystal candy dish, filled with small glass ornaments.


Last year we bought our first artificial tree, and it's amazing how realistic it is. Fake trees have come a long way since the 70's.


Another photo of last year's tree. A lot of the decorations are ornaments made by the girls during their nursery school, kindergarten, and elementary school years (in many ways it seems like yesterday!) There are also lots of photo ornaments of our family, pets, and loved ones mixed in with the store bought decorations.


"The stockings were hung by the chimney with care..." Even though I now have two pink stockings on the fireplace, we still hang the girls old teddy bear stockings on Christmas Eve for Santa to fill!


I got this cute silver feather tree from Lori at Katie's Rose Cottage last year. She always has the neatest things in her shop!

My good friend, Jill, gave me this adorable sheep a few years ago. Don't you think it has the sweetest little face?

This is the dining room last year. Every year I try to do something a bit different for table coverings, but the centerpieces never vary.

Small button-filled vases sport little sparkly boughs...

The Christmas cactus in bloom last year.

The CD chest and mirror at the end of the hallway decked out with garland and a pink Christmas tree.

And finally, a little arrangement of trees and vintage feather angels. (Can you tell I love to use pink, white, and silver for Christmas?)

Thank you so much for stopping by during the Holiday Home Tour. I hope you enjoyed yourself, and I know you will enjoy visiting all the other participating bloggers! Have fun making the rounds!

Note: (Instructions for the glitter "Christmas card ornaments" in the first photo can be found here if you are interested.)

Donna

Holiday Home Tour

Today I'm taking part in the 2009 Holiday Home Tour hosted by the lovely Tracey of Notes from a Cottage Industry. Please be sure to visit Tracey as she has posted links to many other bloggers who are sharing their Christmas decor! Thank you, Tracey!!

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We took advantage of our daughters being home for Thanksgiving to trim the tree. It's definitely more fun when everybody is here to decorate... We bit the bullet a few years ago and bought an artificial tree (I'm not sure either girl has quite gotten over this yet, but when the last 'real' tree we had dropped every needle the day after Christmas, which meant we were still vacuuming up remnants of it the following summer, we decided it was time to go artificial.)


I wasn't able to download all of my photos, so I'm just going to share a bit of the living room for now... In future posts I'll show you the fireplace & mantel, the vintage birdcage all decked out for the holidays, the dining room, and much, much more.


Our living room is quite small so every year, in order to make room for the tree, the furniture has to be rearranged.


The tree definitely takes up quite a bit of the room, but it's well worth it - especially at night when the room is illuminated by just the tree lights...


In a future post I'll share the sentiment behind this year's window decorations.


I'll also show you more of my "Night Before Christmas" collection (I never get tired of looking at the beautiful illustrations in these books... The artwork is amazing, with each individual artist depicting this Christmas classic in a style that is unique to them)...

I often take advantage of after-Christmas sales to pick up heavily discounted bottlebrush trees in all styles and sizes. I've used them in several of my groupings around the house this year...

...including on the pie safe, where I plunked them down on top of my small collection of button vases. The glitter reindeer are from Target last year - can you ever have too much sparkle at Christmastime? I don't think so!

Now I'm off to finish downloading more Christmas photos! Thank you for stopping by to see the first of my holiday decorating posts! I wish you all a joyous holiday season...

Donna

Tinsel wreaths and pastel birds...

... found their way into my shopping cart this week...

During a quick trip to Wal Mart yesterday, I made a little side trip through the Christmas aisles. I'm thinking of decorating the dining room chandelier for Christmas this year and I needed some inspiration.

Well, when I spotted these sparkly birds with sequined wings and the palest aqua feathers, I couldn't resist...

And then there was my quick trip to Target earlier this week. Every year I put off buying stocking stuffers until the last minute and by then, all of the good candy is gone. So this year, with the shelves fully stocked, I purchased some candy for the girls' stockings... and then I browsed (I really shouldn't browse)... But in this case it paid off! Look what I found in the Dollar section - tinsel wreaths! They were pretty skimpy, as you can see, but for $1 apiece I figured what the heck, so I picked up 3 (they came in silver, green, and hot pink at our Target, but I liked the silver best - very vintage looking!)...


Well look at what these skimpy little wreaths blossom into when you pull and tweak all the little tinsel boughs! Woo hoo!! Score!!! (I don't think these are going to last long in the dollar section so if you're in the market for tinsel wreaths, make a dash to Target!) I know that some people think they're a bit gaudy and cheap looking, but oh, how they remind me of the vintage decorations of the Christmases of my childhood!! And being the nostalgic, sentimental fool that I am, I love anything from that era!

So I ended up with my inspiration - and decorations - for the chandelier in our little dining area...

Today I played around with everything to see how it would look, and we may just end up eating Thanksgiving dinner under a Christmas chandelier because I don't know if I want to take the time to disassemble it (only to reassemble it again next week!!) I'm joining Tracey's (Notes from a Cottage Industry) Virtual Holiday Home Tour on December 1st, and if any of you would like to join in and show off your Christmas decorations, just click here for details! And even if you don't want to participate, be sure to visit Tracey's blog that day because she'll have a list of blogs who've decorated for Christmas - and let me tell you (based on the past years) - it's spectacular! There's so much to see! Sometimes Tracey even spreads it out over several days! So on December 1st, make yourself a cup of tea, coffee, or cocoa, and then settle in and browse to your heart's content!

Happy decorating!

Donna

Cottage Christmas sheep....

...the ox and lamb kept time, pa-rum-pum-pum-pum...

My good friend, Jill, who lives in Ohio, sent me this beautiful little sheep several years ago, and he is now a beloved part of my Christmas decor...

This year I thought he'd enjoy being part of my vintage birdcage display (last year the pink glittered reindeer lived in the cage, then known as the vintage reindeer barn!)


I went all out for this sweet little lamb, hanging a sparkly silver NEST banner on the front of his cage (it usually hangs on the fireplace, but was moved to make way for the stockings and mantel decorations)...


...and I put one of my favorite flocked bottlebrush trees into his cage.


He even has a sparkly bird to sing him Christmas carols...


I think he looks very happy in his vintage cage... maybe even a hint of a smile?


The outside of the cage even got decorated this year....


I picked up these dangly ornaments, discounted by 75%, at AC Moore this past January.


At the time, I wasn't sure where I would use them, but 75% off was too good to pass up! And this year, when I started decorating the cage, it seemed like a good place to hang them.


Cottage sheep says he's really enjoying his sparkly holiday home, and he hopes the reindeer never want to move back in! (They're enjoying their place of honor in the dining room. Pictures to come soon.)


But now it's time to go to sleep... Goodnight little sparkly bird... Goodnight sweet little lamb... See you in the morning... (and thank you, Jill!)



Wishing all of you sweet and sparkly dreams!



Now you must go visit the lovely Cielo at The House In The Roses to see her "Show Off Your Cottage Monday" post, and to find a list of all others who are participating this week!!!
Happy Cottage Monday!!!






Donna

Happy B-day, honey!

We took advantage of everyone being home for the holiday weekend to celebrate Amanda's birthday...


...which meant it was Amanda's day to wear the CELEBRATE birthday crown, and CELEBRATE we did!


Since Amanda is an artist, I thought I'd get a little "artsy" with some of the photos I took that night (I think this was a "pastel chalk" conversion or some such thing... it seemed like a good idea at the time!! ha ha). She requested mock meat tacos for dinner since she's a vegetarian, and this year, rather than black forest cake, she requested a strawberry cake with vanilla 'funfetti' frosting.


I love this photo of Amanda peeking through the Christmas chandelier of tinsel wreaths, sparkly birds and stars. The little dining area, which had already been decorated for Christmas, looked very festive for her birthday celebration. (And yes, we did end up having Thanksgiving dinner under the Christmas chandelier! That was a first!)


Court found a perfect card for her! I'm sure Amanda will end up displaying it above her painting desk, along with all of her other neat postcards, photos, and cards.

So happy birthday, honey! It was so wonderful having you and Courtney home this weekend (even if it did go by way too fast!!!) ... I love you and I hope that all your birthday wishes come true!!!!

Love and hugs,
Mumsy


P.S. I've tried to personally respond to everyone who left a comment on Spotty's post, but in some cases I couldn't find a blog or e-mail in order to do so... For everyone who left such kind words, you have no idea how comforting your comments and e-mails were. It's clear that you are all animal lovers. So many of you shared the pain of your own losses, and my heart goes out to each and every one of you.... Again, thank you all so much...

Celebrations and a giveaway winner...

 I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday.

Ours was lovely as we combined Thanksgiving with celebrating our Amanda's birthday 

since she was home from the city for a few days.

Amanda always enjoys coming home, and one of the highlights is that she gets to spend time with her sweet Tiger, who is now over 20 years old!

This is a photo of them sleeping together back in September of 1993. 

Aren't they adorable?

And to this day, Tiger sleeps on Amanda's bed.

We've built her something of a "Tiger cave" that she can snuggle into to stay warm....

... or lay in front of if she wants a bit of fresh air. She's such a sweet little girl.

And speaking keeping warm, I snapped this photo last week of our first 'mini snow' - Brrrrrr! I feel cold just looking at this photo. I'm not quite sure how I'm going to get through the next four months, but c'est la vie! That's New England!

And now it's time to announce the winner of the giveaway for any 16" x 20" or smaller 

art print from my Etsy shop....

Hubby did the picking and he pulled Carla from Here in Texas!

I'll be in touch with you, Carla, to work out the details for your print choice & address.

I hope you all have a wonderful week, and be sure to stop back because I'm going to be having another giveaway for a fabulous 1995 edition of The Night Before Christmas with amazing illustrations by Christian Birmingham. As many of you know, I have an extensive collection of "Night Before Christmas" books. When I spotted this book while out thrifting, I knew one of you would enjoy it as I already have it in my collection and it is gorgeous!

Till then, stay safe & warm!

This week I'm joining Cindy at My Romantic Home for Show & Tell Friday.

Donna

It's a "We Love White" party - and you're invited!

While visiting Donna at the beautiful Funky Junk Interiors earlier, I learned about a fantastic We Love White party being hosted by Marianne at Songbird, and everyone is invited!! Marianne is also having a giveaway at her beautiful blog (3 giveaways, in fact!!) so be sure to visit her to see why she loves white, and why all the other participating bloggers love white!

Anybody who visits my blog knows how much I love white! Over the past 6-7 years, we have transitioned from a darker, primitive decor (which I still do love!) to a lighter, brighter shabby cottage decor.

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The dark pine trestle table that we've had for the past 21 years is always covered with white (or light) table coverings, and the dark bow back chairs were replaced by six white farmhouse chairs. I also painted our old primitive hutch white, giving it instant cottage charm (before & after photos).

All of our living room furniture was painted white as well, which really brightened up this small room. In addition, our 21-year old blue Sturbridge Plaid loveseat is concealed under a white slipcover. Color is easily added through the use of pillows and the vintage bedspread throws that cover our old, threadbare wing chair.

The same goes for the family room. The matching Sturbridge Plaid sofa is covered with a white slipcover and an equally old, threadbare wing chair is covered by a variety of spreads, just as in the living room. Having the white slipcovers, bookcases, and lamps allows me to easily switch accent colors.

Our teeny, tiny windowless kitchen was once a dungeon (before & after photos here)... but not anymore! It's amazing how a little white paint made this small room seem so much bigger! And our old brick fireplace, that hubby would not let me paint, is now hidden behind the new white fireplace cover he built (before & after photos here).

White lampshades, lace runners & table scarves, and pillow shams help make the small rooms in our little home seem so much brighter.

Vases filled with white buttons, white sparkly holiday decorations, pale white & pink pillowcase shams (used as curtains on our front doors), and a white church and tan angel keep the white theme going...

... while white cats (some real, some not) provide a little whimsy here, there, and everywhere.

Our Halloween decorations are light and bright rather than the standard orange and black...

... and white is the predominant color ...

 ... of all the Christmas decorations, too!

And as you can see, the white theme carries right through to the outside as well... There is white wicker patio furniture, our little white backyard shed, and the most beautiful WINTER white for several months out of the year (this is New England, after all!!!).

I hope you enjoyed these collages of Why I Love White! Now be sure to click the button below to head straight to Songbird's WE LOVE WHITE party!!

Have a beautiful weekend, everyone!

Donna