Christmas — Page 29

Vintage-ing & Mini Tree Decorating

December 2, 2018 at 10:32 am by Claudia

Both of us woke up way too early this morning, but what can you do? I’m right on the edge of becoming testy, so I’m going to work overtime not to be so. I finished Susan Hill’s latest and now have to make the decision as to what to read next. A quality problem.

Other than that, this is what I’ve been doing – Yesterday, I decided that I would go to the local antique shop that I had planned to visit earlier in the week, but cancelled when I realized I needed to buy outdoor lights at Target. This little multi-dealer shop is very charming. My favorite dealer (the one who sold me the egg cup cubby cabinet) has a booth there. She has booths at three different antique shops, by the way, two of which I’ve been to very recently.

I’ve been wanting to find more putz sheep to add to my mantel shelf over my desk, and though I see them rarely, when I do see them it’s usually around Christmas or Easter. My search had been fruitless so far, but I had a feeling that if anyone carried some putz sheep, it would be this dealer.

As I was drinking coffee and scrolling through IG, I saw that she had two new posts up, both of which concerned her booth at the shop I wanted to visit.

One of them had photos of putz sheep.

Serendipity. And also interesting that she just added the sheep on Friday, so I wouldn’t have seen them had I gone earlier in the week. I scooted on over there and grabbed them. They’re in great condition.

I initially picked two of them and left one behind, but in true Claudia fashion, I felt badly for the one I didn’t pick, so I went back to the booth to retrieve it. I worried it would be lonesome. They’re old, they’re German and I love them.

This one has a bell. It also has a little bow on its tush, which I’ve never seen before.

I added them to my shelf upstairs in the office.

Smile. I love my little sheep. And my Lamb Chops. And a felted sheep that I have in my bedroom. And another fat sheep in the office. So does my sister, who also collects sheep.

If I had limited the damage to the three putz sheep, I would have been fine. But a stroll through the shop revealed other impossible-to-resist treasures.

This striking egg cup, which is actually more of the ecru color of aged ironstone, with a lot of crazing that you can’t see in this photo. I really love it.

This little vintage putz house.

Isn’t it charming? How could I resist?

And this Roseville baby’s plate, something I’ve wanted for a long time. It was so reasonably priced that I had to buy it.

It’s very heavy.

It now lives upstairs in the cabinet that holds some of my Roseville.

After that little treasure hunt, I came home, took photos of everything because I’m a blogger, and then started in on the decorating of mini Christmas trees, which turned out to be frustrating for a while until I figured out how to do it. Glitter now covers every surface upstairs. I’ve vacuumed twice. I know I will be finding it everywhere for a long time. I had to launder my clothes, which were covered with glitter.

This is why I normally avoid glitter like the plague.

But here is the mid-century modern tree, in progress.

I cut off a lot of the branches at the bottom, but I also want to cut the wire spine of the tree. I have wire cutters, but they’re made for much thinner wire, so I’ll probably make a trip to Lowes in the next couple of days. Meanwhile, I decided I needed to glue the ornaments on this tree because they kept falling off, causing me to curse out loud several times.

The ‘pine’ tree that I made is another story. I don’t want to glue anything on that tree.

I’ll figure it all out.

And finally,

I ran outside to get his picture of the house with outdoor Christmas lights.

Gosh, I love them.

Happy Sunday.

Natural Beauty in Late Autumn

December 1, 2018 at 10:12 am by Claudia

The porch lights are up. It actually takes no time at all, about 15 minutes or so. (I’m not even going to bother with cleaning the railings until spring.) The lights were such a cheery and welcoming sight as we arrived back home last night from Rick and Doug’s. As we drove up to Don’s parking space near the shed, we saw the buck again. And he stayed there, very still, until the car lights were off and we walked toward the house. Two sightings now of that beautiful animal.

While I was outside yesterday, I grabbed my camera. I like to remind myself that there is beauty in the bleak landscape. It just takes seeing the landscape through the lens of my camera to realize that every season has its beauty.

The milkweed pods have burst open to release their silk parachutes.

Here’s one that still has seeds. Soon they will be transported by winds, or simply drop right where they are, guaranteeing that more milkweed plants will grow next spring.

I think they’re beautiful.

The burning bush has finally lost its red leaves leaving these beautiful berries behind. The berries are toxic in large quantities to humans and animals, but they are food for the birds. I’ve never read that they are toxic for birds. I’ll trust the birds, who know, to make that decision.

I’ll be finishing Susan Hill’s latest sometime today. Then the question is: do I read another James Lee Burke or start the Louise Penny? Penny is the only author I do this with: I often postpone starting the book because I know it will be such an exquisite pleasure to read and that, once it’s done, I’ll have to wait another year for a new book in the series. So I hold off.

Delayed gratification.

I have a feeling I’ll be holding off. We’ll see.

I’m going to work on the mini trees today, as it’s foggy out there with rain coming later in the day.

Happy Saturday.

Miniature Trees & More Lights

November 30, 2018 at 10:40 am by Claudia

Well, I didn’t get to the antique shop because I looked for the porch Christmas lights and couldn’t find them anywhere, which leads me to believe they’re tucked away under the stairs with the other decorations. As I’m not ready to move the egg cup cabinet yet, I decided to go to Target and buy some more. Why not? They’re inexpensive and it’s probably time to get some new ones because, as you know, some bulbs are almost guaranteed not to work.

So I headed out and stopped at Target and Michael’s.

The lights are currently hanging from this cabinet and the stair railing so they lose the kinks in the cords. I’m going to drape them on the porch railing later this morning.

I found this guy in the china cabinet in the office, so he’s now on display.

But basically, the rest of the decorating will happen at the end of next week. Except for the dollhouses. They get done first.

I bought some trim at Michael’s.

They were marked 50% off. My idea is to clip off the little balls and hang them on my mini Christmas tree. I’ve never been totally happy with the way I’ve decorated that tree and I’m going to try to step it up this year.

If you’re new to the blog, you might not know that I made this tree several years ago. The branches are a preserved pine called lycopodium. My memory of that day is of glue covering every inch of my fingers and hands. I love it, though – it was worth it. It looks very realistic. But the pine is dark and it needs some colorful ornaments. I added one little ball last night just to see how it looks.

I also bought some battery operated lights there.

But now that I look at the box more clearly, I realize that the string is 8 feet long! Way too long for my little tree. Hmmm. I’ll have to come up with something else.

I also want to try to do something with this silver tree. My thought it to put it in the more modern dollhouse that I bought last year. It’s too tall, so I’ll have to cut it down somehow. I’d like to eliminate some branches so it looks less like a bottle brush tree and more like an artificial mid-century silver tree. Either that, or lots of ornaments to hide its bottle brush origins. Or, I might go with the smaller gold tree that you can see on the right and put it on a table.

Fingers crossed.

I like decorating the dollhouses. Even Don’s mini studio gets some holiday touches!

I’m off to eat some oatmeal, take a shower, and hang those porch lights. Don and I are going to Rick and Doug’s tonight for a movie night – Rear Window, one of my favorites. When we head back home after the movie, we’ll see our pretty lights as we come down the street.

I’m going to reiterate a couple of things I’ve shared with you in the past. Even though I have a Blogger blog and Google account, it has become impossible for me to leave comments on other Blogger blogs. I know others are having the same problem. So, even if it appears I’m not reading your blogs, I am!

The other reminder is this: when you choose to respond to a post by replying to the email version of the post, I have absolutely no way of responding to you. I can read your reply, but as it comes from a separate email address meant only for sending out the post each day, I can’t write you back from that address. Even though I’ve been clear about this several times in the past, the occasional reader gets ticked off at me because they think I’m ignoring them. I’m not. I’d much rather you respond in the comments section on the blog, but if you’re not comfortable with that for some reason, send your response to my email address which you can find by clicking on the envelope icon at the top of the sidebar. If you’re fine with me not responding, that’s okay, too.

Happy Friday.

Vintage-ing & Mini Tree Decorating

Natural Beauty in Late Autumn

Miniature Trees & More Lights

claudiahillsparks

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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