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You are here: Home / Archives for Christmas

Glitter, Miniature Decorating, Winterizing

December 2, 2024 at 8:02 am by Claudia

The tree is up in Dove Cottage. I was trying to focus on the tree, rather than the furniture – hence, the blurriness in the foreground. I aim to keep the decorating in the little houses as spare as the decorations in my big house: the Christmas tree, a few putz houses here and there, and that’s about it.

The Lake Cottage, Mockingbird Hill Cottage, and Don’s studio have trees. I may switch out the tree in Don’s studio with the vintage dollhouse in the kitchen. He doesn’t care, so why not? That way, I could get a glimpse of the tree through the windows of the house. Hmmmm.

I did a lot of work outside yesterday and it was incredibly windy! Lots of trips back and forth to the shed, as I begin to move porch pots for winter storage. I used a dolly to move the vintage pots that live in the secret garden to the porch. They’re really heavy! I also swept the floor of the shed. I’m getting ready to hang the lights on the porch, cover the sideboard with a tarp, and store the cushions for the winter. It’s really, really cold with nighttime temps dipping down into the teens. We – at least here in the Hudson Valley – are unofficially in winter.

The pansies are still going strong, though I haven’t looked at them this morning. I hope they hang in there as long as possible.

Four more girls wearing their crowns:

I’m having a lot of fun with this series. The photos have to be taken in the early morning, with a certain kind of morning light. Yesterday, I slept in, so there I was – no coffee yet – blindly grabbing Nina, trying to get everything in place for a picture.

Since Maeve has gold glitter on her eyelids, I couldn’t resist.

Such are my days; crowns, glitter, dollhouses, and winterizing….

Stay safe.

Happy Monday,

 

Filed Under: Blythe dolls, Christmas, dollhouse, miniatures 18 Comments

Cleaning and Organizing

January 3, 2024 at 9:19 am by Claudia

Still going strong! Though I’ve noticed it’s beginning to dry out. The putz ‘village’ has been put away, as have all the little Vintage by Crystal figurines. But the tree is staying – at least for a few days. Which brings me to our weather forecast – we may be getting a lot of snow Saturday night into Sunday. If that’s the case, I’ll probably remove and store all the ornaments and lights and have Don take the tree up into the woods on Saturday. If we get a lot of snow, then Monday will be all about digging out, which would then take us to Tuesday, and that would be pushing it.

As I said to Don yesterday, we desperately wanted snow for Christmas and New Year’s Eve. Now? We’re not so crazy about the idea! And as I look ahead on the calendar, it looks like I might be dealing with snow when I have to drive to Rochester. Right now, it looks fairly benign. We’ll see…

We’ve been very committed to our daily walks, so I’m giving us a big old pat on our backs. Yesterday, we were both busy with chores and figured we’d skip it, but later in the day Don decided to go and I joined him. I’m glad I did.

The office/studio was in a bit of chaos yesterday as I decided to tackle the closet. I needed to organize a few things and the closet was full of doll boxes. It was getting ridiculous. When I buy a doll, I tend to want to keep the box (they’re a specific size) in case I eventually want to sell it. And collector dolls, like the Gene Marshall dolls, are worth more when you sell them with the original packaging.

But since the Gene Marshall dolls are inexpensive and I think my little collection is complete, I’m not going to hang on to those boxes. And I don’t need 20 Blythe boxes. So I pulled out lots of them and flattened them for recycling, which involved lots of trips up and down the stairs and then outside to the porch, where we keep the recycling. And I threw out a lot of other stuff, as well. Every inch of space in the closet is being used, but it’s much more organized. I used one of the doll boxes for the Christmas trees that were on the Blythe shelves (I even labeled the box!) And I did the same for the dollhouse trees and Christmas accessories. And the putz houses. Here’s hoping I don’t have dig them out again next year because I inadvertently moved them.  Then I vacuumed every inch of the office and our bedroom.

After that, I sent an Etsy order off in the mail and returned a book to the library – the Michael Connelly, which was excellent. I’ve just barely started Wolf Hall  and will read more of it today.

We had a nice New Year’s Day. We ate our black-eyed peas. My husband was raised by a dad who was from Oklahoma and a mom who was from Texas, so he takes that very seriously. I think it’s a lovely (and healthy) tradition. Black-eyed peas are very good for you. And we watched the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony, which was absolutely fabulous!

Don has to get a shot in his eye today, which always looms over the entire day, bless his heart.

Okay.

Stay safe.

Happy Wednesday.

 

Filed Under: Blythe dolls, Christmas, Gene Marshall dolls, office, studio 20 Comments

Checking In

December 27, 2023 at 8:32 am by Claudia

Well! We’ve had our Christmas dinner and another meal of leftovers. Delicious. Christmas day was lovely and very low key. We have decided that we miss opening a present on  Christmas! We’ll do it differently next year. I made french toast for breakfast and we took a lovely walk in the afternoon – during one of the few periods where the sun was shining. Yesterday was gray and dismal. Today is gray and it’s raining. And no snow in sight.

This was the scene under the Christmas tree:

And there they stayed for most of the day. Big congratulations to Chloe for managing to sit securely on that stool all day long, even with both of us treading on the floorboards throughout the day.

I hope all of you enjoyed the holiday, if you celebrate. I hope that you felt some level of peace, if only for one day. We did and I’m very grateful.

As it happens, we watched “It’s a Wonderful Life” on Christmas Eve, “Meet John Doe” on Tuesday night, and “It Happened One Night” last night. A Frank Capra triple feature. It wasn’t planned, but I can’t imagine a better way to spend an evening. I think I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again. Frank Capra is my favorite film director. He’s Don’s, as well.

I’m reading the newest Michael Connelly. After two months of waiting in the queue, it arrived just before Christmas. I’m also working on another puzzle – The World of Hercule Poirot.

And, that my friends, is all I have to share. We’re fairly low key this week, as are, I suspect, many of you.

I just read that the date on NYE will be 12-31-23 or 123123. Pretty neat!

Stay safe.

Happy Wednesday.

 

Filed Under: Christmas 24 Comments

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Welcome!

Welcome!

I live in a little cottage in the country with my husband. It's a sweet place, sheltered by old trees and surrounded by gardens. The inside is full of the things we love. I love to write, I love my camera, I love creating, I love gardening. My decorating style is eclectic; full of vintage and a bit of whimsy.

I've worked in the theater for more years than I can count. I'm currently a voice, speech, dialect and text coach freelancing on Broadway, off Broadway, and in regional theater.

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