Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Life in our little cottage in the country

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The Day Before Christmas Eve

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Happy day before Christmas Eve! I completely forgot to display this Santa until this morning. And that would have been a shame, as he is absolutely beautiful. My mom gave Don and I a few of these large Santas over the years – I think there is another one in the shed. Note to myself: go get it.

This Christmas, especially, I want to honor my mom. She will be spending Christmas in the nursing home. It will be the first Christmas in 66 years that my parents haven’t woken up together on Christmas morning. My dad has been decorating her room and he will spend much of Christmas day with her. He decided not to decorate his condo. When you’re alone and your beloved wife is not by your side, decorating loses its appeal.

Isn’t the detail incredible?

Don isn’t feeling well. He had chills last night, so I tucked him in with an afghan and my childhood quilt (my grandma made heavy quilts.) He’s not up yet.

He’s mad at himself for letting me open my iPhone early. He says he should have stood up to me, been firmer. I know he wants to buy a couple of small presents so I have something to open on Christmas morning, but if he doesn’t feel better, that might not happen. Present opening may be confined to Don and the dogs!

Lots of movie watching yesterday: White Christmas in the afternoon and two of The Thin Man series in the evening. Love some William Powell and Myrna Loy – they had such great chemistry. Plus, the series was shot in the 30’s, so there are beautiful Art Deco sets and fabulous clothes. And the wonderful dog, Asta, played by a dog named Skippy in real life. Skippy was a popular dog in the thirties; he worked in lots of movies, including one of my favorites, The Awful Truth.

Can you tell I love old movies?

If they took my ridiculously long list of cable channels away, and let’s face it, I’m usually complaining that there is nothing worth watching on television,  I would be fine if only I still had Turner Classic Movies. Is it possible to subscribe to only one cable channel? I sure would save a lot of money.

I’m making my list of things to buy at the grocery store. Don has to work on Christmas Eve, so I will spend the time baking our Christmas Coffee Cake and a pumpkin pie.

How are your preparations going?

Favorite Ornaments

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I’m feeling a bit more peppy today. It was a rainy day yesterday and Don’s day off, so we turned on all the Christmas lights as soon as we got up and proceeded to do only those things we wanted to do – my prescription for a restful day. Some popcorn and Ball of Fire with Barbara Stanwyck and Gary Cooper on TCM was the perfect way to end the day. Have you ever seen Ball of Fire? It’s a wonderfully wacky comedy directed by Howard Hawks. You will love it.

Today, some dog (who shall remain nameless but is white in color) gets a trip to the dog wash for a bath. The other one needs a bath, too, but his back and hips have been particularly troublesome lately, so I’m not going to put him through all that.

As I sit in my blogging chair which faces the Christmas tree, I thought I’d share a few favorite ornaments with you. This one is old and the perfect shade of pink.

What makes these especially beautiful to me is the way the colors have faded and softened over time.

The acorns are only a few years old. I bought them at Heidi’s shop.

My bottle brush ornaments. What would I do without them? I found them at Heidi’s shop, as well. If you ever get to this neck of the woods, Heidi has a Christmas room full of fabulous ornaments, many of them vintage. She is known for her collection of vintage ornaments – and the Christmas room is open year round.

We moved out here in 2001. After driving a truck full of our worldly goods across the country, we arrived on the doorstep of our rented cottage, which was very small. We had already arranged to store many of our boxes and some furniture because there simply wasn’t enough room in the cottage for them. I had painstakingly organized the packing of the truck so that everything we needed for the house was unloaded first, leaving all the things to go to storage in the back of the truck. After we unloaded, everything else went on to the storage facility, which was rather far away.

Christmas came around. I looked for all our ornaments. Couldn’t find them. I tore the cottage apart. Nothing. Dang it. We had mistakenly sent those boxes to storage! No time to drive there and even if we had the time, the facility was huge and our stuff wasn’t easily accessible.

Off to the local drugstore we went. We bought a lot of generic colored balls and lights. No beautiful silver glass tree topper – that was in one of the boxes. We found this little tin angel and figured she’d do until we were finally reunited with our decorations. But every Christmas since, she has won out. We just love her. Sometimes you find the perfect decoration and don’t even know it!

This is the last ornament we put on the tree every year, in honor of our beloved dog, Winston, who died too young. He was with us for 8 years. I miss him every day.

I hope you’re finding some pockets of quiet time this holiday season.

Defending the Small House #6

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{Living Big in 1200 Square Feet}
Welcome to week number 6 of Defending the Small House. Today’s topic: Displaying Collections in a Small House. Most of us collect something or other; many of us have multiple collections. How do we show off our beloved collections in a small space?
I collect china and pottery. And I just seem to accumulate more and more. I can’t help it! I collect hand-painted china, china hat pin holders, Roseville Pottery, Fiesta and, my largest collection, McCoy Pottery. I have many pieces of McCoy, scattered throughout the house. How do I display them?
Tip #1: Find furniture pieces that will hold your collections, whether they are cabinets, shelves, boxes or something else. Grouping collections together in a cabinet or on shelves will make a big statement. I have a few cabinets that hold and display my china.

This cabinet is in the kitchen.

This cabinet is in the den.
Putting the china and pottery in a cabinet protects the pieces and also brings pieces made by different manufacturers together so that they have more impact. This particular cabinet has a mix of McCoy and my good china, as well as some hand-painted pieces that I treasure. By the way, the interior of this cabinet used to be the same color of wood as the outside. It was too dark in there. So I painted the inside a pale pink. Now the china doesn’t get lost in the dark interior of the cabinet and the pieces really pop.
Tip #2: Use your collections to create vignettes, like the one below. The birds are singing, they are on the piano, and the little white bird is perched on a dictionary of musical terms. Everything works together to make a sweet vignette.

Tip #3: Display your collectibles in like groupings. What does that mean? Well, for example, here I grouped together 3 McCoy bird planters – 2 the same color and one in a contrasting color. This group makes a statement. To top it off, I added a bird nest that I found in our yard.

You can also display things in color groupings:

Here I have 3 pieces of McCoy in yellow and a Fiesta pitcher in yellow. That makes a statement.

And here I have 3 pieces of aqua McCoy Pottery, alongside my good china, which has an aqua rim. If you were to look on the shelf above, you would find 3 more pieces of aqua McCoy grouped together.

If you collect something like vintage kitchen utensils or rolling pins, you could hang them on the wall in a group, creating a striking, graphic look.

Tip #4: Think up. Boy, do I ever ‘think up.’ I have a lot of pottery displayed on the top of my cabinets. This is the hutch in the den that you saw earlier. I used to have this Roseville Pottery scattered around the house. But when I grouped it together and placed it on top of the hutch, it all worked. I have a special fondness for these pieces and they make sense together. They are also nicely protected up there.

Here are some more examples of thinking up:

On top of the white cabinet in the living room, also grouped by color.

On top of the kitchen cabinets.

On top of the white china cabinet in the kitchen.

This works especially well with pottery because it tends to be large. Because of that, it doesn’t get lost up there.
Tip #5: Smaller collectibles pack more of a punch when grouped together. I have some collections that are small in stature. I group them together.
I collect egg cups:
The vast majority of them are on this shelf unit that I found in an antique shop. Grouping them together tells the story of the collection. And it makes me smile.

Look for interesting pieces on which to display your collections. This shelf is a favorite of mine; I picked it precisely for this purpose and I think it enhances the egg cup collection. The rest of my egg cups are on a sweet little shelf in the den:

My husband’s jumping jack collection is displayed by our side door.

See? Hard to keep a frown on your face when you see these! Grouping them together tells a story.

Same with my bakelite flatware:

I also have a few mini collections. These are the beginnings of new collections. All grouped together to make more of a statement.

Miniature pottery.
My bride and groom cake toppers.

Tip #6: Don’t hide your collections. Live with them. Use them. I’m very visual. I love seeing my favorite things around me. I don’t rotate my collections, storing some of them away, while others remain on display. No way! I’m proud of my collections and they say a lot about me. Heck, collecting McCoy Pottery set me on a new path with color and it shows in my decorating.

I use my pottery to organize things in my studio. I put fresh flowers in my vases. I use my china. I tuck one type of collectible in another type of collectible.  I don’t know about you, but I love nothing more than exploring someone’s collections. If I visit a home for the first time, I immediately gravitate toward collections and books. And sometimes, the books are a collection.

Tip #7: Don’t think for a moment that having a small house means you can’t display everything. You can. You should. As long as you find a way to group your pieces so that they make a kind of sense, your home will not look cluttered. Group by color, group by size, group by type of collection – as long as it makes sense, it will work.

Thanks so much for stopping by. I hope these tips are helpful for you. Make sure you visit Brenda for her take on displaying collections in a small house.

And finally, Happy Holidays to everyone – if you celebrate Christmas or Hannukah, please have a wonderful, magical holiday!

We’re going to take a couple of weeks off from this series. We’ll be back on January 10th.

Lambs Like to Party

Lambs Like to Party

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