Happy New Year!!

Happy 2013 to one and all!  Starting the new year confined to my bedroom while a gaggle of girls celebrates downstairs!  No, not really, just 4 girls and they would be ok with it if we decided we wanted to be down there with them.

Most of you know we are celebrating the new year with home improvement projects.  Funny story, I was very excited tonight to find out the Miss Mustard Seed is putting in the exact same floor as we are! I actually squealed, "I am SO cool!" when I read that! LOL!



No, this is not our home, but this is the flooring that we are putting in throughout the first floor!  We have one room nearly complete. The floor is down, the woodwork is painted, it is just waiting on a fresh coat of paint.  Paint chips are taped to the wall, waiting to see if tomorrow is a sunny day.  I will most likely make a decision tomorrow, whether it is sunny or not.


Blessings,

Ronda

And So It Begins...

This was definitely not the season that I had planned to begin painting my woodwork, but never-the-less, it is happening now.  With DH starting to put down our new flooring, the baseboards all have to come up anyway, so it only makes sense to paint them.  When I started in on the windows I realized why I wanted to wait until summer.  So I could pull out the windows and leave them out until they dry.  That is SO not happening right now!  I think the temps were hovering around 30 today.

I am very excited to get it painted.  I have never liked the color of my woodwork.  Yes, I chose the color when we built the house, but it was just never right.  If I had chosen something darker with less orange to it, then I probably could live with it.  But right now, I am going to be happy to see all of it covered.  In the mean time... lots of work ahead!!

DH also started ripping up the carpet in this room tonight!  Yay!!

Blessings,

Ronda

Merry Christmas!

I am hoping that all of you had an awesome celebration of Christ's birth!  We have had a very quiet, relaxing day.  That on the heels of a few very hectic, noisy days! :) I have had all my little "chickies" here since Saturday.  Sadly, my oldest and his wife had to leave today about dinner time to try to avoid the incoming blizzard.  I am excited about the prospect of getting snowed in for a day or 2, but very sad that they had to leave early.

As our kids grow and leave, and we get closer and closer to having an empty nest, we are little by little putting new traditions into place, all while trying to hold on to some of the old ones.  We find ourselves in the position of moving our Christmas dinner to Christmas Eve and moving our traditional chili Christmas Eve meal to Christmas day.  Minor changes so far!

My DH bought me an absolutely awesome Christmas gift this year!  Actually, he bought me several very nice gifts.  This particular gift is one I had been eyeing for a few months now at one of my fav stores.  And some of you will find it very strange that for a person who enjoys refurbing furniture that I would prefer a store-bought piece.  But this was made with old barn oak and distressed to perfection! I had been on the look-out for a china hutch to re-do, but nothing was ever quite right.

So here is my lovely china cabinet:

When I took the pics there was nothing in it yet.  I have since moved all the things out of the top of my corner hutch.  My family didn't think it would all fit, and it didn't...quite.  I put a few things down below.  For example, my china plates don't fit at all.  Ah, well, they will have to be stored below.

 I just love the details that this furniture maker added, making it more than just your standard primitive piece.  They just make it really special.  And yes, the desk will be moved so that this piece gets to stand alone along this wall.

If you are in the Midwest, stay safe!  If not, sorry you can't be snowed in ;)

Merry Christmas from my family to yours.

Blessings, 

Ronda

Christmas Top 10

I know it is not new in any way, and probably not the least bit novel, but I thought I would give you my Top 10 Reasons That I Love Christmas!

10. Decorating my house for Christmas

9. Shopping!

8. White Christmas!

7. Christmas music 24/7! New fav- Francesca Battistelli Christmas! 

6. Baking loads and loads of Christmas cookies!

5. Giving lots of gifts

4. Eating loads and loads of Christmas cookies!

3. Traditions

2. Time with family

1.  The birth of my Lord and Savior!!

What are some of your Christmas time favorites?

Blessings,

Ronda

More Christmas!!

Hey all!  I thought I would add a few more pics of my Christmas decorating!  Just when I think my life is slowing down, something else comes up! (I think I am addicted to exclamation marks!!!) This morning I took a group of students to another nursing home to perform for the residents.  I really love doing this since I know many of these residents will have no one who even visits them during the holidays.  It is a great experience for the kids.  This time I didn't specifically tell them they had to shake hands with the residents, but when I went to do that, they all followed!  Yay for them! 

 Here is a close-up of my lovely sled.  My letters ended up being a little off, but I still love it! I need to come up with a better way of transferring the letters to my chosen surface if I am going to continue with painting stuff!

 One of the lanterns that my mom gave me for my birthday, planted amongst some Christmas greenery.

 One of many shelves in my house.  They all have greenery on them (yes, I love greenery and lights!), this one has a grouping of snowmen.

 One of my 2 nativity sets.  This is my Jim Shore set.

 Another shelf. This pic was taken at night so that you can see the lights that I love!

I hope you are taking the time to remember Jesus' birth during all the activities of the season!

Blessings,

Ronda


Linking to:

Decorating!

Well, we braved the crowds today and went to see The Hobbit.  Ok, really there were no crowds.  One of the advantages of home-schooling- you can go to an early movie while all the other kids are still in school! Great movie, although I would have to say it seemed even more violent than Lord of the Rings.  Just sayin'.

I have come to the conclusion that the pics I have on my camera are probably as good as it gets.  Until I take a photography class or at the very least, truly learn to use my camera, I will just have to settle for mediocre pics.  Anyone out there want to come over and work with me?  (hint, hint)

I am just going to share pics of few spots around the house.  I will start with the latest project that I tried for Christmas.

Simple little burlap stockings, decorated with osnaburg rosettes.  My original idea was to put a osnaburg ruffle along the bottom of the cuff, but I was feeling a bit lazy that day and didn't particularly want to strain my brain trying to figure out exactly how that would work!  Can you say LAAAZ-Y?? I already had 2 of the little rosettes that I had experimented with, so not too much work to make 2 more.  I probably made it harder on myself than I needed to, but that lazy thing kicked in again, and I chose not to get out my glue gun, so instead used a needle and thread to keep them together and sew them to the stockings.  Yeah, thinking back on it, it would have been MUCH simpler to use hot glue!  Ah, well.  Live and learn.

A few of my little Santas sit among some greenery.

The top of my kitchen cabinets.  The seed beads and chicken are there year round, and actually the lights, too.  I just add the greenery at Christmas time.

There will be more pics on other days.  Didn't have the patience to wait on more to upload.  So now you have something to look forward to!

Blessings,

Ronda

Better late than Never!

I know, I know!!  Been too long since I have posted anything.  I really have been busy!  Not to make excuses or anything! I actually finished decorating my house about a week ago.  So why haven't I posted pics you may ask?  In my defense, I have tried to get some pics of various things, but they are not turning out very well, between the fact that I am really not a very good photographer and the fact that my timing seems to be off for natural light.

So I have been spending my time completing a couple of little projects.  The first was a new tree skirt.

This is made out of burlap with a lovely gold glitter in it. My original I idea was to put a ruffle around it in the traditional way, gathering the edge of the fabric.  But by the time I had folded the fabric, it was just too stiff to be able to gather it.  OK, on to plan B.  I pinned little gathers all the way around.  A bit tedious, but can you really tell the difference? 

The tree all lit up.  And by chance a pic of little Lucy. :) Too bad she didn't pose better!

 Here a few shots of some of my favorite ornaments. 

And the outside of my house where you can see a sled, which actually belonged to me and my brother when we were growing up.  I painted "JOY" on it in red.  

And finally, the pillow that I painted.  It is made from Osnaburg leftover from the curtains that I made.  I made the case with button closure so that I can remove it after Christmas and put something different on it.  And yes, I already have ideas on what I want to do! 

Maybe this weekend I can get my lovely future DIL to get some good pics of some other decorations around the house!

Blessings!

Ronda