Santa Christmas Mantel

I finally finished my Christmas mantel and tabletop tree in my den/library/tv room. It came together fairly easy, considering I have the worst cold I have gotten in years. I would have had a tablesetting but since I am sick, I really did not feel like eating anything (quite unusual for me), I will be showing some of my tables later though. Most everything (greens) on the mantel came from Michaels Arts and Crafts store. They are having a 50% off sale right now on very realistic looking greens.



I want to paint this room red, the grey/white walls are just not the comforting color I am looking for, but I am having a hard time finding the right red, I want something more blue-red-rich rather than an orangey red, if anyone has any paint suggestions please let me know.



I love using plaids in my faux english/scottish decor, I think upholstered walls would be great in this room, but way too much work for me to do alone so I shall have to settle for paint instead.

Just a little detail about the mantel. I do like an abundance of greens. The key to acheiving a full and realistic look is to try to vary the kinds of greens you use. The base pine greens in this case were very realistic. All it took was 2 strings/ropes of this pine greenery (1 "string" for the left side of the mantel and 1 "string" for the right side, 8 large picks of hanging/drapey greens, and 1 piece of a drapey lacy cypress type of green. A mixed rope of white hydrangeas and roses (from Walmart a few seasons ago), pine cones (free), faux feathers from Michaels. I held them together with some pipe cleaners, everything was just placed on top of the mantel and simply stuck in the greenry picks, no need for Styrofoam, some glass icicles (from various stores, but I know that Target and Kmart has them) and that was it!

Oh, yes, I am a mad collector of Santas, so I added in this particular one, keeping in with my more woodsy relaxed feel. Closer to Christmas I will go out into my garden and place some Nadina berries into the arrangement for a bit more realism.

Fall tablescape

I am finally able to post my Fall tablesetting, I have been having major computer problems getting online. Well, better late than never? :)

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving, I am still full! Now I have to figure out my Christmas menu, since I am hosting this year.

Fall Fireplace Mantel decorating

Hi all,

This is a sneak peek of my Fall decorated fireplace.

I know I have not been around for AGES! I am finally feeling up to par, and ready to join the world again.

Hopefully tonight I will take a full shot with small voltive candles lit.

I love decorating "overkill", I just can't help myself, I start out simple, and just like I can't take one bite of chocolate, I have to just keep going. Luckly, this was very inexpensive to do. One strand of fall leaves, faux feathers, strands of other draping type of greens. Orangey pods, xmas greens and tureen (not shown) from Walmart, nest, and dogs from Marshalls. Real apples from the grocery store. Pinecones FREE = Pricesless LOL

I'll be doing a Fall tablescape in a couple of days.

Late Christmas additions

Yikes, for those of you that just seen these pics without words...well, I hit a wrong button, it came up with no words, so here I am editing... (blush).

Anyhoo, Yep, these photos are way past Christmas, but since I don't believe in working on a deadline for a "hobby" I hope you will forgive me. I have way to many deadlines at work, and I promised myself that my hobby blog would be stress free (most of the time any way :)

This little snow/angel person, is something I picked up a few weeks ago, the little face just spoke to me of sweetness, it is by the artist Bethany Lowe, she has some really cute items.

I have a collection of Swarovski snowflakes, some my DD has given me, and I bought a few for my self, I am always tempted to leave them out all year, the sparkle is just unreal when the light hits them. The little camera effect I did here is now popularly called bokeh, but it is really just a photo set up utilizing something called "depth of field". I am embarrassed to admit, that I did not use a tripod here, I got a new camera from Santa/aka: Me ( I decided I was a really good girl this year, that's my story and I am sticking to it). Anyway, I wanted to see just how far the camera could go without a tripod, hmmm, still need one LOL.

Cream and Crystal tree.....Finally!

Oh my, I thought I would never get these loaded, it took me hours! The pain of a sporatic internet signal, it has been this way for longer than what I care to admit. But, here they are, hopefully better late than never?


I hope every ones Christmas was wonderful. Mine was great, I was able to share it for a few hours of gift opening and Christmas dinner with my DD and her SO...table setting photos to follow....permitting the pleasure of the internet gods...

The Swarovski crystal snowflake on the right was one of my gifts from my DD and her SO for this Christmas, I have quite a few of the large and smaller ones from her over the years and I treasure them.

I decided to dress up the "lady" this Christmas with pearls and jewels, she looks quite content don't you think?

Here are a few closeups of the tree, there are many Lenox ornaments that I have collected and that my DD has given me as one of my Christmas gifts, it is a tradition that I love between us.

The sphere like ornament in the middle is one of my favorite Lenox ornaments, luckily there is a Lenox outlet near me, so I can get them fairly affordable if I am patient enough to wait to purchase them after the holidays.

All over my tree I have hundreds of glass icicles that I have purchased over the last few years, always at the after Christmas sales. I have quite a few chandelier crystals too, the crystals and icicles add such a nice sparkle to the tree, plus they go with what ever color theme I chose to use for the year.

I also like to use silk flower in my trees, they fill up the spaces quite nicely and add in another element of style to the tree. In this tree I used poinsettias and roses.

I hope you enjoyed my late addition to the holiday, I am already looking forward to next year!

EVERYWHERE...Ornaments!

Pretty much everywhere in my living room and dining room are hundreds of ornaments for my cream, crystal and gold tree for this year. The great thing about all these ornaments pictured is that they can easily mix in with a tree of ANY color theme. This is where there is such a big cost saving for me when I do different color themed trees every other year, I only have to have half as much ornaments for a new look because these cream, gold, and crystal ornis fit in with any color scheme. The glass snowflake balls you see in the front are from the Dollar store. You might also notice the plain and simple gold glass balls in the photo too, they and the simple cream balls go into the inside part of the tree to add sparkle and depth, and most important they are very inexpensive fillers, allowing you to use your fancier ones on the outside tips of your tree where you can see them easily.

I have collected the Lenox over many many years. Alot of them are very dear to me, because as a Christmas tradition I gave my DD one of the two same ornis for her future tree, (keeping one for me) and once she was older as a Christmas Eve gift she would purchase a couple of ornis for me. It is great fun opening our new ornis together and putting then up on the tree Christmas Eve, a very important tradition for me. It has build a tree of alot of memories and love.

I still purchase ornis every year, luckliy not as many as I used to, but if they call to me, they are mine!



Lots of ornies on the side table, just waiting for placement on the tree, or design for a vignette. Hint, if you collect perfume bottles you can use them as decorations on the tree (provided they are empty of course).

More ornis on the rug waiting patiently for me to dig in, and start the long decorating process. You can see a few glimpses of some of my Lenox and other glass ornies.

On the coffee table are tons of crystal Lenox ornies, I purchased all of them on clearance after the holiday, they sparkle so wonderfully on the tree. I also have quite a few crystal swag/garland pieces that I add in the tree and use in vignettes and some of my tablesettings, so versatile!

My favorite items, I have at least 200 of these crystals, they take a long time to put on the tree, but they are the fabulous finishing touch. I had purchased these for a "different" kind of Dollar store, I bought every one I seen. I also have hundreds of glass icicles that I had purchased for only 2 dollars a box for 18, at a Dillards after Christmas sale.

(Below) This is a photo of my very large rubbermaid bin of my ball style ornis. I wrapped each of them all up one-by-one, to keep them safe, what you are looking at is some that I have unwrapped. The bag of roses is another fav of mine, it fills in the empty spaces to the tree adding in a certain kind of elegance I think. Poinsettias and hydrangeas are great for this too.

You will also note a few mirrored ornis, they are wonderful for the sparkle and reflection of light.

Hopefully the finished tree will be in the next post, providing my internet connection is still with me..

Holiday Tablesetting Sneak Peek

I thought I would pop in with a little sneak peek of one of my tablesettings that I will be doing over the holidays. I typically do quite a few tablesettings since I have several sets of Christmas dishes and I also see my DD more during this holiday season for dinner.

This is actually a pretty inexpensive table setting to do, everything you see here is glass, You would be amazed how pretty an all glass table setting can be. Another perk of this style of setting is that you can add in any accent color you may want to use so if someone can't afford a patterned set of Christmas dishes you can still acheive a holiday look effortlessly by the accents you decide to add in.

More Christmas tree tips

I'm sorry these tips are slow coming, my internet connection is giving me alot of grief these days.

Placing balls in the inner part of a tree is something a lot of folks don't do, many people only decorate the outside limbs of the tree. When you only decorate the outside, you loose seeing a depth or 3D-dimension type of look to your tree. You also loose the inner brightness caused from putting in these simple reflective balls.

What I do is put either the gold or silver (depending on my color theme) very inexpensive balls you can buy in sets most anywhere. The gold or silver balls give the needed light reflection you need in the darkest part of the tree, with all the light reflecting off of the balls it gives an inner brightness and warmth to a tree. For a "bling" look I would suggest at least 50 to 75 placed in the inner part of a 6.5 ft tree (of course you can use less, this is just how I like to decorate mine.) As you can see from the photos above, try to place the balls in those bare areas and the area right next to the trunk of the tree, this of course hides the ugly wrapped pole (there are only a few showing now for ease in seeing the placement area, but you can be assured I will be adding much more.)

Go back and take look at the pic again, do you see all the tiny bright light specks being reflected in the ball? Just the few balls pictured have already reflected alot of light.

Christmas Decorating, it begins....

I have been asked by a few folks for some tips on how I decorate my trees. the photo above is a single short "garland" of 12 connected poinsettas, that I purchased at Walmart a few weeks ago for only $7.00, a great buy for a hundred dollar look.

On the couch is 4 sets (and a poinsetta bunch of flowers for decorating on my wreaths)

Here is the strip of flowers placed on the tree, I will probably tuck it in a bit more, and then I will add in the other garlands tip to tip, spiraling down the tree in a loose "S" pattern. This is a great thing to do especially if you don't have alot of ornaments yet, because it makes a great "filler".

Now, if you did not want to do the spiral garland look, you can also detach the flower heads and place them evenly thoughout your tree (which I have done with great success too with last years pink tree).

I will post more later, as I progress.

Christmas in Cream, Gold and crystals

This is just a little sneak peek at my Christmas theme this year. And tieing in from my previous post, another example of using the stacking plates for holidays. They really are versatile.

Why am I posting something Christmasy this early? I have found that I need to start way ahead for my planning. Since stores get out Christmas decor so early, I have found if I don't shop early for my decorations the best ornaments and such are gone way before December 1st! Right now it is very difficult to find "off white/cream colored ornaments, so if any do show up I plan on being the first there to claim them. :) I like planning my table scapes early too, that way when the big day comes, I'll set the table the day before saving me the time to concentrate on cooking, and an added benefit of that is it really puts me in the mood for the big festive dinner I share with my DD and her SO. Now that my DD has moved out, my big day is usually Christmas Eve, this was a very difficult transition for me, as Christmas Day was the traditional day for all the fun and festivities, but since she is on her own, she now wants the "day" to her and her SO, plus she needs to accomodate his family too. The change has been "hard" on me I must admit, are any of you going thru this right now?

Fall Decorations for your home

This is my Fall stacking plates centerpiece/vignette, I really enjoy doing these because they are easy, don't take up too much space, and it's a real eye catcher.

I love to use this as a center piece for my dining room table or my coffee table, but it could just as easily be the highlight of your buffet table too.

I showed them first to a forum group I visit a few years ago, the were so popular there so I decided to do a tutorial, so I hope that you, dear blog reader will enjoy it too.

These cake plates can be used for any holiday, Christmas, Fall, Thanksgiving, Valentines Day, Easter, Birthdays, Baby Showers, Bridal Showers, etc, they really are quite versitile. And of course you can use them for what they are ment for..food.

Part 1:

Gather up what you have choosen to do up your cake plates with. The key to a pretty over all design is to keep in the choosen theme, in this case it is a Fall theme.

I used a Christmas tree topper in my chosen colors, christmas birds, acorns, leaves, glass rocks and jewels, mini beaded pumpkins, a fairy, pine cone ornaments, faux grapes, the next 2 pictures show what I used, I did have a little left over, but I did use alot as you can see.

These are the empy stacking plates, the top piece is a 99 cent sundae cup I purschased at Walmart. The actual stacking plates came 3 in a box from Walmart(a few yrs ago). But you can order on line I think from Target for them too, Linens and Things, and Bed Bath and Beyond also has carried these plates. The average cost for the set is about $20.00.

Photo of the 3 stacking cake plates together.

Part 2: Start loading up, this is a few close-ups so you can see where I placed some things.

In the sundae cup I place in some of the glass jewels as filler before I put in the tree topper ornament. You can get the glass jewels at Walmart and craft stores.

Again, the finished product.

I hope you enjoyed this and that it was helpful. If you have any questions just leave me a note on the comments area.

Lunch with Ms. Bunny

Well, today is the last day of my vacation, tommorrow back to work Sigh.....

The lunch "theme" today is soft and pink.

White and pink together is another classic (that is IF you like pink LOL) I love pink, but it is actually a very hard color to find in dishware. Some of you have asked where I find my goodies...

The large pink plates and bowl, and coffee mug are from Target (a few Easters ago)

The pink and green water glass from Mikasa Outlet

The silk flowers are from JoAnns (definately use the coupons, otherwise they can be pricey)

The white lacy dishes and white bunny tea pot are from Marshalls

The salt and pepper birds are from Target (you can still find them there)

The bunny is one of 2 I purchased from Tuesday Morning (around Easter time)

The round quilted place mats are from Marshalls (you may still be able to find them, since I bought them last month)

Frosted silverware is from Walmarts...(I find a surprising amount of cool flatware there)

The cute little bunny milk server is from World Market, it dispenses just the right amount of milk for my coffee or tea for me (they still carry them)

The pretty flowered hat box ( have loads and loads of these for me and for gift giving, I find sometimes they are cheaper to buy and put your gift in than purchasing the wrapping paper and ribbon.

I hope I have encouraged you to take life a little bit slower by dining outside and start experimenting with setting a pretty table for yourself and your families.