My Very First Christmas Garland

The thing is I wasn't even going to participate in this since I don't have any garland at all, and with funds being what they are right now I couldn't justify going out and buying one. However, a couple of weeks ago I helped my mom put a cut tree up for my grandparents, and there were tons of trimmings from that ginormous monster. I asked to take some and they gave me about a quarter of what they had. Those branches have been sitting on my porch ever since!

I decided to challenge myself to see if I could make a garland from those trimmings and a box of decorations that I wasn't planning on otherwise using. Oh, and I didn't actually start working on this until about 8:50 tonight, so I can't guarantee that it will hold up.

Here are the results:

I didn't even think I had anything to tie the branches together until I remembered a bunch of multicolored yarn I had from eight years ago when I taught Sunday School.

I had this ugly brass pot of fake stuff that I shoved in here and there. I also had a few sprigs of fake berries and these gold thingies.

It's a little lopsided, but here it is hanging up... Oh, and I just nailed those nails in, too. My husband was asleep on the recliner as I did this. He didn't even wake up and neither did the kids! Gee, I think it needs a bit more.



What d'ya think??

Here's a close up:

I had a couple more pictures, but i don't know how to add more than five pics on blogger... Well, that's it. Even after I quit taking pictures I messed around with it some more, and I'm sure I'll probably keep at it until after Christmas. I'm like that, though...

Messy Office Cleanup

Well, today I guess I'm going to be a little boring and show my cleaning skills. Ha! Ha! Since I've started spending more time in the office with this blog the uninspiring desk configuration and basically the entire look of the room have been getting to me. So I rearranged everything and am working on getting an office that looks more like me (Yikes!). Well, here is what the desk area looked like before:

You can see I've already started ripping down painted wallpaper in these pics. The ivy wallpaper was on top of textured wallpaper, and on three of the walls it was only put on the area under the 2x4's that I'm guessing are supposed to be a chair rail (the chair rail was only on three walls as well. On the fourth wall the ivy covered the entire wall (blech!).

Here are the after photos:

See that pile of papers under my cell phone? Those are bills that need to be paid and if they are not in full view for my husband, he'll forget that they are still due...

Doesn't that look much more streamline? Those canvases under the desk are hiding all the mangled electrical cords.

This do-hickey thing slides out so we can access the printer supplies and our other files without having to look at their messiness all the time.

Well, that's it. Pretty boring.

Hey, join me for Kimba's Christmas open house next week! click the button on my sidebar to find out what it's all about!

These Are a Few of My Favorite Things

Do remember your favorite toys as a child? Perhaps you still have them packed away somewhere. Perhaps you have no idea what happened to them. Or maybe you played with them so much that they had to be retired to that great toy heaven in the sky... (okay, okay, you know what I mean). For me the toys that really stick out in my mind as toys I had to have when I was a kid fall into two categories: My Little Ponies (my brother and I had tons of these) and these gals:

Kirsten and Molly. I loved those girls. They are still made (as are My Little Ponies), but they just aren't the same. Pleasant Rowland had this really great company, Pleasant Company, that made these gals and the quality was outstanding! Since she sold the company to Mattel the quality has gone down quite a bit, but the prices have stayed pretty much the same so I guess that makes them more accessible for more people. But I'm not here to talk about the history of the American Girls company. I got Molly for Christmas (Kirsten came later). My best friend had Samantha and her cousin had Kirsten. We had American Girl sleepovers with our dolls. We even had the librarian at our school ask us if she could display our dolls and all of their accessories in the library one month.

One thing I didn't have for my girls was their Christmas outfits, but a while back I found the originals on ebay and won the bid for each of them! Now that I have my girls dressed up for Christmas I want to display them somewhere in my house. Aren't they adorable!



So the question is, where could I put them?? If I were my best friend's mom (my best friend now, not the one who had Samantha...) I'd have a whole room dedicated to my doll collection, but she has the room for it, I'm working with 1600 square feet of house here. Right now they are on my sideboard, so I guess they'll just stay there until I can figure out something else to do with them. Any thoughts??

What Could Be Hiding in the Ivy???

I was going to write about favorite toys from my childhood, but we made a little discovery the other day that I just had to document here...

Okay, so in my first (Wait, wait! Did you notice what I just did? I just made that word a hyperlink! Woo hoo! No more stupid hyperlinks-that-are-just-the-address's for me! Yeah, I rock!!!)post you caught a glimpse of my hideous breakfast-nook-turned-office-room with the nasty ivy wallpaper crawling all over the wall. Well, that picture wasn't actually that bad, because, see, on three of the walls the ivy wallpaper was only on the lower two feet of the wall below a to-low-to-be-a-chair-rail-chair-railing (What's up with the phrases-that-are-all-dashed-together today?? Promise that's the last one. Promise.). What you don't see is the one wall on which one of the previous owners decided to nix the railing and just do the whole wall in the ivy monstrosity. See?
That's just half of the wall because on Thursday I was doing some rearranging in the off ice and I just couldn't stand to look at it anymore. So, I got and exacto and just started ripping it down wherever I could. My poor dear husband came home to find "his" office rearranged, wallpaper everywhere, and me smiling stupidly (after having downed almost half a bottle of wine), "Doesn't it look great, Honey?"Wow, that picture is blurry! I must have had a kid hanging off of me...

Well, as I was ripping I uncovered a "sweet" little message someone had left for me. Can you see it??
This is after I scrubbed part of it off today! Honestly, I know it must have been a stupid teenager, but still, on the wall of some one's home? Give me a break! Well, I guess it's all the more incentive to keep at it, so I'm going to be working on that tonight.

A Tearful Farewell...

This year Thanksgiving was to be at my house. My Grandparents are the traditional hosts of every holiday get-together (getogether?), but, being in their mid eighties, their health isn't so great. My mother's culinary skills leave much to be desired, so I said I'd have it and to just show up. It was not going to be a big deal, just ten people - five of which would be my family. So, I got a menu and all the recipes I was going to need, and went grocery shopping. Then around noon on Wednesday (the day before the big event) I received a call from my mother. No one was coming. The Grands weren't well enough to travel the 75 minute trip to my house and Mom's beau (I hate referring to a 61 year old woman's significant other as a "boyfriend") and his son would be spending Thanksgiving with his family. I was slightly perturbed and told Mother she should be with the Grands so they wouldn't have to be alone. It wasn't so much that they weren't coming as it was the late notice that really bothered me; I mean I had all the food, the fine china, the seating arrangements, and the buffet all set and just waiting.
See my buffet all organized and ready?

So as I started to pack it all away I thought, "No, I am going to use my good china anyway. Why save it for someone else to enjoy?? I've always wanted to use that turkey plate and, by gosh, I'm gonna use it for once!"

I rearranged the seating and put the extra tables away. Then I revamped the menu and cut out several dishes I had planned. We'd have a beautiful Thanksgiving anyway, just with a smaller cast. Thanksgiving morning arrived. The turkey was in the oven by 8:30 and the dressing was in the crock pot by 10:30. Did I mention we were having dinner promptly at 12:30 because my dear husband had to work that day?!?!

Since things were going so smoothly I went for a walk outside with my 4 year old and noticed that my neighbor was home alone, so we decided to invite her to dinner. She arrived at 12:30 and had fun (I think?) entertaining the kids while we got finished preparing everything. The turkey was out cooling, and I was bringing china from the dining room on which to put the food. The only thing that wasn't china was the turkey platter which was a gorgeous crystal wedding present that I had yet to use.
See?


My dear husband thought it would take an act of Congress to get the turkey onto that plate in one piece, but I did it!! And after placing all of the dishes on the sideboard I was ready to take the turkey, but as I started to lift the plate I noticed the was turkey juice all over the kitchen counter. I hadn't thought I had made that much of a mess while transferring the turkey to the platter...


Then I lifted it another in or so when it became apparent that...

the turkey wasn't quite cool enough when I transferred it over so this happened:

Alas, poor Gorham 1831 Fall Traditions turkey platter, I am so sorry for having murdered thee!!

Blogland, How I Love Thee...

Oh my goodness, why haven't I done this before now?!?!? I have so many posts floating around my head I can't wait to get them out!
Upcoming post topics:
Bathroom Window Mistreament
Office Redo
A Gorham Farewell
Childhood Reminiscing Brought into the New Millinium...

So, I'm trying to only post one post per day (oops!). By the time I get these posted I will, hopefully, have finished my surprise for my girls' room: their own girly, girl Christmas tree!! (it's a good thing they can't read, yet!)

I can't leave without a photo, so here it is:
This was a while back, but I just LOVE it!!!!

My Silly and Sad Little Ragamuffin Garland

Hooray, I finished my Ragamuffin Garland last night!! It looks a little sad compared to the Fabulous ones by Miss Nester (see this post: http://nestingplacenc.blogspot.com/2008/04/ragamuffin-memo-garland.html to take a look at some real ones!)

For some reason I misread her instructions and made my rag strips too, too, short, so I had to scrap most of them. Any ideas on what to do with those?? Also, Nester said she makes the base ribbon about as long as her arm and I must have really short arms or something 'cause my garland looks really short...

Anyway, without further ado, I give you my scrappy little ragamuffin garland:

Ta Da!!

Here is a closer look:

Then I decided to finally do something about these cute little cards I have had forever hoping I'd find frames to put them in and hang them for real (do you follow all that?). So, I remembered I had gotten some poster putty and ran off to find it. Alas, no poster putty ever showed up. Poo! Well, this morning I thought I'd just stick them up with scrapbook adhesive and see how that would do. End result?

Of course, Three of the four have since fallen. I put more adhesive on two of them and put them back up. Now I'm off to get the third one back up.