Merry Christmas!!

Well the day is almost upon us!

I can't believe how fast time goes and how much fun I have had decorating and looking at all of the Christmas goodness out there in blogland!

I wanted to show you a package I received in the mail today. A very special package from a very special friend!

Deborah from With All My Heart..Deborah sent me these precious gifts

A sleigh ornament and a coffee ornament from Tim Hortons where she gets some of her yummy Chai Tea Lattes! Some candy canes that I will use in my hot chocolate (another of her favorite drinks), a chocolate bar (YUM), doggie treats for the four legged kiddos (they LOVE them) and a beautiful chicken wire planter that I can't wait to find a home for in my house and fill it!!

This is how it all came wrapped up! I love the beautiful colors and all raffia ribbon is just so perfect!

Well I mostly finished up my wrapping, with the exception of a few more, and placed the gifts under my tree.

See that little envelope tucked in the with the gifts?

This one right here...

This little envelope also came in the box with my my gifts with specific instructions on it!

I feel like a little kid again wanting to peek inside and see what is in it and what it says,

BUT

I promise that I will not!!

Thank you so much my dear friend!!

I wanted to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and to know that I am so thankful and blessed for all of you!

I hold you all in my hearts dearly and hope and pray that you know that no matter where you are and who you are missing that the joy of the season comes from deep inside and that those who have left us are there in our hearts and memories and embracing us this holiday season.

I also want you to know that no matter what you believe or how you celebrate this coming week I wish you all the very best and may peace and love reign on you!!

This is my last post until after Christmas, feeling a bit under the weather and just plain run down (too much holiday fun I guess :) )

Enjoy your week and the up coming days!!!

Love you all!!

Christmas Tree!!!!

I hope that you all had a wonderful holiday weekend, I know that I did! I pretty much spent three days straight in my jammies and even did a little Christmas shopping, also in my jammies!

As you know, I have been decorating around the house, some of which I have already shown you, and some of which is still to come!

I told you a little about my tree in my previous post and even showed you tid bits of it.

I am really happy with the way it turned out and I hope that you like it as well!

I have seen trees placed in galvanized tubs all over magazines and throughout blogland so I really wanted to give it a try this year.

I absolutely love the look!!

I simply added a red table cloth inside with just enough color peaking out and set the tree into it!

It fit perfectly!

I tried to stay with a natural theme this year (and by natural, I mean artificially natural, except the pine cones in the wire basket)

The wooden "fork" is usually above the mantle, but that space is being occupied right now so I thought that it look cute against the tree.

I used burlap for a garland as well as strings of berries. There are piks of snow covered evergreens, berries on vines and metal snowflakes on twigs placed throughout.

My topper are branches that I purchased at Michaels that are surrounded by some of the metal snowflakes.

The big red wooden stars I have had for a couple of years and I just love the way the add a little whimsy to the tree.

White poinsettias are scattered through out to add a slight formal touch.

I also went back to Walmart and horded all the remaining "good" mercury glass acorns to hang on the tree!

Tree lit up at night.

And lit up during the day!

(Mr. Curiosity couldn't help himself and had to come check things out)

In the back ground is my mantle, which I will be sharing with you on Tuesday!

I hope you enjoyed my little tree and I cannot wait to see all of yours!!

Happy decorating!!

I will be linking up to the parties in my linky party tab as well as:

Doberman's by the Sea Christmas linky party going on now

Thrifty Decor Chic Christmas Tree linky Party on Dec 6

Oh Christmas Tree...

I hope that you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and are still glowing in the light of all that is yummy food!!

Or I should say

LEFT OVERS!!!

As I sit here catching up in blogland, eating my third helping of

turkey, stuffing, beans, mashed potatoes, rolls, cranberry in a can and pie, (still in my jammies) I am relishing in the fact that it is officially the Christmas Season!!!

Everyone is breaking out the posts, pictures and inspirations for the Season and

I

LOVE

IT!!

I have already put the tree and decorated the mantel,

but I am still adding little things here and there so I am only going to show you bits and pieces of what I have been up to!

We had to get a new tree this year due to the flood last year and Martha Stewart's Pre-Lit-Tree-That-Didn't-Stay-Lit smelling rather moldy!

We picked up this little 6 1/2 foot tree at Menard's and the galvanized tub at an antique store for a steal! ($12)!

It is the perfect size for our room and fit perfectly in the tub!!

(that orange blur would be my son who cannot, for the life of him, sit still)

It has small tinsel needles at the end of some of the branches,

and small pine cones throughout the tree!

I tried to stay with natural elements this year with a touch of country charm.

New Picnik Christmas textures!!

I will be back Monday to show you the rest of the family room and the tree!

I am going to spend some much needed time with the family and just relax, watch movies and start my holiday shopping!!

For those of you who participated in Black Friday, I hope that you found what you were looking for and are home safe and sound!!

Have a wonderful and restful weekend!!

More Christmas Crafts

This weekend I spent trying to finish up on some crafts for next weeks show.

I am trying to fill in some things to replace the frames that I am no longer making. The only bad thing is some of them may not find their way to the show!

Here is a little sneaky peaky..

I have had this little tin basket thingy for a long time and never knew what to do with it.

So I took a page from Miss Mustard Seed Creations and all her German Glass goodness

Miss Mustard Seed

and created some sparkly little magnet letters and tied some pieces of silver and gold ribbon to the basket handles.

Super easy and it really is fun glittering things!

Hey, guess what else I played around with........

chicken wire!!!!!!

I shaped the wire into a tree form and wrapped a pip berry garland around it

and topped it with a burlap bow!

Good thing is still have another 3 yards of chicken wire left!!

I had fun making these little burlap flowers and will show you what I did with them next time!

I am also addicted to making signs!!

Did you see my friend Tracy's, at Tracy's Trinkets and Treasures?

Isn't it great!!

She did an amazing job and she has become addicted as well!

There are so many great signs out there and can't wait to share some of mine!

Partying with the gals in my linky tab!!!

Check 'em out!

Feather and Twine Tree

Ok, I think I am safe talking about Christmas now. I Have seen some of you lovely ladies talk about Christmas already so I am hopping on the band wagon!

Let it be know that I LOVE Christmas! LOVE IT!!

I am the crazy woman that plays Christmas music right after Halloween, I put up my outside lights before Thanksgiving and on Thanksgiving night, yup, the tree goes up!!!

I love the feeling that the Holidays radiate! The love, peace and joy. The "It's a Wonderful Life" or "White Christmas" (sing to me Bing!) feeling where everyone at the end sings and dances and echoes the meaning of Christmas!

I get all giddy when I hear Johnny Mathis on the radio and that first snow fall that covers the ground completely in a blanket of white.

Knowing that Christ was born for us!

I could go on and on.....

but,

I will save that for another day!

Right now I want to show you what I have been working on to bring with me to my last two shows.

I picked up a feather boa the other day after seeing these in the store already.

Martha Stewart

I knew I was too lazy to glue each feather on individually so I cheated with the boa!

I just wrapped it around the tree form, gluing in random spots to hold everything on,

then topped it with a pretty little green and gold bow!

Easy!

(I was having fun playing around with the pictures too. I just thought that white feathers needed some glam :) )

The next tree I did was a jute twine tree. Same concept, just wrapped and wrapped and wrapped some more while gluing a strip on opposite sides so the jute stayed in place.

I glued two crochet snowflakes together (I purchased those, I do not know how to crochet, but would love to learn on day) and topped the tree!

I love the simplicity of it.

I just wanted to thank you all for you amazing support and sweet comments on my little business decision. I feel so blessed to have such wonderful friends and knowing that you have or are going through a similar situation makes me feel more at peace.

Thank you all my dear friends!

I will be partying with the linky parties on my top tab!