Decking the Halls

So how about a spin around the living room?



The tree. I love love love ornaments so it's full, I know. But like I said, I love it.

A few ornaments . . .



A vintage inspired beauty I made this year at the craft party. These are my favorite kinds to make. I have a whole box of dresdens, foil leaves, pretty tinsel and rhinestones in anticipation of making more.



Another handmade ornament from the party this year. I bleached the bottle brush tree, hot glued it into a small glass ball and made a hanger around the top with wire. It is decorated with beads cut from plastic bead garland and Martha Stewart mica flake glitter. Oh and more tinsel trim, of course.



My favorite recent vintage ornament find, a very intricate felt donkey. Isn't he the best? I just adore him.



And a sweet little girl made by Shara last year. This is the first year she's been on my tree since I was at my Mom's over the holiday last year.



And my house is never complete without a festive bar. I love vintage Culver glass wear and mix it with more modern red Lenox glasses. I wish I could have cocktail parties a la the 1950s. :)



And a rather sad display of the glittered churches (there is a silver one off to the left) I found for a song at Target after Christmas last year. They are lovely all lit up but need a better display place next year, I think. More bleached bottle brush trees glued into glittered wooden spools, too.

We are off to Baltimore tomorrow. Have a safe and VERY MERRY Christmas! I'm looking forward to some major Goodness over here in 2011. :)

xoxoxo ~ Rebecca

More Goodness

The rest of the ornaments arrived from the Goodness Girls just proving again why our annual ornament swap is my favorite!



First up from Jodi is this adorable plaque with vintage postcard image. Red? Glittery? Vintage? Perfect!

Then this package from Leigh Ann came the next day:



Her love of Texas shows!



A cute vintage cowgirl blue bell! I tried to photograph this one on the tree but this picture looked a lot better.

And then yesterday Heidi's ornament arrived:



Don't you just love it?



Clever and adorable!

Thank you girls, yet again your ornaments are some of my favorites and will have places of honor on my tree.

And remember when I posted the dresses that I made for this year's ornament and said I got the idea from The Felt Mouse? Here is the link to her original creations. Thanks, Jen!

I hope to be back to post before the holiday!

ho ho ho
Rebecca

Magic Holiday Mushrooms & New Party Dresses

My favorite swap of the year, the one I never miss even if I'm in a cast or so busy that I can't see straight is the annual Goodness Girls Christmas Ornament Swap. It's a small swap with only 5 members, myself, Jodi, Shara, Heidi and Leigh Ann. Basically the girls who come together to organize and execute the swaps at Sweet Goodness Swaps. While this year our swaps over there have been limited I was happy that were still able to do our swap of ornaments with each other.

The first ornament arrived yesterday:



From Shara, the queen of the cutest packaging! So what's inside? I was hoping that tiny mushroom was an indicator and I was right!



Toadstools! I collect ornaments, I guess, and I love unusual ones and toadstools are high on my list. Though it seems they are not so unusual in Germany where they are considered good luck and there is one of every tree.



The felt one is hand made by Shara and is already one of my favorites.



The tiny glass one is just adorable! The gum drop toadstools have mysteriously disappeared. Hmm . . .

Thank you, Shara, I love them!

So what did I make? Since they should have arrived to everyone by now, I'll share. I decided to step out of my normal realm of crafting (read: PAPER) and made each of the girls a new party dress:



Each one is slightly different and were so fun to make!



I can't take total credit for the idea. Many years ago my friend Jennifer at The Felt Mouse made similar dress forms for a bachlorette party. She shared her source and I ordered the forms and they've been sitting gathering dust for more than 3 years! I looked on Jennifer's blog but cannot locate the original post. I'll keep looking!

More to come on the other fabulous Goodness Girl Ornaments!

The January List & Holiday Fun

I'm so behind on everything this year including making my January list. Every year at the holidays I make a list of all of those things I really want to do but won't have time to get into until January. Some things on the list this year so far:

1 - Sew new curtains for the kitchen
2 - paint the porch
3 - work on my doll house
4 - organize the pantry

Anyone out there have a January list? This is short for me. lol

We headed into Manhattan on Saturday to take in some holiday goodness.



Ice skating in Bryant Park . . .



We just watched from the side lines. :)

We also saw this:



Charmin put potties in Times Square! You should have seen the line! There was a man outside dressed like a toilet. It was hilarious and honestly, a fabulous idea! Finding a bathroom in the city can be challenging. My husband says he's going to write a book of all the best places to pee in Manhattan. I'm sure we'll be rich. Hmm.

I'm trying to get everything done and not lose the fun of Christmas. I hate when it gets too overwhelming that it's more annoying than jolly. I have some hand made ornaments to share but want to make sure they arrive at their new homes before spoiling the surprise. :) I'm also knitting which is just amazing since I just haven't been inspired lately. Now hopefully I can finish up a few things before the holiday. Wish me luck!

~RR

The weather outside is . . . COLD.

I know it's December and it's supposed to be cold but for some reason it's really getting to me this year. It must be my new metal ankle which is crazy achy in the morning. How does the Terminator do it, I wonder?

Anyway, enough of that. I got my cast off last Thursday just in time to accompany my friend Catherine to our annual rummage sale day outing. I missed it last year because I was out of town so it was nice to get to go again this year. My finds weren't spectacular but it was a fun day with good company. So what did I find?



I love this sweet deer planter. It had some ugly plaid ribbon around the neck and was stuffed with red and green shreds. She'll be getting a make over soon. I'm thinking pale blue and pink with something sparkly. (of course)



An old book of road maps. These are practically obsolete these days and I've been looking for one to use in various projects like scrapbooking. Won't it make for great backgrounds in a mini travel book?



Usually I find vintage ornaments at this sale but the only thing I scored this year were these two made in Japan dresdens. They are in pretty bad shape but I bought them to take apart for other projects anyway. I scored some other things to use in crafts like some acorns someone painted gold plus a few household items like a new thermal mug and some tins. After the sale we headed to the thrift store.



I love finding bags of old crafty stuff. Can you guess what really drew me to toss this bag of goodies in my cart?



Those are old glass Alka Seltzer bottles full of sequins. I couldn't resist.



I also picked up this pretty old pink jewelry box. I've been collecting pieces of old jewelry to make my own charm bracelets for awhile now and thought this would be a great place to store my supplies:



Good fit, no?



This is 7 yards of a fun old Waverly ship print. I already have an idea for this which I'll share later as it's a gift. And last but not least . . .



A red flocked apron. I just love this and it is definitely going on my apron hook in the kitchen. It's one of my favorite finds of the day.

I'm so glad Catherine invited me, it was nice to get out, find some fun things and catch up with a good friend. I'm chopping away at my HUGE holiday list. I made a few ornaments this year and will share them soon. In the mean time please stop by my latest article at The Examiner about some fun handmade ornament ideas HERE. I'm so behind in my writing and was hoping to share more holiday crafts. Oh and it doesn't hurt that they are running a contest for some cool prizes and the more you write the better your chance to win. :)

Wow, I'm full of the babble today, aren't I? Until the next time . . .

~RR

Hanging in . . .

Hello strangers! I'm off to the doctor to hopefully get this wretched cast off my foot. I'm so raring to go I can't sleep! So I'll be back next week with some cute ornaments we made at the annual craft party and to pick your brains about handmade holiday gift ideas.

missing you all . . . Rebecca