Christmas Tour 2016

"From north or south, east or west, with friends and family we've been blessed!"

I've started preparing for Christmas meals with family and friends! I am using my souvenir travel plates, but don't worry, I have clear glass plates to put over them for actually eating on.

The vintage map centerpiece goes well with the souvenir plates!

                                          I used a piece of "vintage map" fabric by Tim Holtz for the center of my table. 

There were only 1 1/3 yards available, so I made a larger tablecloth of cream paisley. 

The house was a cardboard form bought a year ago on clearance after Halloween. I pulled off the bats and covered it with pages from an old atlas. There is a plant stand under the fabric to raise the house.. The snow on the roof is vintage "cotton batting snow", complete with glitter. The stars are from the same old atlas as the covering for the house.

 I included a Fitz and Floyd Santa that miraculously survived the fire! (I guess if Santa can go down a chimney, a house fire can't hurt him!)

To get an idea of scale,  the table is 90" across. We will pull up chairs for each of the 12 place settings.

 The living room with the dining room in the background. We have a very open concept area.

I like little vignettes around the room so that your eyes have places to stop. This is simply a couple of vintage figurines, both pulling a cart, filled with candy canes. To tie it in, I put large candy canes in the flower arrangement between them.

The fireplace is kept simple with three carved Santas on an upturned shallow galvanized bucket and a small tree in the larger one. 

 The tree sits beside the fireplace, so that is really all the decoration it needed. 

 

I've dressed up the throw pillows on my sectional with simple ribbons tied like a package. They also make a great addition to an accent chair. (Check out the sectionals in this link!)

I love the easy care of my leather furniture! I can dress it up or dress it down, depending on my mood!

I removed the regular centerpiece and replaced it with a collection of nativity scenes, all hand made in Mexico and Peru. I placed two of them on the "holey" rocks we have outside.

The kitchen area 

(Behind the old screen door is my "Butler's Kitchen" which I LOVE!! It's where I get messy!)

The kitchen island, visible from the living area, has a large mirrored tray on it filled with snow globes and live flowering plants. I've covered the hand oiled red cedar top with a clear vinyl cover in preparation for the 13 children who will be here for Christmas Eve brunch! (All my sister's grandchildren. My two will not be here this year.)

 Snowmen dance on my window ledge in the kitchen along with a card from family the reads, "When life gives you snow, make a snowman!"

I have overloaded you with photos, so I'll save the bedrooms and downstairs for next time.

In the meantime, get some inspiration at the Home for the Holidays pages at Arhaus Furniture Pinterest Pages. 

See you next time!

Linda 

Still Here and Making Slow Progress!

Yes, I'm still here! Above you can see the new patio door installed in what will become the kitchen for the Mother-in-law suite downstairs. This opens under an overhang, so it will be protected from the weather. This is also the sidewalk to the patio. I will add pots of plants outside on the raised bed above the stone wall. The debris you can see through the door is a section of HEAVY stucco still attached to the metal "mesh" they put up to hold the cement. It was removed from the old entrance door, which has been sealed up. (below)

The subfloor in front of the door has been replaced. What you can't see if that we put up gutters. If there had been gutters before, the water damage that had been in this area would not have happened.

We have removed the bathroom that was between the kitchen and this room (which will become the media room). We added a window in this room and the old bathroom will become a closet. We're putting two new bathrooms on the other side of the downstairs space. 

While taking a break from the work, we chose to eat dinner at a local Thai restaurant. It was sunny and about 72 degrees, so we ate on the balcony overlooking the river park here in Kerrville. I couldn't quite capture the beautiful blue water and the pinkish tinge in the trees, but it was a beautiful sight!

Chiristmas was a blur! We hosted two gatherings. One with 12 friends from church and one with 25 family members on Christmas day! I had a lot of fun decorating the table to match the Christmas plates that were rescued from the fire.

The cactus is made of metal. A local man makes all types of things like this to be used in a yard or garden. I put it in the center of my table!

The buffet area was decorated Christmas cowboy style! I found the hat and wooden cowboy Santa in the thrift shop. 

 My daddy does woodwork. My sister and I were in his workshop and noticed the great shapes that were left over when he cut out pieces for the toys he made. We pulled them out of the trash bin and started playing with them, glueing them together and adding bits of wire. Here are two pieces I made. The wood scraps are just as they were pulled from the bin - no sawing was done. (Paint was added!)

(Notice the little fish under the "waves"? 

 

My "looney" bird!

One last thing. Compare the set of windows on the left with the ones on the right. Do you see how much clearer the ones on the right are? 

I have a friend who told me that during college she cleaned windows wtih "window wax". I had never heard of it, so I have been keeping my eyes out for window wax for quite a while now. Finally, I found some and tried it! It is amazing!! I can't wait for the cedar pollen count to come down so I can go outside and wash windows!

I HAVE done some sewing. In fact, I'm working on a couple of patterns. They are not in a stage yet to show, but hopefully, I will get back in the swing of things soon.

My husband's company has been in the process of lay offs, so that has interfered with life in several ways. He survived the lay offs, but has been cut to two days a week at work. That will slow the progress downstairs down some because we are NOT independently wealthy! On the other hand, perhaps it will be a good incentive for me to get serious again about selling my patterns. 

Thank you for your encouragement and for sticking by me! I've always felt change was exciting so I've had a couple of adventurous years now!! Life is good!

 

I'm Still Around!!!

This is our downstairs two weeks ago! Our house is called a "hillside walkout". The main floor is at the top where the driveway ends and the downstairs was designed for bedrooms. Unfortunately for us, the previous owners had used the downstairs for 1500 sq. feet of closets! (It worked well for them, but not for us.) 

We had not done anything down there except for one closet that I painted and put a guest bed in for a makeshift bedroom. I can't wait to show you what we'll be doing here. We will end up with a nice "mother-in-law suite" complete with a small kitchen.

We installed the door panels on our refrigerator. (We 

 STILL haven't done the crown molding above the kitchen cabinets!) 

I am really getting "antsy" to have a sewing room again! I have my shelves picked out at IKEA and I have been busy winding fabric on cardboard "comic book boards". 

It will give them a uniform appearance on the shelves.

I've started decorating for Christmas!

 I put up my first Christmas tree since the fire two years ago. We bought it after Christmas at a substantial savings last year! (Yes, it's artificial. My allergies don't allow me to have a real one.)

Doug also bought me an LED tree from Lowe's to put in our bedroom.

I decorated it with a Mexican theme to fit the bedroom. I made Ojo de Dios to hang all over the tree. I used yarn scraps and "candy apple skewers".

  My days have been busy, but rewarding.  I am finally taking some time to prepare for having two of my sons here for the holidays.

I am hoping to blog more frequently as soon as the holidays are over. (I'm always optimistic about being less busy!) I will be posting my favorite "go to" Christmas candy recipe next week as my gift to you! I hope you have blessed days ahead!

 

 

Making Progress!

Christmas tree at Rosario's Mexican Restaurant, San Antonio, Texas

We're making progress after the fire! We have turned in our initial contents list and hopefully we are finished with that. If not, we will need to add to it from the lists we didn't put on the spread sheet. SHEESH!.....43 years of marriage and so many blessings we had trouble counting them! Our oldest son has been here this week helping us. 
Yesterday, we sent the list off and then headed into town to enjoy the festivities. 
 I had never been to the Holiday River Parade before,although I grew up in San Antonio, so this was really a nice start to the season!

 I didn't include pictures of all the floats, but I have shown you a "taste" of the atmosphere. It was perfect weather for this. Although we had a "cold front" come through, it was clear and about 60 degrees on the Riverwalk. 
And take a look at this! My husband gave me an early Christmas present!!! A Handi-Quilter Sweet Sixteen! It's a "sit down" long arm. This was a demo model being sold at a local quilt shop. It is strictly for quilting. So.....

for sewing....my parents gave me my grandmother's old Singer Slantamatic! It sews beautiful stitches! This is the model 401. My grandmother was an expert seamstress. She is 105 now and doesn't do much sewing.

 That's my week! I still feel optimistic and calm. We have the check in hand from the house, we've already sold the lot the house was on, and the contents list is hopefully finished.

 Even Sugarplum is happy that things are going so well. She climbed up in my lap and cuddled up against my chest to sleep. I couldn't resist snapping a photo of her. It was this time last year that she was abandoned as a tiny kitten.
      It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Ho Ho Ho and Beary Christmas!!

"Beary Christmas!" and Welcome to the Ho Ho Ho Blog Hop! Today I want to show you some things I made for this hop that I think will work nicely for a cookie swap or maybe a children's Christmas party. The bear family was the first thing I made for the hop. I used the book, Sue Dolman's Book of Animal Toys.

Instead of fur, I used tan fleece for my bears.

I made a burlap and gingham bunting to put in the window area of my breakfast nook. 

 Then I made a burlap tablecloth for my 4' x 8' breakfast table. I used flat felled seams along two sides to widen it and sewed a gingham binding on the edges. (Whew! I hand sewed it after turning it to the back. Not easy on burlap! It "saws" your thread in half as you sew.)

I used a wreath and a few Christmas items to add to my setting....

...and added some wide gingham ribbon to the center of the table for extra color. My burlap had a nice Christmas pattern stamped on it, but I wanted more of the red.

Because I want to use this table as a serving table, I also made placemats and cutlery bags for my guests, who would be sitting in the dining room.

The front of the placemat is burlap with a gingham binding. I made the cutlery bags of burlap and fringed the tops. A gingham ribbon ties at the top to keep the cutlery in. (I tucked a candy cane under the ribbon.) The little stuffed bear is attached with hook and loop tape and can be removed. The cloth dinner napkin is looped through the bear's arms and is buttoned to itself to hold it on. It is large enough that a child can leave it attached and still put it in his lap. (This was my own design. We have a LOT of nieces and nephews in the family who would enjoy this and I thought they were cute with the stuffed bears!)

At the last minute I decided to hang my Who's Been Eating My Porridge? (Goldilocks) quilt over one window to give more of the Three Bears feel. (You can't see very well, but three bears peek down at her from the top of the quilt.)
So I'm set for a really fun Christmas party! For this hop I made the bunting, the tablecloth, placemats, cutlery bags, and the stuffed bear family. 
Thanks to Mdm. Samm and Carol for this inspiring blog hop. Many of us are now ready to face the holidays a little more prepared! 
                               
                                          

Be sure to join my fellow ho ho ho'ers today to see what they've prepared for you! You're bound to come away with an idea of something you could do for the holidays!

August 8

Quiltscapes

Marla’s Crafts

A Stitch In Time

Mehitabel’s Musings

Buzzing and Bumbling- You're here!

Transitions For Meee

A Little Bit of Lorene

I Piece 2-Mary

Under the Presser Foot

A Reformed Heath’n

                                             Just Sew Quilter 
I do have a giveaway! I will use the Random Number Generator to choose a winner to receive a PDF copy of the Goldilocks pattern above. (If you wish, you can choose a different pattern from my Craftsy shop and I will send it to you through email.) Leave a comment for a chance to win! I'll announce the winner after the blog hop is over. Thanks for joining me today!