Vintage Pretties

Precious Ornaments

Over the past few years, I've collected a lot of vintage ornaments for our tree.  I'm always on the lookout for unique ones at a good price.  My sister took me to her "secret source" last spring & I loaded up! You may remember from this post that she has a phenomenal collection of vintage ornaments (see her January 2010 blog archives for photos).  In addition to clueing me in, she also has given me quite a few ornaments over the years. Here are some of my favorites:

This green one is particularly special to me because it once belonged to my great grandmother.  Aunt Kay, thank you so very much for giving this to me!

I absolutely love every vintage ornament that I own, but the most precious ornament on my tree is one that I received just yesterday:

My baby girl's handprint, decorated as snowmen, made in school with love.

2010 Holiday Party

Our home was aglow Saturday night with candles,

abundant in food,

filled with dressed up children snatching cookies when mom & dad weren't looking,

and warm with good friends.

Such a good night.

Christmas Cookies

It has been a cookie baking factory at my house over the last few weeks.  I've been madly prepping for our annual Christmas party, the highlight of which is a table groaning with hundreds of cookies.  This year I made  sugar cut outs (some with icing, some not), peanut butter kisses, oatmeal scotchies, rice krispie treats, mini pecan tarts, sandies, chocolate peppermint balls and pretzel bark.   It sounds like a lot, but it's been so much fun to be baking all of the time. 

We are expecting well over 60 people this year & I'm hoping that we have enough room for everyone -- our home is cozy and might be even cozier on Saturday night!

 

Advent Calendar

For the first time, we are going to have an advent calendar.  I had one when I was a kid & loved the anticipation of opening a door each night.  Over the summer, I bought a kit to make this calendar, thinking that it would be nice to have one that we could use for years to come.  What I didn't know when I purchased the kit is that when they say "some assembly required", they mean "we haven't assembled anything for you.  even those little drawers".  Once I got the thing put together, it was fun to decorate. 

Since Hope gets so many sweets as it is, we opted to fill about half of the drawers with tiny gifts (erasers, mini lip glosses, etc) & the rest with small candies.  Also, that way, she never knows what that day's drawer will hold.  She was so excited to open today's drawer that she ran downstairs  as soon as she got up.  I think that Christmas with a 5 year old is going to be really fun.

Check Out These Vintage Ornaments!

(photo by Terri Wise)

I'll be posting more very shortly, but I wanted to let you know about a series of posts that my sister is doing on her blog, The Shy Turnip.  She has a truly gorgeous collection of vintage Christmas ornaments & has been showcasing them in the past few posts.  My collection wants to be like her collection when it grows up! You should check it out!

Christmas

We are back from a fun, busy Christmas celebration at my parent's place.  The highlight?  Seeing family, especially my adorable nephew! Hope posed with him by the tree on Christmas Eve, above. My parent's grandbabies.

Mommy & Hope before church.

Christmas morning was flurry of opening presents, though Hope was funny about it.  She wanted to open few & take a break to play or watch tv & then come back to it.  When I was a kid, my sister & I ATTACKED the presents :)  Here, Hope opens Candyland:

 

And, Rainer helped in the un-wrapping

Other fun moments were Uncle Ezra trying to teach Hope to play checkers:

Seeing a real one-horse open sleigh at an antiques store in State College:

Watching my uncle's vintage electric train & ambulance (on the inner track):

I hope that you had a wonderful Christmas with your family!

A Christmas Box

I've been gung-ho Christmas, Christmas, Christmas around here, but have only had the chance to craft one "grown up" Christmas project so far.  However, I *love* how it turned out, so it's enough for now.

Lots of pleated crepe paper, a fair dusting of glitter & the *cutest* K & Company accent (I am in love with their line this Christmas).

I'm always so happy when I finish a project like this. I really need to make more time for crafting.

Gingerbread House

I've always love the idea of making a gingerbread house & decorating it in a candy wonderland, but the reality of baking the gingerbread walls & so on was far too daunting to me. 

But, yay, now they make kits with everything pre-baked & included, so that you can do all of the fun parts without the stress!

Hope stayed home from school with a mild illness on Monday, so we spent the afternoon putting our house together.

With Miracle on 34th Street in the background & covered in icing by the end, we made a grand start on the Christmas festivities.  Our finished product:

This was such a fun project to do with Hope.  I really hope that we are creating wonderful Christmas memories for her.

Christmas Cheer From Cherry

I am so thrilled to finally own one of Cherry Nelson's beautiful creations! I have long admired her wonderful vintage inspired style, but have always been too slow to get the pieces that I fell in love with.  Luckily, I wasn't too slow to get this beautiful Christmas bucket.

The details are so lovely & perfect.

 Along with the bucket came a matching card.

If you haven't been to Cherry's blog, Cherry's Jubilee,  check it out.  Every post is full of inspiration & Cherry is one of the sweetest ladies out there. 

Christmas Pipe Cleaner Craft

Yippeee...it's finally that time again...the official Christmas season!  I have been decorating the house, putting up the tree & generally immersing myself in my FAVORITE time of year. 

I'm so glad that Hope is now old enough to do craft projects.  Over the Thanksgiving weekend, we pulled out Christmas colored pipe cleaners for this oldie but goodie project.

 

I showed Hope how to braid & she went at it intently.  She did a great job.

I thought that the candy canes would look so cute in my Christmas decor:

But, apparently, Hope had other ideas....

About an hour later, I went upstairs & found that she had removed every single pipe cleaner candy cane from all of my little displays & hung them on the knobs of her dresser.  She is too funny.  I had to leave them there!