Sweeney Todd & Thrift Tuesday

First a Sweeney Todd review: Well, it was pretty gruesome. I'm familiar with the stage version, and although I knew the subject matter is dark as dark can be, it is far less....squirty...than this movie version is. It was like Tim Burton took the "Tim Burton" dial and turned it up to 11. The bleeding was really quite over the top, as was the scene with Mrs. Lovett's demise. The movie itself was visually striking, even though all of the colors were very grayed out. I loved the pop of color in the "By the Sea" number, and covet Mrs. Lovett's kooky red striped dress & stockings.

I was surprised at how well Johnny Depp sang, especially considering that he had no voice training at all for the movie. Helena Bonham Carter was adequate, but her voice was thin and it was obviously a big stretch for her. The music is quite difficult anyway, but a more accomplished singer might have sounded stronger. I was disappointed that a portion of my favorite song, "A Little Priest" was cut--that's the funniest part of the whole show and I think the lyrics are brilliant, so I was disappointed at so much of the humor cut out. I also think they could have played it a lot more manic--on the stage, it's played up for the laughs, and Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett are terribly amused with themselves. I thought in the movie version was a lot drier and just really missed out on how sickly funny the whole song is. Also, much of the really great harmony was cut, although I suspect that's because it was just too difficult for the actors to sing.

Overall, my feelings are mixed. It was really quite gory--from the spurting blood to the way the bodies are unceremoniously dumped from quite a height straight onto their heads, to Mrs. Lovett's fiery end. If you're squeamish, this is not the movie for you. It is dark and sinister and not the least bit uplifting. I quite like the music, and I enjoyed the actors' performances. I don't know that I'd want to see the movie again, although I am hoping we can get tickets when the most recent Broadway version of Sweeney comes to Denver this summer.

In other (less bloody) news, I went thrifting yesterday! I've been on the hunt for Valentine candy boxes to use for my swaps so I've hit all the local stores in the past few days. I was lucky and found one box, which I'm working on to send to Amy, and I've got my fingers crossed that I'll find another before the next swap is due out. I found a few other fun things as well: The dishes are the salad bowls that match my Christmas dishes. I don't have any, which I realized earlier in December when I offered to host a table at a church Christmas dinner and had to use another set of non-matching salad plates. I only found six dishes (I have service for eight) but I think six is better than none, and they were only 50¢ each. The vintage cards are unused and were only 80¢ for the stack. Not like I need any more vintage cards, but when I see old cards I am powerless to resist! I love the one on top with the bear and the red & aqua color scheme. Also shown are two pair of sparkly vintage earrings. They were more than I usually like to pay but they're really pretty and I'll put them to good use.

When I saw this fun old Coke bottle carrier, I grabbed it as fast as I could before anyone else had a chance to see it! It isn't terribly old--there's a date of 1976 on the inside--it is a fun piece, great bright red, and it was only $1.99. Not sure what I'll do with it yet but I couldn't leave it behind for that cheap. I also found these books for Maren (with the CDs still sealed), a darling pair of cherry-print linen Ann Taylor LOFT pants for Maren (did you know they had kids' clothes? I didn't), and a gorgeous vintage dress for me that is so fabulous that it deserves a post of its own.

If you signed up for the Sweet Goodness Hanging Hearts swap, you should have your partners by now! Be sure to email your partner and introduce yourself! I'll be back tomorrow with some Silver Bella projects that I finally finished.

Gratuitous Cute Kid Photo!

Friday Fiver and Attack of the Giant Snack Foods

First, the Friday Fiver:

1. Where do you like to walk? On the beach. Because I live in a land-locked state, this unfortunately doesn't happen very often.

2. What does your hair look like? You're familiar with Sideshow Bob, right? No, only kidding--it's not quite that bad! At the moment it does look slightly napped-upon, though. My hair is long and brown and curly. I'm completely bored with it, so I'm hoping to get in for a cut & highlight sometime soon.

3. What are you jealous of? The gorgeous homes I see featured in Country Living magazine. The ones with a perfect mix of quirky antiques and comfortable, homey furnishings. The ones decorated with charming vignettes that my toddler would destroy in 3.8 seconds flat.

4. What kind of promises do you make? I promise to only read one more blog and then I'll go do something productive. Swear.

5. What makes you stare? My handsome husband in uniform. My daughter when she's laughing. Women who are 63 who dress like they are 23.

And now, I have to share with you a website that has kept me amused for the better part of a week. I first found Pimp That Snack through Baking Bites. Earlier this year she was inspired by PTS and made a giant Hostess cupcake cake. I have a secret, shameful love for Hostess snack cakes so naturally, this caught my eye. That led me to Pimp That Snack, a website devoted to people who are determined to make gigantic versions of candy and snack foods for no other reason than just because they can. I haven't read all the archives yet but so far my early favorites are the Giant Reeses Peanut Butter Cup, these enormous Gummi Bears, and a ridiculously large Cadbury Creme Egg.

The site is British so some of the candy bars and treats may be unfamiliar to you, unless you are like me and became intimately acquainted with every type of candy bar available during my Study Abroad stay in London. (Incidentally, we had SUCH a problem with those British dryers shrinking our pants....I'm sure it had NOTHING to do with the aforementioned candy bars. I'm fairly certain that when an American eats British candy, most of the calories get lost in the conversion from the metric system. Ahem.) Anyway, if you need a good way to kill some time at work or avoid loading the dishwasher again, hop on over to Pimp That Snack for a fun read.

Tomorrow Maren is going to her first birthday party! Her little friend Abby is turning 3 and Abby's mom is bravely throwing a party and inviting other children. I've been telling Maren about it since the invitation came last week and she is SO excited! She keeps asking if it is time to go to Abby's party yet. Then provided I can find a babysitter, Quin and I are off on a hot date to see this. I can't wait! Hope you all have a fun weekend!

Valentine swap goodness

Thank you all for your suggestions about how to fix my blog template; I appreciate them so much! This weekend I'm going to save a copy of my template and then start fiddling around. Hopefully if you check back on Monday things will look different!

Tomorrow is the last day to sign up for the Sweet Goodness Hanging Hearts Swap! It's easy this time--create a hanging Valentine of some type for your partner. That's it! You can use any medium you'd like--as long as it hangs, it counts. LOL We have a good number of folks signed up already so it's shaping up to be a great group. Friday the 11th is the last day to sign up and then partner emails will go out by next Tuesday. To sign up, just send an email to heartswap2008@hotmail.com.

In addition to the Sweet Goodness swap, I've signed myself up for two other Valentine swaps. They are both the same theme so I figured I could handle two of them without totally overwhelming myself. I'm doing Maria's Sweet Heart Box Swap and ArtsyMama's For the Love of Supplies swap. For both swaps I get to decorate a heart-shaped candy box and fill it up with all sorts of trinkets and goodies in red, white, and pink. I think it sounds like so much fun, and I've already started gathering supplies. It's ironic--both my swap partners are from Anaheim! One is the fabulous Dede Warren, who I got the pleasure to meet at Silver Bella and the other is Amy Bauer, who doesn't have a blog. I'm on the hunt for some great candy boxes to alter--I'm itching to get my fingers all glittery!

Blogger help needed!

I need some Blogger help! When I look at my blog, I see a skinny bit of text in the middle, a sidebar, and then TONS of blank space on either side. It's driving me nuts! I'm all for a little white space to rest your eyes, but this is ridiculous. Can anyone help me with any of these issues?

• How do I stretch out my text column to make it wider? I'm pretty sure there's a way to do this, I just have NO IDEA how to fix it.
  
• How do I alter the size of my sidebar? I hate that my swap buttons are HUGE but I know it's because all items in the sidebar are the same width.
• Is there a way I can add a sidebar to both sides of my main text, like you see on Typepad blogs? I checked out the templates Blogger supplies but none of them have sidebars on both sides.

If any of you know the answers to my questions and can explain them to me slowly and patiently like I am a 4-year-old (HTML is not my friend), I would be very appreciative!

In other news, I went to Target this morning to see if there was any Christmas stuff left at 90% off. I was really good this year and did almost no after-Christmas shopping, but curiosity finally got the better of me. All of the Christmas stuff was gone, packed away to make room for the Global Bazaar line. Oh well! The Making Memories Christmas line from the scrapbooking aisle was still ringing up full price--I got some neat things 90% after Halloween, so I expected the Christmas stuff to be marked down too. Not that I needed anything but I love their designs and for 90% off, it's worth trying to find a place in the storage closet for it until next year. How annoying.

I did, however, find TONS of toys marked 75% off! I don't know how long that deal has been going but there were still several aisles quite full of good toys. Most of the stuff was for older kids and Maren already has more toys than she knows what to do with, but I picked up a few fun games for us (Totally 80's Trivial Pursuit, Harry Potter 2 Scene It, 1 vs. 100) and a few small toys to stash in the closet for birthday presents. I also went to JoAnn's, where I was surprised to see that all of the Easter decor is out already! Easter is early this year (March 23) but still, this seems awfully early. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised--after all, Target had Valentine stuff out well before Christmas. I will admit that I am terribly excited to pull my Easter decorations out this year! I loved them so much last year, and was sad to put them away. I'm eager to see my pretties again.

While the snow falls and Maren sleeps, I'm going to go get all the Christmas junk put away ONCE AND FOR ALL. It made it down to the basement, but it's all still in a pile at the base of the stairs and it's driving me nuts!

Very Gout I Talk!

Aw, crap. I missed a day! I really didn't mean to skip blogging yesterday--I took pictures and downloaded them and had a topic in mind and everything, but then I started watching a movie and forgot. Whoopsie.

Maren got a toy keyboard for Christmas from her Papa Quin. She loves it, most especially because it has an attached microphone and we all know how kids are powerless to resist the opportunity to amplify their already-loud voices by several times. Oy, my aching ears. Anyway, the keyboard was clearly manufactured outside this country--my bet is China--and whoever designed the packaging is clearly in need of a better translator. While Maren sang "Twinkle, Twinkle" at the top of her voice, we adults amused ourselves by trying to decipher the statements on the packaging.

This one has me completely mystified. Very Gout I Talk? Should that be Very LOUD I Talk? or Very GOOD I Talk? Or something different all together? No idea.


You may need to click this one to make it larger. The first line is perfectly intelligible, ditto for the second. But hang on a minute--"The Drum That Interest Clap Reaction Promotes The Hand"? What? There's more confusion about the drums on the other side of the box:


Drums Can Flap? Awesome. I love the first line, which is also splashed in huge letters across the front and back of the box: "37 Keys More Funtion Attune Electronic Organ." You'd think there was someone at that factory, in management perhaps, who had some grasp of the English language, wouldn't you? It's like they relied solely on a broken version of Babelfish to do their translating. For more entertaining mis-translations, go here.

Tagged by Tiff

Man, this is a nasty cold. I still feel like I have a head full of cotton, although I suspect most of that is due to a certain two-year-old who decided to cry and fuss every 25 minutes between the hours of 2:00 and 4:00 a.m this morning. Seriously, NOT a good night, and I haven't been able to shake it off yet. I feel like I need to go drink a giant Dr. Pepper or something; I need something to jolt me out of my fog. Because I'm still feeling blah, I'm taking the easy way out on blogging today and responding to a Tag from Tiff at Folded Gingham. Since I've already recently shared seven random things about myself, I'm going to cheat by answering seven Friday Fiver questions from the past couple of weeks.

1. Sweet, salty or savory? Most definitely sweet! I have a crazy sweet tooth. It gets me into big trouble.
2. Tell us something you love: I love when my DD is asleep and the house is quiet and I can get things done.
3. Who is the craziest person you know? That may have to be my nutmeg-eating younger brother, Kristjan
4. What's the last movie you saw? We rewatched Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
5. Do you sleep with your bedroom door shut? Yes, otherwise the dog comes in at 4:00 a.m. and bugs us to feed him. Even with my door shut and DD's door shut, I can still hear her make even the smallest sound. I've developed Super Mom Hearing.
6. When do your claws come out? When people don't follow through with their responsibilities. Had one of these moments last night, in fact. Flakiness makes me insane.
7. Best ice cream topping? Hot fudge. Chopped Reese's cups. And sprinkles, oh yes, always sprinkles! Maybe not all of those at the same time, though. No need to gild the lily.

Here's hoping I return on Monday with a post where I'm not whining about how sick I am. Yeesh. Have a good weekend!

Meeting the Shoe-Obsessed One

Had you worried there for a minute, didn't I? Nope, I'm not pooping out on my January Blog Challenge a mere three days into it!

If you are a reader over at Memoirs of the Shoe Obsessed this will be old news to you, but over Christmas vacation I got to meet one of my very favorite bloggers in person! Andie and I first met through a swap that Shara hosted last summer and we've been fast blog friends ever since. Andie and I are both from the same area and our parents still live there. Since we were both in town visiting our folks over the holidays, we decided to squeeze out a little time to actually meet face-to-face. Our girls are close in age and personality, so we wanted them to be able to meet and play as well. There aren't a lot lunch venues that allow for a couple of wild two-year-olds to do their thing that don't have the golden arches or a giant animatronic mouse as their mascot, but at the last minute we thought of IKEA. After a lunch of those yummy meatballs, Andie and I tried to visit while simultaneously keeping our kids from a) destroying the store and b) getting lost. Who knew visiting with a friend could be such an aerobic activity?



Anyway, it was delightful--beyond delightful!--to actually meet Andrea. If you read her blog then you know she is fabulous, but she's even better in person! I wish so much that we lived closer together--I think between the two of us and our ~ahem~ spirited daughters, we could raise some serious hell! Anyway, I hope we get the chance to meet again sometime in the not-too-distant future. Andrea gifted me with the cutest blue and red apron that she made just for me! It's already gracing the pantry door and brightening up my kitchen.

She also included note cards in my favorite turquoise and red! Does she know me, or what? Um, my gift that I was making for is still on my desk. Ahem. Andie, I'll be getting to that soon, I promise!

Anyway, meeting your blogging friends in person? I highly recommend it! I hope that someday I can meet more of you!

A personal blog challenge + Free clip art!

After my pathetically sparse blog posting performance in December, I've decided to take up a personal blog challenge for January. I challenge myself to post at least every week day from now until January 31 (weekends are optional--I can post, but I'm not going to flog myself if I forget or need a break.) Hopefully I won't run out of things to write by day 14 and start posting things like My Top Ten Breakfast foods or Things I've Picked Out of My Toes. Some days may just be photos, but I promised they'll at least be gratuitously cute Maren pictures.

If you're not familiar with Dover Publications, now is the time to get acquainted. I've long loved Dover books--I used to buy the little books of paper dolls at an art store near my home and my college bookstore sold Dover Thrift Editions for a mere $1.00, which enabled me to buy myself a tidy little stack of the classics and poetry. One of the things Dover is best known for is its vast collection of permission-free clip art. A couple of years ago my mom gave me this book & CD-ROM for Christmas. I've loved it! There are beautiful Victorian-style graphics taken from postcards and greeting cards for nearly every holiday. I've used them frequently on my blog and have also printed them out to use in various craft projects. I recently ordered this book, which has illustrations that are more 1920s-30s in style. I like it quite a bit, but I still love the Holiday Vignettes book better.

If you want to get a taste of what Dover has to offer, both clip-art and other items, you can sign up for their weekly Sampler newsletter here. Every Friday you get a newsletter with links to all kinds of samples of featured products. Some are clip-art, some are coloring pages, mazes, games, illustrations, and much more. To save the images to your computer, just right-click and choose a folder. There is also a weekly e-card you can send that is usually a cute vintage illustration. I've really enjoyed getting them each week in my inbox and have amassed quite a few pieces of clip art in the process.

We're all still sick at my house. Maren has finally succumbed after toughing it out for almost two weeks now. She's a tough little girl, and her personality changes quite drastically when she's not feeling well. I had a rough morning today (no more codeine-laced cough-syrup for me, thankyouverymuch) but I'm actually feeling better right now so I hope it means I'm on the mend. Back tomorrow!

Happy New Year!

In 2008, may we be able to face our challenges with strength and grace, and may we receive our blessings with thanksgiving and appreciation.

I'm looking forward to another year of dear friends made through this blog! :)

Tick-tock, tick-tock

We're back! It was a long trip, full of family, fun and food (my tight jeans will attest to that), but we're glad to be home. I've spent two days cleaning up the pre-trip disaster we left the house in, just so that I can drag out the Christmas boxes and undecorate. Unfortunately, we're all in various stages of suffering through a nasty chest cold so I think our New Year's Eve plans will involve Nyquil and an early bedtime, rather than inviting the neighbors over for a little Guitar Hero III and The Pioneer Woman's Bacon Appetizers, which is how we'd hoped to celebrate. Whee! Par-tay at my house tonight. Maybe we can still get a buzz off the Nyquil, right?

Merry Christmas to all!

Over the river and through the woods, to Grandmother's house we go...

I wish you all the Merriest of Christmases, dear friends, and I'll see you after the holiday!

December Sister Swap goodies

Good grief, I should be in bed! I still have a lot of packing to do in the morning but I wanted to do a quick post to show what my Sweet Goodness Sister swap partner sent me this month. Laurie has been such a wonderful swap partner and I've just loved everything she's sent!


The first thing I pulled out of the box was this gorgeous teacup and saucer. I have my great-grandmother's teacup collection and this little beauty will fit right in! It's so delicate and I love the shape and the colors. The next thing I opened was this adorable set of hand-sewn felt items for Miss Maren to keep in her purse: a cell phone, a lipstick (which Maren calls her "chapstick) and the cutest little compact! Seriously, folks, they're so dang cute that I had to restrain myself from stuffing them into MY purse. SO darling. Laurie also included some delish Caramelized Almost Ghirardelli squares (those disappeared fast!) and the prettiest little Italian hard candies.


Laurie also included a beautiful vintage hankie and some of her favorite recipes enclosed in this neat little bag sewn from vintage embroidered linens. She tells me that she found it already sewn up like that, so I wonder what its original purpose was? Interesting. Laurie knows of my love for red & turquoise together and she gifted me with the sweetest little red felt birdie! His wings and breast are done in the most perfect, delicate, vintage-looking red and aqua fabric. I should have taken a close-up photo--I am completely in love with the fabric! Laurie's construction and sewing is so beautiful, and I feel so lucky to have some of her work! I hung my little birdie from the fabulous red & turquoise yo-yo garland she sent me in November. And last was the awesome vintage gingham apron in the background of the pictures. It is all pleated at the top and has three rows of rickrack at the bottom. Turquoise, rickrack, and pleating--How could it be more perfect?

And now it's off to bed for me to catch 40 winks before I have to get up in the morning and figure out how to stuff 3 suitcases, 2 extended families' worth of gifts, snow clothing, enough snacks and DVDS to entertain a wild toddler for 10 hours, and an 80-lb. yellow lab into our Pathfinder. I did always like to play Tetris--wish me luck!

Tagged by Rebecca

So apparently my new blogging schedule is once a week, on Wednesdays. I swear after Christmas I'm going to get back to blogging more often. I've just been ridiculously busy and I still haven't been able to shake the general bad mood that has been hanging around my head like a little black rain cloud these past few weeks. It's crunch time--we leave Friday morning to go out of town for a week to spend Christmas with our families. That means between now and I then I have to get us all packed, make sure I have enough gifts for everyone, locate and wrap all the Christmas presents I've hidden throughout the house, order and pick up Christmas card photos so I can write our cards while we drive, attend a church party tonight, and get the house ready to leave. I think I'm in denial over how much I still have to do and how little time I have left to do it in. Oy. So since I'm in denial and wasting my precious time by blogging, I present my Google Image Meme!

Age on my next birthday:

A place that I would like to visit:

One of my favorite places:My favorite object:My favorite food:
My favorite color:
My favorite animal:

Name of a past pet:

Where I live:1st Grade teacher's last name:
My middle name:
A bad habit of mine:My college major:
My favorite holiday:

And there you have it! Sorry the pictures are so tiny, I snagged them straight from the Google Image search page and I'm just too lazy to go back and get the larger images. You get the idea, anyway.

My Holiday Home

First of all, five points to Jennifer for alerting me to my copy/paste error on the last post! When I read her comment and realized what I had done I laughed and laughed! Bet you all didn't expect THAT when you clicked on the link! (Incidentally, that is a link to something I sold on eBay recently--I bought the stockings at an estate sale and sold them for pretty good $$!) Hope no one was too scandalized! ;) I did fix the link so you can check out the cookie recipe now. And do check it out--those Lemon Meltaways were delicious!

I haven't blogged in a week. I just haven't felt like it; I spent all of last week feeling overwhelmed and cranky. I'm afraid not much about my mood has changed this week, although I really am trying to snap out of it. I let go of a few more things on my To Do list; they got moved to the January list and that's just going to have to be the way it is. I had this cute window treatment all planned out involving red ribbons, vintage cookie cutters and the Martha Stewart vintage-style utensil ornaments I schlepped all the way to Kmart for. I've come to terms with the fact that it isn't going to happen either, so rather than the January list, it's getting put on the December 2008 list. I'm disappointed, but trying to be realistic.

I still have two family members on my gift list that I have NO ideas for, and that is stressing me out big time. I really do love buying gifts and trying hard to think of something that the recipient will love. I try so hard to be really thoughtful about it, but sometimes that backfires on me and I end up stressed out and slightly frantic, like I am now. DH is out of the country and so I have been responsible for all the gift buying for both sides of the family, which is especially hard for me as they are mostly men. The men in our families are so hard to shop for (DH included). Women, I can do--I just buy them things that I would like! The men are a real challenge.

I did finally get the house decorated last Friday, and I took a few photos to share. You can also hop over to Karla's Cottage to see who participated in her "What I Love About My Holiday Home" party. Lots of gorgeous inspiration there!

This year I decorated my tree with all of my vintage ornaments. They look just like jewels nestled in all the sparkly aluminum goodness. So far both the dog and the toddler have left the tree alone and everything is safe. Let's hope it stays that way! Under my tree is the vintage felt & sequined tree skirt that Vintage Hunter kindly sent to me. In the left corner you can see my vintage wood sled with its new aqua & red Martha Stewart bow. In the right corner is a chair covered with a thrifted Christmas quilt and the darling little elf my mom gave me for Christmas last year.This is the top of my china cupboard. I ended up with a red & silver theme this year, though it wasn't my original intent. It just happened but I really do love it! The wreath on the mirror is glittery and sparkly and was purchased 75% off at Michael's last year, and there's a sweet red cardinal on the top (he's from a garage sale this summer). The Santa is from an estate sale this summer. The glittery church is from clearance at Target last year, and the bottle brush trees are from Kohl's this year. I filled my (thrifted) silver champagne bucket with silk poinsettias, berries, and greens from an old centerpiece that I took apart.

Here is a closer view of the apothecary jar. It is filled with (thrifted) glittery silver ball ornaments. The glittery red key is from Wal-Mart this year, tied on with silver satin ribbon from my stash (which was probably saved from a gift). The sweet feathered bird perched on the top came from the same sale as the cardinal.

This is the centerpiece for my game table, which sits in front of the china cabinet. The glittery Santa is from Target clearance last year. I love him! He's sitting on one of my glass cake stands and surrounded by some of my favorite vintage red and silver ornaments and the other white feathered bird. When the afternoon sun comes in the window the glitter catches the light and he just sparkles like crazy! It's just beautiful. It's sitting atop a place mat I thrifted on Friday night. My mom has a set and I've always liked them. I went thrifting that night with place mats like this one in mind, so it was serendipity that I found one! Actually two--the one that is green with a red border is sitting on my kitchen island.Please excuse the poor photograph on this one--it's impossible to get a good shot because you're shooting right into the sliding glass door beyond so it screws up the lighting. This is the entrance to my kitchen from my front room. I bought the green garland on super clearance at Target a few years ago. I don't know that I've ever used it, I just thought it would be a good thing to have on hand. I was right! If you click to enlarge you can see the lights. A few years ago I bought two sets of lights that look like vintage indent ornaments, also on clearance at Target. I've never used those either, as I just don't really have anywhere to put them. This year I figured out I could put the two together! Duh. :) I have no idea why but the string on the left has quit working. I may try replacing the fuse but other than that, I'm stumped. The silver star/snowflake things that are hanging down are really neat! I bought them in the same bag as the glittery balls in the apothecary jar. I had no idea what they were when I purchased the bag, but when I opened it up and discovered what they were I was thrilled. They are made of clear plastic and mylar and they unfold like those tissue paper honeycomb decorations. I absolutely love them!


I've had this set of Santa paper dolls for a few years--I think they were in my Christmas stocking one year. I always thought they'd be so cute to frame but have never gone through with it because of the ridiculous cost of custom framing. Somewhere in blogland this year I saw a garland strung across a window, hung with pieces of Santa's clothing. When I pulled out my paper dolls, inspiration struck! I have this mirrored faux-window in my entryway and I knew it needed something draped across it. I attached a few little Command hooks (LOVE those things) to the top and made a clothesline with bakers' twine and mini clothespins from my craft stash.

One last photo--this is what my Christmas tree looks like reflected in the window mirror. I wish I could better capture how colorful, sparkly and delightful it really is!

It's beginning to look a lot like...well, you know

I just got the final tray of Lemon Meltaways in the oven, and before I go roll the truffles I thought I'd pop in and post. I'm helping to host a baby shower open house tonight (which I swear I got shanghaied into--don't ask) so although my house looks like Santa's little helpers staged a walk-out, I'm baking instead of finishing the decorating and cleaning up the boxes.

I didn't get to decorate this weekend like I had hoped; instead, I spent seven precious, irretrievable hours of my life traveling to and attending the most ridiculous, waste-of-time training I've yet had the misfortune to encounter. {cue the "Better Off Dead" kid} I WANT MY SEVEN HOURS BACK! Thus, the Christmas boxes didn't start making it up the stairs until Monday and I'm still knee-deep in the mess. I'm enjoying the decorating process. I'm trying some new things this year and when it's all done I will take a few photos to share. The first thing I put up was my beloved aluminum tree, and I hung it with all of my "special" vintage ornaments. The sun came out yesterday afternoon and when it hit that tree and all of those ornaments they just sparkled like crazy. Honestly, it took my breath away! It is so, so pretty and it makes me happy to walk past it.

A couple of quick photos to share before I go back to the truffle mines: after I complained on Friday about the lack of interesting retail Christmas stuff this year, Sarah gave me a hot tip that Kohl's had some cute vintage-style decorations this year. I hopped over on Monday and she was right! They had a whole line of very pretty silver & aqua ornaments: kugels, glass glitter shapes, and beautiful glass shapes. Since I don't do a regular tree I passed those up but I did grabthese darling bottlebrush trees (60% off! Hooray!) and these cute little photo holders,

which were totally an impulse buy but I love them! I'm obsessed with little houses this year--can't get enough of them, so when I saw these cuties with their little bottlebrush trees, I couldn't resist.

Back to the kitchen for me! The truffles won't roll themselves. :)

The Goblet of Fire has spoken!

I know I said that I would do the Silver Bella giveaway drawing on Thursday, but time & sunlight got away from me (man, I hate this getting dark at 4:30 nonsense!) so it got postponed to this morning. I printed out & cut up everybody's comments and put them in the ol' Goblet of Fire, and had my trusty assistant draw the winning name:





And the winnner is...Dawn from Oh So Pretty! Dawn's blog title is a very accurate description of the things she posts--her thrifting finds, her original creations, her home decor--everything is a feast for the eyes! Do go check out her blog if you haven't visited before. And Miss Dawn, please email me at fraulein_h at hotmail dot com with your address so I can mail out your Silver Bella goodies! Thanks to everyone who read and commented--I love reading what you have to say and visiting your blogs!

You know, I've yet to be knocked off my feet by any of the ornament collections out there in the retail world this year. Last year Target had some super cute stuff--the red & aqua snowmen, the little houses, the glass glitter figures & ornaments. I went to Target to check out this year's collection and all I could think was "eh." The only thing I couldn't live without were a pair of these giant glass glitter snowflakes. They look very similar to the Wendy Addison snowflakes I bought last year at Tinsel Trading Co. on my trip to NYC--they are the same size as the smallest WA flake but the glitter is not as twinkly. You can kind of see the difference in this photo; the Wendy Addison is the one on top and the Target is the one on the bottom.

They're a little different, but I think the slight variation is a good thing--no two snowflakes are alike, right? Unless you buy them from Target! LOL The Target version are $5.99, while the same-sized Wendy Addison was almost double that, so they're a pretty good deal.

I also braved the drive to the ghetto to visit our only local but very skeevy KMart for the sole purpose of checking out the new Martha Stewart ornaments. It was the same thing there--I had high hopes but was soundly disappointed when I saw it all in person. I did end up buying the set of ornaments that look like vintage kitchen utensils with painted handles and a new red & aqua striped bow for my antique sled, but other than that, it was all "eh." I even felt that way about Martha's Craft line at Michael's--I had seen it online weeks before I saw it in person and it looked so cute, but when I got there with a 50% off coupon in hand, ready to BUY BUY BUY, I couldn't find a single thing I wanted.

I think part of the disappointment is that I see so much amazing stuff being created in the blogosphere and elsewhere online that there is just no way for the retail world to even come close (for example, check out the gorgeous red & blue color scheme over at Fredsworld). That's a great thing, though--I'm so inspired by what I see that I want to bring to life the visions in my head rather than wait for someone at Target to fulfill my creative leanings. So thank you all for what you do and what you share--you inspire me!

I'm hoping to start getting out the Christmas stuff this weekend and get started on the decorating. I'm really excited to open all the boxes and see the things I love and come up with a new design scheme for the year!

Have a lovely weekend!

Happy Mail

Laurie, my partner in the Sweet Sister Holiday Swap apparently has mind-reading abilities in addition to her sewing skills. Just look at what she sent me for our November swap:

The theme for this package was "Tags & Swags". Laurie made me the neatest garland in my very favorite color combination of turquoise & red. She used wool felt and vintage fabrics & buttons to make yo-yos (which I LOVE) that are attached to a turquoise beaded garland. It is just gorgeous, and my lame-o flashed-out photo simply doesn't do it justice. I love that it looks festive but not exclusively "Christmas" so I can display it at other times of the year. I've thought of just the place to hang it so I just need to get a few more hooks and I'll be in business. Laurie also included some cute Christmas gift tags and one of darling handmade wool pigs (which I've coveted ever since I saw the one she made for Jane in the Pink & Brown swap earlier this year). What a delightful package, and how lucky I am to have been paired up with Laurie!

I got more good mail in the form of my order from a.bel emporium. When Amanda posted on her blog about her new Christmas miniatures, I just had to go check them out! I ordered some darling Hansel & Gretel scrap (destined for Valentines, methinks), a set of wee plastic deer, Halloween dresdens and the cutest little red & white toadstool cupcake picks, because I am obsessed with toadstools lately.

I was tickled when I got my order and found that Amanda included extra several goodies and it was all packaged up like a gift! Do go over and check out the Holiday Kitsch Samplers at her blog.

And the last bit of happy mail came from Sarah. A while ago she mentioned on her blog that she'd found an aqua Lu-Ray pitcher at the flea market. I commented on it--I adore Lu-Ray, but have only ever found 3 pieces in all my thrifting. Sweet Sarah rolled up that pitcher in a ton of bubblewrap and sent it to me as a wonderful surprise!

It is now one of my very, very favorite things and I just smile whenever I look at it. As I told Sarah, I could not be more delighted! :)

Thanks to all the wonderful bloggers I've met, the Happy Mail quotient around here has gone up substantially. :)

All is Shiny, all is Brite

Vintage Shiny Brite Christmas ornaments. They're like crack cocaine to me--I think about them, I dream about them, I simply cannot get enough! I found my first Shiny Brites back before I was even married with a tree to put them on--I had been garage sale-ing with my mom and scored several boxes of the solid colored glass balls, mostly in shades of turquoise and hot pink. When I finally got an aluminum tree (an early Christmas gift from my sweet parents), the turquoise and pink looked perfectly retro with all of that sparkly silver!

Since then, I've been on the never ending, voracious hunt for Shiny Brites. In my experience they've been hard to find so my collection is still small, but one look at the zillions of Shiny Brites for sale on eBay tell me that they're still out there, waiting to be found. The difference is that I wouldn't dream of selling them! I still have mostly plain glass balls but slowly I've been finding more and more of the 'special' ones--those that have stripes or glitter or are a different shape. When I find those at a garage sale or thrift, I don't think I could be more excited if they were diamonds and rubies! They are truly treasures to me.

All of the thrifts around here wait until after Halloween to put their Christmas donations out for sale, so I have to wait to search. Ever since I got home from Silver Bella I've been on a bit of a thrift bender, and I've been lucky in the vintage Christmas department! These were all in one big bag. All of my local thrifts just throw a bunch of stuff in a bag and price it, a dangerous situation for delicate glass balls. Sometimes I get very lucky and find a whole bag full of good stuff like this, but mostly it's a whole bag of crap and one or two good things. Not all of these are Shiny Brites but they are all vintage. I especially love the small boxes of feather tree ornaments.


For me, the graphics on the old ornament boxes are just as appealing as the contents! The ornaments inside this box are nothing special, but the box is great! The dipsticks at the thrift store had crisscrossed the top with clear packing tape and I took a chance, hoping I could use some Un-Du and get the tape off without completely destroying the box. I was mostly successful, but you can see on the edges where the red paper lifted off despite the care I took. Oh well, it's still great and once I glue down that errant flap and fill it with "good" ornaments, it will look great!



More wonderful old graphics! I don't know how, but I very nearly overlooked these at the thrift store. They should have jumped right out at me, as different as they are from all the modern boxes of ornaments they were stacked with. Thankfully, I looked again and snatched them up as fast as I could! Good thing, because there were treasures inside:

A few of these are plain glass balls, but most of them are really neat! There are even three that I think are made out of spun cotton and are quite old--need to get a close up of those to show you later. The only problem with these is that it looks like someone hung them on the tree and then sprayed the tree with that awful flocking stuff from a can, so several of the ornaments have white yucky stuff on them. I think that if I'm careful I can get it off without damaging them too much.

If you want to really drool, search "Shiny Brite" on eBay and look through just a few of the 1400 listings that come up. Whoa, nelly. I used to think that buying off eBay was cheating, but knowing how hard it has been to find the few ornaments that I do have, mostly one and two at a time, eBay is starting to look a lot more appealing. If I had lots and lots of money, I think I'd be bidding just as fast as my fingers could click the mouse. Chasing the Shiny Brite dragon. Yikes.

This year I have enough of the special ornaments to decorate my tree, and I'm so excited to get everything out and see how it looks! I'm a little nervous about the potentially catastrophic combination of fragile glass ornaments + curious toddler hands but I'm going to risk it. I can always buy more on eBay, right?