Done with Santa, Now Bring on the Easter Bunny!

I suppose it is a little early for most people, but today DH and I took down the tree and all the Christmas decorations.

I started at 6:00 a.m. with the entertainment center. I was finished taking it all down in less than half an hour. I packed it all up and then had to wait a couple of hours until DH got up to do the tree. I wanted him to help haul up (and back down to the basement) the storage totes.

Working together we had it all done by noon.

While putting the totes away, I spotted a box with two wooden Easter bunnies that I had planned to repaint.

Why not today?

I brought them up to the dining room (covered the table with an old blanket that was already full of paint splatters) and spent an hour or so happily repainting them. Now I have a bright pink table, a chocolate bunny and a purple bunny to use in my Easter decorations. Once I have a mess in progress, I try to find other things that need doing. I decided to "pewterize" three frames that I have too much white. I never plan these things...I mean, really, who would be thinking of Easter bunnies the day after Christmas? This stuff just pops into my mind and I jump up and do it. I've always been this way............But I digress...........I decided the frames needed help and went down to the basement to find some paint. I saw this dimensional fabric paint called "pewter" and thought I would give it try.
I just squeezed it on the frame, like this:
Then used a small paint brush to blend it in. . . and....Voila! The frames resemble pewter! I think it looks so much better!

Now I have an empty space where the tree was. I think I will leave the side panels off for the winter. I like to let in all the light I can this time of the year.

I may bring up a desk from the basement to put in front of the window. I could use the desk area for a jigsaw puzzle. I always think that, but it's been years since I've actually done a puzzle.

Tonight I don't have to cook a thing for dinner. We are having leftover turkey sandwiches--can't wait! That's what I missed about not cooking for Thanksgiving.

Mrs. Grinch Enjoyed the Holidays After All

It's no secret that I have been a total Grinch this year -- I bemoaned all the work and my lack of enthusiasm to everybody unfortunate enough to mention Christmas preparations.

I declared to everyone who would listen that this was my last year to host this party.

And then it was party night and guess what? Despite my poor attitude, I really enjoyed the evening!

My nieces said they have been watching Martha and learned that proper etiquette requires they bring a hostess gift, so I was the recipient of this fruity wine wrapped in a very cute cloth wine bag.

Wine was a bit of a theme in my gifts this year. The same niece did this very original wrapping, which was the gift I got in the exchange.

Since I had not done any baking, I decided to make a peppermint swirl cake for the party. It's a white bundt cake with a pretty red swirl in the center. The swirl is flavored with mint extract.

So I got the cake batter made and grabbed the mint extract. I only needed a half of a teaspoon full.
Talk about bad luck! There was exactly one drop of mint extract in the bottle--just one stinkin' drop. I had to do some quick thinking. I found a bottle of orange extract and some orange food color and decided that my red peppermint swirl would be an orange citrus swirl.
And it turned out just fine.

My mother brought an exceptionally delicious cheese ball. I put it on my century-old Austrian ribbon candy -look alike Jester-head plate. Something about this plate really appeals to me, yet I rarely use it. I must remember that it works great for a cheese ball.

I have had this George Briard green vinyl ice bucket for twenty-five years. This is the first year it matches the holiday decor. (I never heard of George Briard until I googled him after finding his signature on the bottom of my ice bucket. I was not surprised to find that he was a designer of the 50' - 60's and his items are now collectible)
Here are a few of the attendees on the treasure hunt. I hide 20 items and when they find them all they get a small gift.

One of the items was a real turkey wishbone. It was right in plain sight, but some people had difficulty finding it. Do you see it?

Did you see that sticker on her back? We played a new game this year. As they came in I taped the name of a character in a Christmas show on their back.

This one was Charlie Brown. They could ask every guest just two questions with yes or no answers to get clues to who they were. Questions like, "Am I a male?" or "Do I have a flesh colored face?" I thought that was a good question. That person happened to be the Grinch and was the first to guess who she was.

My sister, Tammy, knitted (knit?)socks for all of us. Mine are the all blue, 100% wool in the center. I made them all stick their sock-covered foot among the presents so I could get a pic for the blog. I cannot tell you how many feet in the air pics I have seen on other blogs. Not being a person who knits, I never thought you would see one here. Never say never.....


Oh. look Santa brought me an orange tote bag! It has a wonderful zipper across the top--my favorite kind.

Do you also see the fun orange/pink necklaces hanging on the tree above it? Can't wait to wear that one with all the little squares.

So it's been a wonderful Christmas after all.

I have a turkey in the oven. I am having my Mom & Dad over for dinner in three hours. I am cooking the turkey in the convection oven for the first time. Hope it turns out good!

I hope you all are having a Merry Christmas!

Minimalist Decorating is so Liberating!

Today I took a vacation day from work. It was hardly a "vacation". I worked nonstop from 7:00 a.m. until 3:45 p.m.--laundry, scour bathroom, scrub floors, clean all the mirror and glass over artwork -- all the stuff that working women never have the time to do. I like to get away on the weekends and I have no energy to clean after I get home from work, so that does not leave much time for heavy duty cleaning.

It feels good to have it all done.

I also rearranged the dining room so it would work for my Christmas Eve party. This year I have no trees in the dining room -- I usually have 4. I do not have one piece of Christmas decorations in the room. But since you get a good view of the one tree I did put up, I moved items into this room to match the tree - blue and lime green. The tree is more aqua, but this room is cobalt blue and lime green. I brought in all my cobalt wine glasses and put them in both cabinets. I shopped the house to find lime green accents -- a pear candle, some liqueur glasses, and a grape candle.

I extended the table to seat 10 and added another set of silver trees that I bought for $1 each at the Dollar Tree. I brought out a runner in the same color scheme. It's not Christmasy at all, yet for me, it works.

I put this shelf above the china cabinet. My son made it in high school about 15 years ago. My cobalt blue decanters stand where a 2 ft. white-lit tree usually sits. I put two cobalt dishes in the dish rack above the mirror.

Around the corner, I put all the little gifts I bought for the games we play. Of course I wrapped them in paper to match.

I have rarely done as little Christmas decorating as I've done this year.
Yet I think this looks fairy festive. The best part is that I will have NOTHING to take down in the dining room after Christmas. How wonderful that will be!

I am thoroughly enjoying my minimalist decorating this year.

Aqua & Lime Green Christmas Tree

It looks all blue on my ancient monitor, but there is quite a lot of green.

I used 4 different lime green balls. All of those I bought to mix with pink, ended up on this tree. It's amazing how many decorations it takes to do a tall (albeit skinny) tree like this one.

A few days ago I boxed up all the cookie jars that used to reside above the kitchen desk area. I am planning to put all my holiday houses up here. For the past few years, they have sat on this basement shelf untouched....It's a big pain in my growing derriere to unbox them all and set them up Their work vs. enjoyment ratio suggests that I should get rid of them after this final use.

I really need to get rid of a bunch of stuff. Did you see those shelves? Well, each shelf is pretty big and I have 12 of them full of Christmas items. The only reason one does not look full, is because I have already hauled quite a few items upstairs.

Here is the family room entertainment center awaiting it's transformation.

Christmas Tree Top and Chicken Stuffed Wonton Shells

I have spent the past 24 hours watching sappy Christmas movies on the Family Channel. I think I am on my 5th show right now. I am thoroughly enjoying these shows; Because I don't watch much TV, I have not seen any of them before, even though they are old shows.

This morning I did some sewing, cooked a late breakfast, took a shower and got right back into a clean pair of jammies as I knew I would be spending the afternoon decorating my main tree while the movies played in the background... a few times I had to stop trimming the tree to get a Puff's tissue. Yeah, sappy movies do that to me.

This year I did my main tree in lime green and aqua. You may remember that I did aqua and white last year. I had the lime green addition planned since last December and I bought some lime green balls during the December 26, 2008 sales.

Today I will show you my tree top this year; tomorrow I will show you the rest of the tree.


Do you see any of those branches I painted silver?


The peacock is perched on one of them.

I also used some in the window garland:


I used something else from my garden. Did you notice what in the pics above?

The same day I got the branches, I picked a bunch of silver dollar plants that were growing in my wooded area. I thought they would work nicely on the top of the tree with the other natural materials I had purchased last year. If I had more,I would have used them all through the tree.

Yesterday I made tonight's dinner in anticipation of spending the entire afternoon decorating the tree. I cooked a bunch of chicken breasts and made chicken noodle soup for tonight.


I also took some wonton wrappers and baked them in the oven in mini muffin pans.

I tried one after baking and I must say they were not very good. I almost threw them in the garbage.


I decided to save them and make chicken salad to fill them.


YUM! DH and I both loved them with the chicken salad. The shell was still pretty tasteless, but was very crunchy, which we both decided was much better than putting the salad on bread.

Tomorrow I will show you some pictures of the full tree.