Starry Mantel

When I saw these stars in Lowe’s Creative Ideas magazine, I knew that I would have to make a few.  They are incredibly easy to make.  All you need is paper, scissors, and a stapler.  I used  contractor’s paper that comes on a big roll because I knew that Mama could use the rest of the roll on her house renovation.  After I made my stars, I spray painted them gold.  I punched a hole in the back of each star and attached a short length of string.  The stars are hanging from handy 3M hangers.  You can find the directions for making the stars here.

I made the red trees last year.  I simply wrapped five different sizes of styrofoam cones in ribbon.  The ribbon is held in place with sewing pins. 

These stars are a fun project to do with kids.  My niece and I made a star after dinner on Thanksgiving.  She loved making it! 

Be sure to visit Susan at Between Naps on the Porch for Metamorphosis Monday and Kimba at A Soft Place to Land for DIY Day.

Vintage Christmas Monday

I’m joining Joan at Anything Goes Here for her third Vintage Christmas Monday.  If you are a lover of vintage or antiques, check out Joan’s blog.

My mother has very fond memories of her neighbor’s Econolite sitting on top of the tv from when she was a child.  We found one at an antique sale a few years back and have been on the hunt for another.  We found this one on a girl’s trip to Chicago and she gave it to me for my birthday.  I love it!

I love collecting vintage Santa boots and other Santa items.  I display them at Christmas in my kitchen.

I need to add greenery to this display.  The first picture is 2009 and the second is 2008.  The Santa and reindeer on the top shelf in the 2008 picture are the only items that are new.

My grandmother made this tree skirt in the 70’s for my family.  Mama let me have it and I love using it.  Granny must have spent hours making it.

This cheerful display is in my kitchen.  The vintage cookie cutters were Granny’s, the jar was given to me by Mama, and the Santa boot and apothecary jar were a recent find.

I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing some of my vintage Christmas items.  They sure are fun to collect!

Christmas Dining Table Arrangement

I used the tray that I got last Friday (scroll down if you are new) for an arrangement for my dining room table.  I started by digging candles out of my supply closet.  Amanda of Imperfectly Beautiful inspired me to cover my candles with some pretty tissue paper.  I then tied on burlap strips and ribbon.  I surrounded the candles with different species of pine cones, magnolia pods sprayed gold, and dried rose hips.  My table now looks festive!

A little crafting was just what I needed after a long day at school.  Now what should I do for the kitchen table centerpiece?  Mmmm….

Ornament Wreath – Monogram Style

I’ve been itching to make an ornament wreath after seeing so many in blog land over the past few weeks.  I decided to do an ornament wreath with a twist, our monogram.

Mr. SP made this wire form for me a few years ago and I never used it.  I intended to cover it with greenery, but he made a wooden form that ended up being much better for that purpose.  To keep the ornaments from sliding off, we cut a wine cork in half and used the drill press to hollow out holes in the end of the cork.  The ornaments end up hiding the cork pieces.

I bought a lot of ornaments because I had no idea how many it would take to cover this “S”.  I used almost 150 ornaments to cover the form in large, medium, and small sizes.

Eddie Ross recommended using a glue gun to glue the caps to the ornaments.  The ornaments that I bought were plastic and the cap didn’t come off.  The wire that my “S” is made of was too thick for the ornament holes, so I had to individually wire each ornament to the form.  Mr. SP found this cool red wire in the trash at his old job.  I’ve used it for a lot of projects and it really worked well on this one.

I wired and wired and then wired some more.  Almost finished!

 

Ta-Da!  The finished project!

The outside of our home is ready for Christmas, now on to the inside!

Be sure to visit Susan at Between Naps on the Porch for Metamorphosis Monday and Kimba at A Soft Place to Land for Do It Yourself Day.

Black Friday Bargains

Mama and I had high hopes of working on her Walnut Avenue house on Friday, but we ended up shopping instead.  We didn’t hit the mall or any big store, just small stores. 

We started off in Stuarts Draft at The Cheese Shop, a store owned and operated my Mennonites that sells bulk food and of course, cheese.  I stocked up on spices and bought a few types of cheeses to enjoy over the next few weeks.  Then we went to a little store in the middle of nowhere to buy meat.  They process the meat there, so you don’t have to worry about where it came from or any nasty practices they might use.  You can watch the guys cut it up and package it.  I bought six one pound packages of ground beef and two steaks.  I love having this meat in my freezer for when I need it. 

We spend the rest of the day in downtown Staunton exploring the small shops and antique stores.

I found two Santa boots to add to my collection.  The big boot was $20.00 and the small one was $5.00.

It took a while to clean up this $2.00 Apothecary jar, but I love it and can’t wait to fill it with some Christmas candy that I bought at The Cheese Shop.

I found several planters to add to my growing collection.  Each of these was either $3.00 or $4.00.  One is McCoy, one is Roseville, and the other two are marked USA.

I got this beautiful silver tray for $20.00.  I love the detail!

I’m going to work super hard today to get my house cleaned so that I can do some Christmas decorating.  I was able to get all of my fall decorations packed away last night.  That was a task that I was not looking forward to doing and I’m glad it’s over!  Mr. SP and I also need to move 12 shrubs for our driveway project and finish painting the porch that we’ve been working on for the past two weekends.  It’s going to be a busy day!

I can’t wait to see Christmas decorations in blogland.  The next few weeks will be fun!  Have a good weekend!

Happy Thanksgiving

Have a wonderful day celebrating with those you love.  We will be spending the day at my Mom’s farm.  This will be our last Thanksgiving on the farm as next year Mama will be living on Walnut Avenue.  Speaking of Walnut Avenue, Mama and I will work on the house tomorrow.

I have so much for which to be grateful, but I can’t help but be a little sad when I think of those who won’t be with us today:  my dad, my brother, my grandparents, and my mother-in-law.  I am very grateful for the family I do have, especially my wonderful husband and my sweet Mama.  I am also grateful for my health, great friends, our jobs, and for the beauty of Virginia.

Enjoy the day!

Plans For a New Driveway

Back in the summer I hinted that I had two bits of big news.  The first was a lot that we bought at the lake.  I can finally announce our second bit of big news, we are getting a new driveway.

We really need a new driveway.  Doesn’t everyone have grass growing in their driveway?

How about a huge pothole?  Or a bump so big that you have to slowly drive over it?  (The pothole and bump are from big trucks driving in and out when we built our addition in 2005.)

 

Our current driveway makes a half circle on the side of our house.

Because of this, people always enter our house through the screened porch, instead of using the front door.

The new driveway entrance will be at the front of the house.  We’ll still have the exit that you see above that is closest to the Explorer.  Where the Honda is parked will become yard.  To the right of the Honda will be a retaining wall and a Greenstone patio.  (Some excavation will have to be done to build the patio.)

Now we see the front of the house.  Picture entering here and exiting to the right of the Explorer.

The sidewalk will be removed, rerouted, and replaced.  The front porch will be updated with a different step.  We are using concrete pavers for both the driveway and sidewalks.  They will look similar to this:

Here’s the master plan that we’ve been agonizing over since late August.

We are not getting the landscaping outlined in green or red.  The beds will be formed and I’ll have to landscape them myself.  You can see in the back of the drawing where the patio will be built.  It’s outlined in red.  We won’t be getting the landscaping to the left and right of that patio.

Back in August, our landscaper painted lines on our yard to help us to visualize where the sidewalks and driveway will go. 

The bed that you see to the right in the above picture will be reworked by moving the soil to build a berm.  I have to dig out all of that plant material to keep to replant later.  There are several other areas where there’s plant material that needs to be moved to save it. 

Construction will start the second week in January and will be complete by March 1.  Our landscaper warned us that this project is going to be a MESS.  We can’t wait!  Let the mess begin!

I’m going to share some pictures from projects that our landscaper has done for others around town.

Wouldn’t you love to have this in your back yard?

How about this backyard paradise?  The little house that you see has a refrigerator for cocktail supplies.  The people that you see are relaxing on a pretty patio.

Here’s the cute little house!

 

A local driveway – you don’t see many concrete paver driveways where we live.  I think that the look will really catch on!

Now you’ve seen the before pictures.  I’ll have lots of during pictures and many, many after pictures. 

I’m joining Susan at Between Naps on the Porch for Metamorphosis Monday.