A few of my Favorite Things

Hi Friends!! I thought I would do a little Show and Tell today of a few of my favorite Christmas decorations and ornaments. I am linking to Cindy at My romantic home for her Show and Tell Friday. Be sure and check out all the other enteries too!

Above is the first Santa I made many years ago. I took a class at a local quilt shop from a doll artist and learned to sculpt and make the armature for the Santa. He is made from Super Sculpey, painted and dressed in antique fabrics and furs. I feel my skills have really improved since this one, but he will always be very special to me.
I also put together a sleigh full of toys, some of which I made and others were repainted.


One of my favorite ornaments. I see it needs a touch-up of paint.

I have collected angels for many years, and this one will always be a favorite as it came from my good friend Gail who passed away from cancer about 3 years ago. She gave me this beautiful angel for my tree right after she was diagnosed. I miss her very much.

The little "wax" angel in the background is one of my favs. I picked it up many years ago at a sale or something. I have never seen one like it, obviously handmade I think, with mohair wig and pearl strand for her halo. She is so delicately painted. The angel in front is made from a purchased angel head and shoulder and a long tassel for her skirt. The bodice is made from wired ribbon.

And this is "Willie" our yellow and white cat of some 15 years. He loves it under the Christmas tree with all the twinkly lights. We always think he is ready for Christmas when it arrives. ha.

Well, that's just a few things to show you. I will be joining some of the Christmas tours in the next few weeks to show you more. I'm almost done!!

I am soooooo excited! I have just passed my medical transcription finals and will now be moving into an internship position. There is still much to learn, but I really do enjoy it and find it interesting and best of all I can work from home. There is no where I would rather be.

Hope you all have a good Friday and a wonderful weekend.

Blessing, Linda

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!

Praying that each of you has a happy and wonderfully "thankful" Thanksgiving with your families and loved ones. All our children and grandchildren will be with us to celebrate God's goodness to us as we love and encourage each other. I have been so busy with my school work that I have had little time to blog lately. But, I am ALMOST DONE!!!!. Then I will begin an internship program for a couple of months before employment. I am thankful that this old cerebelum (brain) of mine has been able to learn some new things!! ha.

Doesn't this turkey look appetizing?? Well, not really, but I can assure you it is delicious!! My DH smoked our turkey last weekend and cut it all off to freeze for Thursday. I did not want to spend my afternoon on Thursday "picking the turkey"!! I have broth saved for the gravy and I think it will be easy to put it all together.

It's beginning to look a lot like.............

Christmas!!!! Yes, I have a little bit of a head start with the diningroom Christmas trees. They are mostly decorated with stars I have collected through the years. I always add a few new ones every year. To finish, I add cobalt blue bulbs to tie in with all the blue and white in the diningroom.

A peak!! I will show you more later!! May all of you have a wonderful time during this special holiday in our country. I'm so thankful that we decided many years ago that a special day dedicated to "the giving of Thanks" was needed!!! We can take nothing for granted. We must concentrate on what we HAVE and not on what we DON'T HAVE!! And.................we have sooooo much, don't we?

Blessings and Love to each of you, Linda

This and That

Hi Friends, Sorry I've been away so long. Several things have been the reason, number 1, my camera has been in the shop being repaired after I dropped it, and it took a while to get back but it seems to be working fine now, which makes me very happy! Then secondly, I have been very busy with my online Medical Transcription course. I am now at the end of all the curriculum and am working on my final exams. I really like the typing and I find the reports very interesting as I have always been very interested in medical things. It is challenging work but so far so good. I haven't had as much time to play around with decorating and art things as I would like, but this I think is a good anwer to wanting to earn some extra money and yet wanting to be at home. I'm excited about it!

Do you like my little black boxes? Aren't they cute? I found them at the GW a few weeks ago. Not sure just what I'll put in them, I guess a little of this and a little of that!! he, he.

Veterans day is coming up and I found this really neat flag case at Michaels this summer. Since we lost my father-in-law last January, I thought this would be a nice gift for my husband to put his Dad's flag and some of his medals, awards, ribbons, etc. And it also has a place for a 4x6 picture! This is such a great display I think, and my husband if very proud of it. It will hang in his office.

This year has gone by so fast, it makes my head spin, and Thanksgiving will be here before we know it!! I always feel a little conflicted about Thanksgiving, as sometimes I feel the need to go ahead and start putting up my Christmas decorations (BECAUSE THERE ARE SO MANY OF THEM) to get a head start on December which always seems to end up with me thinking that if I just had ONE more week, I would be ready. Do you all do that? I'm going to try and get some things done ahead, cooking, wrapping and such. But then I say that every year!

One more thing, I went to the Goodwill last week and Guess What? It was CLOSED because of mercury contamination indefinitely!! Wow!!. Do you suppose it was one of those new CFL bulbs that got broken? I've heard some bad rumors about Haz-Mat teams being called to clean up after those things. I do not like the light they give off AT ALL!! So, guess who is hoarding light bulbs? I buy them everytime I go to Walmart and I've noticed that the cheaper ones are getting harder to find on the shelf. Four bulbs for $.77 is way cheaper than 4 for $7.50 or more, and from what I've heard they don't last quite as long as they are saying. Oh well, just thought I'd mention it. Let me know what you all think.

Hope you all have a very happy and safe Halloween. I have made Chili and Apple Crisp today, as our kids are coming over to celebrate birthdays.

Blessings, Linda

Fall decorations

Hi friends, Today I'm joining the blog party at Rhoda's Southern Hospitalityblog.com to show you what I spent my day doing. It was a fun and relaxing way to spend a beautiful fall day. I had all the windows open. There is a cool breeze and the leaves are falling. Just a generally good day. If you want to see all the other blogs participating in the party just click here.

This is my family room mantel. Things changed here were the greenery with berries in the two vases. (I really need to to something about that ceiling fan!) Play like you don't see the dated globes, okay?

Added some beaded pumpkins here and a brown willow plate. I have had two of them for years, I never see them anywhere else. They must be rare.

A close up of some items on my buffet in the dining room. The fall frame holds a framed greeting card I have had for years. It has such a beautiful verse!!

This is the first thing you see when you step inside the door. I found the window at a garage sale before we built the house. Since our entry is small I wanted to use it to open up the space. The little tree is a Christmas clearance item from Michaels that I decorated for Fall.

The dining table holds two new cage lantern things I just recently found at Hobby Lobby for $10.00. I love the lanterns that are so popular right now, but they are pricey. With these, I just put hurricane vases inside to hold the candle or any other item I want to use inside. At Christmas, they will be pretty with "snow" and Santas or angel figures. I put the vases on top of two blue and white saucers to add some color. Then arranged a "Berry vine" garland around them. They are sitting on my thrifted gold chenille afghan.

Various items arranged on the buffet over one of those sparkly netting garland things used for Christmas trees and such. My three tiered stand just has little pieces of floral materials, leaves, flowers and I tucked in a couple of small pieces of blue willow.

A closer look.

Do you recognize this weed? It grows prolificly along the road sides and empty lots here in Kansas. It's called curley dock.. If you cut it when it's just beginning to turn a light brownish pink color from green, it will stay that way. It ultimately turns dark brown so, you have to get it around the first part of June. It's a great filler to use for arrangements, wreaths, or just by itself like here.

Over the kitchen stove, I may put some apothecary jars up here also with maybe hedge balls or dried Sumac berries.

The front door, I found a great buy on these Mums yesterday and they looked so healthy. I tucked in brances of bittersweet cut from our property and also some of those great looking hedge apples. Do any of you use these in your fall decorating? They are such a pretty color.

Do you see the hedge apples?

Kind of strange looking, Huh? But they do look great with all the other colors of Fall and at least on our property, they are EVERYWHERE!!!

Happy Fall to all of you. May you enjoy every minute of this glorious season as it goes by sooo fast!!! Thanks for visiting me today!! Blessings, Linda

Mom's kitchen renovation ...

Okay, so this picture is obviously NOT a kitchen renovation picture. You must indulge me a little, as it wasn't all work and no play, we did have a day of play time with our kids and grandchildren. Isn't she precious? She just loves this kitty! She's just shy of 9 months old.
Grandpa and the other girls had fun planting a tree in the front yard as a surprise for Mom and Dad when they came home from an all afternoon conference they attended. They were so excited. We had already planned to buy a tree for the kids and the girls insisted that we must have flowers and mulch as well!! My creative tendencies must be passing through! Ha.

Okay, girls what do you think of the new kitchen. Isn't it great? Oh, I'm sorry, these MUST be the BEFORE PICTURES!

The whole kitchen measures about 10x10, so it is pretty tight. I grew up in this kitchen and it holds so many good memories for me. My dad did everything himself, cabinets, countertops, flooring. He had to always look for ways to save money. I love that about him. He was industrious and learned how to do it yourself, before DIY was a buzzword.

My Mom has been widowed now for almost 30 years and has managed to continue living by herself and making do. She has worked hard to raise 4 kids on a modest income, gardening and canning and sewing our clothes. We never felt like we needed anything and had a rich life. She is now 85 and as you can imagine, has accumulated a lot of stuff. We are slowing trying to go through some of the things and weed out a bit.

We replaced the old worn mirror with a cute one I found at Hobby Lobby and it is the perfect size. Beadboard was installed on the backsplash and painted in Frozen Pond Behr's paint and primer in one. She loves her bird figurines so we kept those close and added a few pieces of colored glassware.

The microwave has always been on the countertop, so we made a shelf for it over the stove. I think we got it too high, so next trip, we will move it down a couple of inches. I plan to paint the cord white so it doesn't show so much and anchor it to the side of the wall bracket.

This area will eventually have a banquette built in on both walls, we just ran out of time and the next step will be laying down the new oak laminate floor. Then the banquette will be last. It will be finished out in the beadboard also. But for right now, this will work just fine. We convinced her to take the leaf out of the table as the space is just too small. I think when the benches are built she will be able to get more people around this 48" table than she thinks.

We convinced her to turn the Fridge and we put in a new 36" base cabinet beside it. The cabs my Dad had built on this side were only about 12" inches deep. This side of the room looks very different, but it has really opened up the room. I am making a new window valance for it with the fabric I showed you in the previous post. I realize the accessories look spare, but believe me for now this is a GOOD thing.

Back on the other side of the room, The new countertops and sink have made such a difference and the painted cabinets make the room soooo much brighter!! My brother and sister have helped with all this financially and physically for which we are thankful. It has been a pretty major project to do on a limited budget and small increments of time, but I am praying it has been worthwhile. Sometimes it is really hard to know how to help an aging parent. I have many frustrations in this area, but I try to just keep giving it all to God to work it out and to work through all of us. I'm sure many of you can relate. When we get EVERYTHING done, I will post pictures again. Thank you for so manys sweet comments about this endeavor. I wish you all blessings and a beautiful Sunday. Linda

Fun Stuff for Mom's kitchen

Hello my friends! Today I thought I would show you some of the "Fun Stuff" for my mom's renovated kitchen. I've been combing the thrift stores for little items that would bring a bright touch to her little kitchen and I'm excited to see it all come together. We are leaving tomorrow to go for several days of work. We have a new laminate floor to put down over the old asphalt tiles. Plan to install beadboard paneling about 3/4ths up the wall. We will turn the fridge and add a new cabinet beside it. Paint the walls, (not sure if this part will happen this trip, but I'm hoping that we can. There is wallpaper to remove. Then lastly we hope to built in a banquette for seating. I think we'll be using a different table that will fit the size better. I'm sooooo anxious to show that finished result!! but I have to be patient, so here is some of the fun stuff I have collected to pretty it up.
I found the bread box at the thrift store and painted it a fun limey green. The 2 white cannisters came from the Goodwill and I got them for $3.00. The 4 perfectly matching blue coffee mugs will go great with the new wall color-- a dusty greenish blue. The striped fabric will cover the cushions for the bench seat. I found the yellow goblet and the soap dispenser at the goodwill also. each was .75. The striped placemats are from Pier I and I had to pay full price for them, but they were still a good price at $2.00 each. I found the "There's no place like home" sign at Hob Lobby on half-price and also the 3 little pictures which have all the colors we are using.

Striped fabric perfect colors was from Joanns at 60% off.

This floral will be used to make a window topper of some sort. Not sure yet just what style it will be. The color scheme is cream, the greenish blue color "Frozen Pond" Behr primer and paint in one , Yeah!! and the depression glass light green with touches of yellow. I think it will be so cheerful for her. She has needed this update a very long time. I just hope she likes it! So that's what I've been up to painting cabinets and such and redoing my thrift store finds. Oh also I am working hard at becoming a Medical Transcriptionist. It's been hard, but I think I'm making progress. I am taking an online course and when finished I hope to be able to work from home--my favorite place to be. Hope you all have a good weekend. I'll have more pictures when we get back. Thank you all for your kind comments. They mean so much to me. I enjoy all your blogs so much and hope to have more time to visit you all soon. I think I am figuring out more about blogging little by little. I send you blessings for home and family. Linda

September song

Hi friends, It's been a few days since I've posted. Lots going on and the days just seem to flitter by, don't they? I really find it hard to believe that September is already here!. The leaves are just starting to yellow out a bit and some are falling already, but basically everything still looks beautiful, since we have had such an unusually cool and wet summer. I love the view from our front door. Never get tired of just sitting on the porch and admiring all that the Lord has made.

I have come down with a nasty case of Poison Ivy, ugghhhhhhhh!! It seems to be spreading, so I will most likely have to get something from the doctor next week. I've been working on a few projects I hope to show you soon. Last evening we got to get a first look at our new niece or maybe it's great niece, I'm not sure, but I am little Olivia's great aunt and proud to be so. She is so tiny even though she was well over 8 lbs. Isn't she cute?

She couln't stay awake very long....... back to baby dreams. So sweet. Hope you are all having a good weekend. I send you blessings, Linda