Christmas Past

Christmas 2009- a few highlights from last year.  I won't decorate my home until after Thanksgiving, but I was going through my pictures from last year and thought I would post a few....   

 My Woodland  Santa Greets you!

This is a 9' narrow tree...I like to load it up with my favorite ornaments...I've collected hand painted ornaments since the 90's by Waterford and some by Christopher Radko...I've had good luck with some glass ornaments at Pier 1 imports...good for light reflection!

I worked with silk florals and a red theme last year on the mantel... see the gold bird on the right...

I have this woodland Santa I adore, and I had found these nice candle holders with pine cones on them that worked well with it...my angel sits on top of a small table top facing the dining table...and the tray is a mix of pine cones and random large ornaments...

This was at the kitchen table..I found this adorable garland that I wound loosely around the chandelier and then I added the candy stripe ribbon for a little flair..that's  a real poinsettia there...I lucked out on it and got it at a big box store (trick is to get them when they first arrive so they haven't been mistreated (like no watering) - and not after a severe cold temperature drop, because they don't like to be shocked with the cold) It lasted well into January before any sign of leaves came off. 

This was a little grouping I made in the kitchen, I put styrofoam down inside the planter, then I glued sticks to the little Byer's Choice Carolers- Kindles and stuck them in their places and added the artificial trees...finished off with some white tinsel...

This is a piece from Pottery Barn, about 4 years back..The ornaments came from their store too...I got the display idea from their store and each year I added on to the collection...the artificial snow pulls it together...

Spring into Summer 2010

 I took a steady amount of pictures this spring and summer of my gardens.  I put this video together from some of those pictures I captured.....turn on your volume and listen to the music too!

 
This is so compressed it's best viewed this way rather than full screen....
This was created by using pictures I took with a digital camera and applied them to a program called iMovie on my iMac computer- the quality is much better than it shows here, blogger compresses it so much it's a little fuzzy looking. 
Music is from a CD called Garden Thyme, song title is Heartline

Answer to the question is...

The answer to the question "what are you going to do with this now" 

 I've had these palm pictures for several years but had them in a ready made frame with a plain matting. They were too plain and I wanted to give them a little more formality, so  I took them in to a local framer and had them re-framed and re-matted.  This shelf I recently refinished is intended to go with or near these pictures.  I set these on the floor to give example, because I'm not ready to hang them yet.  We are in a transition in the living room and have a few pictures to re-hang.  
I don't normally try to be matchy matchy, but the palm pictures picked up on my sofa so well, I felt they had to be a part of the scene!

This is a photo from 2006 showing part of the sofa...
as soon as we get the changes in the room made I will post it.
Hope you are having a great Monday!

Part Deux or 2- Le métier or The Craft

Shelf Project- 

  I've worked at this a bit and I think I am finally done with this shelf re-finishing project!

I ended up buying a kit which had three colors in it for creating a tuscan finish on it.  

 





This is after a sea sponge application with two colors at the same time.
You just squirt a blob of each color next to each other and with the damp sea sponge you simply dab onto both colors at the same time and apply to the surface-just keep moving around the piece...I did have to use a brushto get into a few spots....

This is after I applied the gold color with a fan brush, which I used for highlighting......I think this looks a little more Tuscan now, hopefully better than the way I found it...