Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas to all my Family and Friends!

Enjoy the day with the ones you love!!

my art

Here's my first piece I painted at Mud About You. I think it turned out really good considering it was my first piece! The only thing I would change would be the green, it's a little too dark for the color scheme I had going on.

But it looks oh so cute on my hutch holding candy canes for visitors coming by the house!!

spring is here...

believe it or not....I'm working on SPRING arrangements already! To tell you the truth, I'm SO glad to be working on something fresh and new! The colors are so refreshing to see right now, no more GLITTER all over me anymore. I made this on Monday, this big guy is almost $400. Can't you just see it in a huge foyer of some fabulous house?? I just love the colors!

christmas

This summer I found LOTS of vintage Christmas ornaments. I didn't realize how many I had until I was decorating for the holidays! These are in our family room, I filled up my glass canisters and grouped them together on a shelf.

brenda lee

I've been listening to our local radio station who plays Christmas music 24/7. I just LOVE it! So for awhile now I've been hearing about the Brenda Lee concert (she sings "Rockin around the Christmas tree" - one of my favorite Christmas songs!) So a week ago today they were giving out the last tickets on air, so I decided to call in.....and I WON them!! So Mike and I went and had a GREAT time! We were by far the youngest there, but we enjoyed the concert anyways! And a great way to get in the Christmas spirit! Here's a short clip.

cookies everywhere!

I went to a Christmas COOKIE exchange party over the weekend. I made peanut butter blossom cookies to pass. YUM! There was A LOT of different kinds, chocolate snowballs, almond spritz, applesauce raisin, pumpkin raisin, cranberry bread, gold 'ol cut outs, brownies, and baklava and some others. It was at my cousins house, so it was nice to see her, my Great Aunt, and of course my Mom!

ahhh...

I just joined youtube, and with all the snow and how cold it is outside, I thought that this video would be nice to see and wishing I was there again! Mike and I went to Jamaica this past March.

there will probably be a lot of videos on my blog now that I know how to use youtube!! beware!

mud about pottery

For awhile now I've been driving by this new plaza in Penfield on my way home from work, always wondering what the heck is "Mud About You"? My husband was on rocwiki.com, and what do you know..... there was a write up about this little shop. To my surprise it was a place where you can pick out a piece of unfinished pottery and paint it any way you want it.

So I told a couple of my friends about it and decided that we must go! On Wednesday night they had a free wine tasting while painting your pottery! My friend Becky and I went and had a GREAT time! We will be definitely going back to paint some more pieces!

glitter cones

I just got these cute little ornaments and I thought they could use a little "something". So I decided to glitter the whole darn thing!

The bottom one I used a PINK glitter, and the other one I used a clear glitter so you can still the original gold on the ornament. Next I'm going to change the ribbon on them both to a sheer gold. I guess they didn't turn out too bad!

christmas crafting 101

Here's another light up arrangement I made. It's easy to make: take a medium sized vase, have a string of lights, and in this one I used diamond like items that really sparkle when you have lights around them. Wrap ribbon around it on all 4 sides and you get a fast and cute little arrangement that would be great for a side table or a present to give!

staining

I've heard about tea staining tags for some time now. And a couple of years ago I bought a couple of paper tags that were stained with this yummy color and scent to it. So I decided to try it out. In one bowl I used tea, cinnamon, and other spices. In the other bowl I decided to use coffee. I thought maybe that it would give the tags a darker look. Well... I was pretty disappointed with the results. There was no big transformation with the "tea staining".

Does anyone else have a better recipe to stain tags? I would really like to try it again!

disco partyyy

look at this crazy bunch! we all went to the World's Largest Disco in Buffalo on Saturday for the 4th year in a row! it was too much fun dressing up and dancing!
this year they had
Erik Estrada, "Ponch" from the TV show CHIP's as the celebrity guest. they also had the world's largest disco shoe. there is over 7000 people there and it always gets sold out!
can't wait for next year!!

turkey day

mmm....can't wait for turkey and potatoes...my favorite!

happy thanksgiving!

these are the cards i sent out this week to the fam. pic taken at our local farm market on martha cards from michaels.

organizing

I took some time to organize my studio...my rubber stamps, cards, buttons, and some other important essentials. I keep working on it to make it easier to find things and to make things faster!

I got these cute boxes, from where else?? Michaels! They are photo boxes, but they are great for storage! Used cute little Martha labels on the front of the box.

shopping around town

I've been wanting to go to a store in our area for the longest time, and a friend suggested we'd go, so this past Friday we had a great day with manicures, pedicures, yummy lunch and then we went to Preferred Plants on University Ave. Me loving flowers I am surprised that I haven't been there before!! They have the best and most beautiful silk flowers I've ever seen!

They had all of their Christmas merchandise out: great Christmas greens, berries, amaryllis stems. Although the stems and the arrangements were pretty pricey, they sure worth it. So if your in the area you sure should check out this store!

Here's some things I purchased while there:

some stems of greens and berries and a sparkling snowy nest!

deal of the day

It's been awhile since I've posted last...but lets get this week started off right with a Monday post...

These CUTE plates I just bought at the Dollar Tree store on Saturday. I have been wanting a set of Christmas like plates that I could use around the holiday. And then I saw these, and thought that I would try them out for awhile! They also have bowls and mugs! I might have to go back and expand my collection.

startin early

This year for my Christmas shopping I wanted to be a little more organized with lists of what people want and what I already got them. So I decided to use a little journal for it. I used a Mary Engelbreit book from Michaels for a $1 and stamped each page with everyone's names with old fashioned type writter looking stamps.

plates

My plate collection is getting big. This is a part of it! I can't resist them! I am finding them at goodwill stores and garage sales over the summer. And the best thing is that none of them are over $1!! My new hutch is coming in handy storing them in the bottom, ready to use for get togethers!

more Christmas work

Here are some more things I have came up with at work last week. I've been really busy creating Christmas arrangements and making my goals. On Sunday I made 30 wreaths! That was a crazy day, hopefully I can crank out that each day this week!

fall day

Over the weekend I visited the site where Mike and I got married, it was a beautiful fall day and the sky was so blue, so I decided to take a couple of pics of the tree.

happy tuesday!

i heart glitter

I have always loved glitter, and since Martha's craft line came out with MANY colors of glitter, I went a little crazy with them. My collection is getting bigger and bigger, and I am using glitter on just about every craft project I'm working on lately. You would think with coming home from work with pretty much glitter all over my face and clothes I would be sick of this shiny stuff.... ahh noo. I don't think that will be any time soon, hopefully with the amount I have at home!

This rack my Mom found at a sale for 50 cents, it was originally painted black, she thought it would be perfect painted cream, and to hold all my bottles.

pumpkin head

happy halloween

pretty corny

saturday night a couple of us went to a corn maze right by our house. we got a flag and a map and told to have some fun and NOT to throw corn. :) we had to search for 12 mailboxes through out the maze to complete our map. it was a lot of fun, next year we are going to have a contest...maybe guys against the ladies to see who makes it out first!

yum

mmm...apples!! fresh from the farm!!

1st birthday

Today is Coco's 1st birthday! We got her some doggy icecream and a cute little toy. Happy birthday sweetie!

welsh dresser

My Grandpa just finished our anniversary present he made us. I was so excited when he told Mike and I that he was going to make a Welsh dresser, also know as a hutch. He made my Mom and Dad one years ago, and I always loved how it looked!

My cousin's gave me a set of really pretty dishes for a shower present and I didn't have a place to display them. So when my Dad brought it over last Sunday I was so excited to get my dishes out! He did such a great job making it! We love it!

front door decorating

The last part of my fall decorating is inside my front door. I made a fallish looking wreath, added a garland above and a cute little sign to complete it!

Hope you enjoyed my fall decorating, stay tuned for my Christmas decor in the coming months!! :)

kitchen decorating

This is our kitchen table ready for fall. A beaded garland and dangling spiders adorn the lighting fixture. Square vase with river rocks and silk hydrangea. The table cloth is from Big Lots that was only $4. Take a look in the back corner... On the shelf is another bargain pumpkin from the Xmas Tree Shop!

old sewing table

Another part of my fall decorating is my Grandmother's old sewing table (there is an actual working sewing machine inside!)in the front window.I got this tiered stand at a sale and filled it with leaves, berry stems, and fake gourds. Another favorite aroma of fall is this Yankee candle, Autumn Wreath.

living room cont.

Next up is a spot above the sofa in the living room. The shelf is from Pottery Barn, I made the pumpkin arrangement about 3 years ago, still looking fresh! other miscellaneous items including a Snowbaby from my husband's brother in law's mother, which it is in character with ruby shoes and Toto, so cute! A pair of love birds from my parents to us both for our anniversary.

I've been making a lot of these pumpkin arrangements, at work and I just made one for Mike's Grandma for her 91st birthday!

coffee

Next up is my fall coffee table. I finally decided to use this rather large espresso shadow box I got at Pottery Barn when it was marked down from $79 to $14! It's been sitting in my scrapbook room for a year and I never have used it. I filled it with some leaves, pumpkin candles and acrorns (both from PB- they are the best!) and some Indian corn I got last year at our farm market.

I think the my little centerpiece looks pretty good on my table, might have to change it to Christmas in 2 months!

i'm changing around the look of my blog.....it might be changing looks a lot. seeing what looks right. let me know which one you guys like... :)

fall decorating

I thought this week I would bring you different aspects of my fall decorating each day.

Today is my telephone hutch on my main floor of our house. I change it with each season. I have misceleanous fall and halloween items on it. The clock in the middle was a present for our 1st Anniversary from my In-Laws. The pumpkin on the top of the urn I got at the Christmas Tree Store marked down to $2 for having the stem break off, works for me! Other items ion the hutch: lots of Longenberger baskets, some of the Halloween things my Mom gave me, and a REALLY cute sign I got at a store called Lindsay Lane in Pittsford.

next up...coffee table in the living room.

basket of fall

After I went to the farm market the other day, I had some extra gourds and things I wanted to make little gift basket for my Mom. Sorry about the picture on the left, but on the basket there is little pumpkins so I thought this basket would work perfectly for my little project. I put in a warty gourd, a mini white pumpkin, a couple of apples, 2 autumn smelling votives, and bright red reading glasses!

ornaments, tulle and lace

Today I went to a sale to benefit the Ronald McDonald House. Last year they brought in somewhere around $100,000! It was in the former Dick's store, so I was hoping for the place filled with good finds.

I was quite happy with what I found there. Bags of old Christmas ornaments for a $1 each! A bag filled with pink tulle and lace for a $1 and some nice fabric to make some pillows. The one on the left I am going to make fall pillows out of for the living room. That was 4 yards for $7, very vintage look to it. To make it even better everything was an extra 20%! Can't wait to next year to find more great things!

regan

On Friday we saw our favorite comedian Brian Regan. This is our 3rd time seeing him in Rochester and once in NYC at Carolines. Every show gets better and better. The show was at the Auditorium Theatre we had great seats, so it made the show even better!

Brian is having a special on Comedy Central on October 16, so be sure to check him out!

snow balls in october

I've been working on Christmas and holiday wreaths since the beginning of October. I'm hoping that I won't get sick of it anytime soon, I got a LONG way to go before the season even gets here!

I made this one out of styrofoam balls, small dowels, tacky glue, and sprayed it with the fake snow. It's nice that I pretty much have free range when it comes to designing at work, so I get to try things out that I might not make for myself. But I was pretty happy with the results and hearing comments from customers.

I am still getting great reviews from the pumpkin topiary. Just today a customer is making a bigger version with her own urns she bought! I'm glad I'm inspiring people! :)

plates

For awhile now I have been collecting random mismatching antique plates, cups and saucers, anything really that is eye catching. At a recent sale I got these 2 matching style plates, only 25cents each. I think these 2 are my favorite in my little collection! The back it says that they were made in England. I wish I could have found more there, I wonder if the set had other colors, maybe yellow and green...?? Maybe I'll look it up online to see!

cookies

I love when holidays roll around because Pillsbury comes out with their Ready to Bake Shape Cookies. This time I got the ghosts shape instead of their cute pumpkin design for Halloween. They are really one of my favorite kind of cookie; and they are even better right out of the oven! YUM!!

(the plate the cookies are on is one i picked up at a recent sale)

wreath

My Mom shared a project with me that she finished the other day. She wanted a fall looking wreath to hang on her front door. Instead of using silk flowers, she went into her gardens and used all natural items for her creation. I LOVE it!!

She was on a roll with the wreath that she decided to make a swag for her shed door! Even cuter!

Great job Mom!!

paper crafting

I did some paper crafting with my Mom on Friday. I got my blue IKEA bag out and filled it with my scrapbooking materials. We worked on making some tags for Halloween and Christmas (yes I know Christmas already! I have been making Christmas wreaths all week at work!). I also made some paper frames to use for my scrapbooking. We have been coming up with ideas for future projects and endeavors, so stay tuned soon for those!!