Shiny and brite...A vintage inspired Christmas tree

My great aunt passed away earlier this year at the age of 96. She had lived her entire life next door to my grandmother who passed away just before her 99th birthday last year. It was only fitting that they went so close together.

While going through her estate recently, we pulled out all of her Christmas decorations. Can you believe there were 3 huge boxes of Shiny Brite vintage ornaments and no one wanted them except for me!

They wanted to toss them!

So of course I ran with my stash before they all caught on!

Normally I do a gold and silver tree; but I was so happy this year to be able to have a part of my aunt with me and use her colorful ornaments.

So this year my theme is vintage

( except for the unbreakable plastic Target ornaments on the bottom, I do have a 2 year old after all.).

To go with the look is a vintage book page garland, cut in the shape of doves.

And photo-copied vintage postcards strung on my favorite multipurpose twine.

The suitcase was also my aunt's. I felt it belonged in the room.

All for a very vintage Christmas.

secret agent woman....

I have a few secret house walk pictures for you.

As you can tell, I didn't go to jail...

But security was pretty tight.

Those ladies from the garden club can be a little rough when they want to be.

We did manage to snap a few pics from my friend's Iphone ( sorry they are a bit fuzzy.).

These houses were huge and gorgeous.

I can't imagine the heating bills.

One little girls room was so big that they had a dolly tea party set up.

At this house they took an ordinary faux tree and tied the branches up to make a topiary shape. It was really clever.

This house was the most awesome. It was a historic home done entirely in a beach theme. They had these really cute topiaries made out of seashells. I know a few beach-loving blog friends who would love these.

And we only took this picture because it's in the bathroom! The bathroom.. Do you see the size of the tree in the background? In the middle of the bathroom!

Thanks for coming along until next year when my covert operations resume!

:) Jen

I swear these are real vintage postcards.. Really...

I have a silly side.

I have a sarcastic side that sometimes goes a bit to the dark side....

When I saw these actual vintage Santa postcards it brought both of those out in full force and I felt they needed captions....

If you are easily offended by Santa humor I suggest you look away. :)

The last picture I'd like to see what you can come up with..

I always feel like somebody's watching me....

he's not real .. he's not real...

Due to the economic downturn, Santa's selling more than toys this season...

And I think he's buying it...

Scary Santa...

Apathetic Santa..."You want what? Whatever..."

Santa' crazy half-brother Ed... No one really talks to him any more since "the incident".

The only caption I could think for this one was "Oops! I dropped my balls!"

This one I can't believe they ever printed.

So tell me Santa... What is Mama's delight?

And finally,

I hope this isn't what Santa really thinks I deserve for Christmas...

And here's one for you, do you have a clever caption...?

Jen

Let's walk...

Every year I go on our local holiday housewalk. I am headed there today with a friend and a Starbuck's gingerbread latte!

These are some pics from last years walk I thought I'd share, there were some cute decorating ideas. Pictures are a little "frowned " upon, but occasionally you'd meet a nice lady monitoring a room who'd say "go ahead, real quick!"... some are covertly from my camera phone too...Shhh, don't tell anyone.

Dont' ask about this one.. It's a mannequin! It was supposed to have something to do with an airplane and delivering Santa's present's and really, it was just plain creeeeeeepy.

I'll try to get some "illegal" pics for you from the tour today.

If I call you from jail.. you'll know why, but you are my peeps; I'd do that for you.

Jen

Busy little elves...

Have been helping me to stock my Etsy store...

Anthro-style tea towels...

Or ruffles if you prefer!

8 x 10 prints...

Hand-sewn rustic linens for your holiday table...

And vintage treasures!..

Jen

Make it! The Rosette wreath...

Who doesn't love a cute little wreath for under $10? Plus rosettes are hot this season and easy to make!

You'll need :

A small styrofoam wreath form

3/4 yard of wool felt

needle and thread

scissors

1/3 yard red ticking fabric

and a hot glue gun (HGG) baby...

Cut your fabric strips depending on how big you want your rosettes. My largest rosettes were 2 inch by 18inch strips. My smallest ones were 1 inch by 8 inch strips.

To make a rosette; start by twisting your felt strip and then folding the first twist back on itself. Sew it as you go along, twisting and folding it, following the curve around doing an over hand stitch.It does not have to be pretty. When it's as big as you want it;

snip the excess off and sew the loose end down.

When you have all of your rosettes made, wrap 2 inch strips of felt around your wreath form, gluing or sewing them together as you go. To get teh bumpy texture mine has, give the felt an occasional "twist" on each go around. Sew or glue the last piece down.

Make sure you play with your rosette pattern before you charge up the HGG

to make sure you know where you want to place them.

Hot glue the rosettes onto the wrapped felt piece, add your ripped strip of ticking and viola! You're done for under $10!

Let the Christmas crafting begin!!!!

Jen

Bring it on Santa!

I am going to take a little holiday break from Women who Create. It's such a busy time and I know it's a hard time for people to work on interview questions; but it will make lots of space for holiday crafts and decorating!

We spent the weekend putting up our tree and decorations, have you yet?

So let's get decorating and in the mood!

Jen

P.S. It's easy to make this message platter by using an old scratched silver tray and chalkboard paint.

How can I update you...? Let me count the ways...

I recently had some wonderful clients who wanted to update their daughter's room from a teenager's room to a grown-up room.

The furniture was classic 1980's country with brass handles, carved wood and decal flowers on the front drawers and the room had a bit of sponge painting; the things we did were easy fixes with a big impact.

They wanted to go for a more modern look so we opted to paint the pieces a matching white in the same color tone with the new bedding, and paint over the two-toned wood and flowers.

We striped the drawers to distract from the wavy carvings on the front and changed out the handles to something modern to warm it up.

She had asked me to paint the matching colonial-style headboard as well; but after talking about it, but we decided that tall spindles, and curved back read "young", and by purchasing an inexpensive upholstered head board, it would update the set even more, for the same cost.

We also decided that by opting out of using the attached mirror and buying something new would really update the furniture,

and the wood in the room went from brown to white and the walls a very pretty

griege and chocolate pulled from the bedding.

With the really pretty bed set the homeowner bought, it made for simple fixes on a small budget!

Jen

Before and After Party!

Welcome to the before and after party! Show us your projects and best before and afters!

Just please:

Link to the specific post, not you blog...

Link back to this post in your post. You can use and old post as long as you amend it!

Let's link up!

On the fourth day of Christmas....

I was finally able to take a few hours out of a day or two and do some painting. I chose a 24 inch by 24 inch plywood sheet as my base.

With Christmas coming, I've been inspired by the Twelve days of Christmas in French (even though it's actually an english ditty.). Probably because everything sounds better in French. Like when you call some one mon petit chou chou and it actually means my little cabbage, cabbage.

It sounds great in French, right? But if you called someone that in English, I bet they'd call you something back even better. ;)

After the sketching, then I get to do the fun painting part.

Why I started with Day 4 I'll never know ( 4 calling birds), I guess it called to me...

I still want to paint day 1 (partridge in a pear tree) and maybe one more day besides that... Maybe I'll have to take a blog vote on it...(just any day but five guh-hooooooooolden rings !).

Also, I would love to have prints made of this picture.. does anyone know how or where I go about that?Maybe that was one of the questions I should have asked an artistic guest or two along the way...

Jen