Christmas Kitchen and Breakfast Nook 2012

This is the view when walking by the drink station...looking into the Kitchen.



More PINK Santa's that were formally red...

And YES , I painted this plate! The lettering was done in red...red didn't/ wasn't what I was going after in this room....

Every year I look for somewhere different to display my vintage ornaments....this year, it is the kitchen.

What a score on the PINK marsh mellows!!!

I just KNEW this pink sugar would come in handy one day!




Well if I was painting the Santa's pink, I thought, why not glitter them as well?



Here's the nook. The roping of round ornaments was on clearance at Target last year....you know the sale.....90% off, now that's what I'm talking about~except they were all red and gold. So you guessed it, more spray paint!

The white candy canes were from the year before last , as were the pink ornaments, formally known as RED ornaments...nothing a little paint and glitter can't fix!

These I made. Why? Because I went to Michael's four times to buy them, I couldn't make myself....I TRIED! So I bought some molding clay, and did it myself....

99% of everything on this tree was spray painted, and glittered.

I don't know what year this photo was taken, but I LOVE it, it is of my mom and her two sisters, Connie and Martha. They are waiting for Santa to come down the chimney!

NOTE: The empty jars, on either side of the gingerbread men....I bought pastel candy from the Dollar General Store. It was meant as DISPLAY. DISPLAY I tell you again!!! It all looked SO cute. Then one day , I notice, the jars seem to losing candy. Well, it wasn't me, one son, has a home of his own, our daughter lives in another town, and the youngest, is away at college. So, if it wasn't any of us....it's got to be the ole hubby! Caught him red handed! I told him, it was for looks, and he replies with, " well that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard of, if you've got candy out in plain sight, it's for eating!"OMG!!!!! I don 't know what ticks me off more: him eating the display or him  not gaining one fricking pound from all that candy!!!!

 I thought our five year old grandson, Jackson would be the one I had to worry about! Jackson's been trained though by me. Every time the poor child wants a cookie, or piece of candy, etc, I've told him, it's fake. So now if he sees something, he asks me , whether it's real or fake.Good huh? Poor child thinks everything in our kitchen is fake....well at least between Gramps and him, he learned not to eat Marmy's decorations!!!

 

And finally in the kitchen, over the chalk board, is some more candy. I fashioned the over sized "candy" from card board, toilet paper thingies.....

Does your husband eat the "displays", in the kitchen? Come back for the Dining Room pics tomorrow~

Candy Land Christmas -2012

The Game Room is the first room you see, when you enter our home. Most of the house has been transformed over the summer...from reds,greens,and golds to blues, pinks and mint...ish.

I'm not going to explain  a lot. If you've visited my blog before, you know my MO...everything needs to be different every year . Everything I collect, is from Goodwill, garage sales, even the side of the road....I hope you enjoy the tour of our home. Stop back, I'll be adding a different room each day!

This is the drink station, it's between the Game Room, and the Kitchen, right before you go up the steps, to the Media Room. Please note that since I didn't own any PINK Santa's, I spent a LOT of time painting my red Santa's pink. Some could call this a creative move, others would file it under INSANE....kinda leaning that way myself right now.....

This is a close up, of the menu stand. Our daughter, Dana drew this, in 1998. She was 7, and this was our first Christmas together. Pretty good for a seven year old huh?

This year I went for a Candy Land...ish  theme, since I went the pastel theme through out the house. Above is my version of cotton candy....I could  have put real cotton candy in the jars, but it's a pretty tall cupboard, it would have been hard to sneak candy, so I used tulle...did I spell that right?

I just wanted to show a few close ups, it doesn't matter what color you chose, or theme, but be CONSISTENT!!  If you decorate something, and you are  unsure of yourself : WALK AWAY FROM IT~ sometimes, you just need to let it be, and the answer will pop into your mind. Maybe it doesn't need tweaked at all, maybe, it needs something added or taken away. Just trust YOUR insticts, after all, it's YOUR house, and YOUR the one that needs to love it! If I had a dollor for everytime I heard, "Are you sure you want to use THAT color," or "I'm thinking that's not going to look right"...I'd  have enough money to be paying someone to write this blog for me right now!!

These colors for the most part are from the lightest  of pinks to the deepest blues, and all greens in between are carried  through  out the house. What do you think? Let me know!

HALLOWEEN 2012

This is walking into our home. We use this room with the door, as our main door, it's also our mudroom and game room. I really tried to get right angle, because, this whole ceiling has been decked out...

And from the game room, I made a drink station. My husbands Keurig coffee maker is here, and when we have a large crowd, or party, the ice and all the pop and bottled water goes here. It's so nice to have it separated from the kitchen! And by the way the Keurig came from Good Will....$60.00 plus a 35% off card. I just don't want you thinking that I spend $200.00 on a coffee maker! Oh and Steve assured me, it was TOO much and didn't need it, well let me tell you, if we are down to one cup, we HAVE to run out and get more...someone feel in love with it....

Some of these I  bought (always at goodwill, salvation army or garage sale), and some of them I made.

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These two lovelies (above and below), wee garage sale finds at a dollar a piece....



A few of my vintage Halloween decorations.

I want to give credit where credit is due- I saw something similar on www. MOD VNTAGE LIFE .com last year. Mine is nothing like hers, she did a BEAUTIFUL job making her witch! Check out her wedsite for more ideas! She's really fun too, I love reading her blog!

Pictures that are "haunted"are sold at Walmart, Dollar Tree, Dollar Store, they usually are "framed", in a cheap plastic frame. All summer I kept thinking about the frame, and wondering, how I could make the picture, more life like...then it dawned on me, to take them out of the cheap frames, and put them in my antique frames....then they don't stand out, and REALLY  make people take a second look!! It is much more authentic...

 

Happy Birthday

Just a quick note. It's really for me. Yesterday, October 17th, was our oldest son's birthday. It was a much different birthday then most. I usually have his grandparents, his great grandma, his fiancee (and now their children) his brother, sister and their boy/girlfriends over, etc. Make a cake and decorate it, have dinner, you get the idea. He turned twenty three yesterday.  Everything has always been pretty much the same, except for when he was little, it wasn't a girlfriend or fiancee, that came over, it was his best friend, year after year. Even on their eighteenth birthdays ( his best friends birthday was 2 weeks later), they were together for their birthdays. Then he turned nineteen, and had a job that led him to be out of state for his birthday. That was VERY strange for me, I'm sure he didn't care, but I sure did! I felt unconnected to him, and a hole was in my heart, that I couldn't see him on October17th. Then his twentieth birthday came, yeah we had our dinner and cake etc, but this time it was a few days later, because his brother was three hours away at school. But I still saw him on the 17th. Then the 21st birthday rolls around, and we all know how that went, it wasn't at our house for dinner, that's for sure! His 22nd was here before you knew it, and by this time, he had a family of his own. I thought long and hard about it. It wasn't really my place anymore to have his birthday celebrations, after all, he was the head of his own household now! Oh sure we still had his birthday, but not on the 17th. And as his 23rd birthday was approaching, he told us a little secret, that they were having another baby. And maybe it was that announcement, that really tugged on my heart, maybe it was the air getting cooler outside, I don't know what it was, but I decided I was going to have dinner, make the cake and have his birthday on HIS BIRTHDAY this year. Well like most of  life, plans go better in your head then actuality. His almost fourteen month old son, had spent the night ( he's teething), and didn't want to take any kind of nap , unless I was holding him. So the meal that was going to be, was now ordering a pizza. The chocolate cake with frosting, was now going to be a big tub of ice cream. And the card that I was going to pick up when I stopped to get candles for his cake, was now, going to be saying, "that's our present, sorry no card, happy birthday!" His sister had to work, so she couldn't be there. His brother, is three hours away at school, and couldn't be there either. I always tried to make my children's birthday special. I don't think they ever came out the way  I planned in my head, no matter how hard I tried. I started to be upset yesterday when I realized that I wasn't going to get any of that done. I was being really hard on myself. And in the middle of our dinner, OK pizza, I looked around the room, and realized just how lucky I really am. We've raised a man that helps his grandparents, hugs his mom, and tells her that he loves her. Is raising wonderful, exciting children. If he's not working (she works nights as a RN), he's with his children. He loves his fiancee, and supports her in whatever she's is doing. Would do anything for his friends. Is proud of his brother , and cares about what happens to his sister. He's sitting in a room with his ninety three year old great-grandmother, along with his two grandparents, the love of his life,and  his two children, with love in his heart for the third one. We are all lucky. Some don't have their children with them anymore. Some at  23  have lost their parents by that age. Some will never get to celebrate their birthdays with their own  children. And most 23 year olds-  don't still have their grandparents let alone their  great grandmas! Yeah there wasn't any home cooked meal, no fancy home made cake. But we were together, just like we were 23 years earlier. And as I reflected on his past birthdays, they were wonderful, I just couldn't see it, but now I do. There is no such thing as a PERFECT , anything. I decided, that this will probity be the last "big" birthday that I will do for him. After all he is a  man, with a family of his own. If I don't get to see him on October 17th's anymore, he's not mine to see on that date. And I'm OK with all of that (well not really, rereading this,but we'll see). Because in my heart he'll always be with me on the 17th. Happy Birthday Craig, your mommy will love you forever and always!