Sunday, December 20, 2009

Something to Share

I have just GOT to share this website with you all! Southern Hospitality shared it a week or so back when she was sharing the recipe for the Best Ever Chocolate Sheet Cake. My husband and I made the cake today and it IS YUMMY!

This woman has herds and herds of recipes on her site and they all look sooooooooo good! I tried two of them today and both were AWESOME! We made the cake like I said earlier and also I made the Spice Pumpkin Muffins.

Anyway I wanted to share the site addy with you so you to can enjoy her recipes!

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Saturday, December 19, 2009

Fun Goodies

Went to town today and just had to stop by the thrift store on my way home. Check out what I found! Aren’t these little goodies cute? First, some little circles I am going to use for napkin rings that were only .50. The bag had a candle ring in it as well. I just took the red berries and pinecones off it and placed them here and there on the mantel garlands.

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Next the little blocks that are all together that spells Christmas right now. On one side it says Valentine and one side is greetings. It was 1.00. And the birdhouse which I LOVE was only 2.00. When I saw it I knew I had to have it for this area!

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Isn’t it darling? I heart it!

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Friday, December 18, 2009

Finished

Yep I am finished with all the decorating, FINALLY! ;)

Here are the last of the pix…….. The china cabinet….. We use the little lamp for a night light so I decided to leave it there.

 

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Updates on Outside Decorating

My pansies and a little decorations.

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And next the whole view. I don’t think you can tell but that is a little wreath on the back of the chair with Santa sitting inside the wreath. I thought it was sooo cute!

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Front of the house with all the ribbons and bows and grapevines. Someone had asked me on a forum if I have ever thought about placing shutters on the windows on the porch. Yes we had shutters but the wasps kept building their nests in them and I kept getting stung and I am allergic to them. We live so far off the road anyway, you can’t tell what’s on there and what’s not. lol So I took the things off because I got tired of fighting the wasps!

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Front door with it’s grapevine wreath.

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I put bows on the stars.

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The mailbox…. my sister and I bought these little snowmen one year after Christmas at a grocery store. We bought all they had. I thought they would be sooo cute on the mailbox. They are glass and metal so they will be ok outside. I wired them on so they would stay.

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Close up of the mailbox……

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Now to decorate that china cabinet and be FINISHED! YEA!!!!! :)

MERRY CHRISTMAS YA’LL! ;)

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Christmas Decorating

Well I am winding it up getting closer and closer to being finished with the decorating! I am done with the porch. Done with the mantel and the insert beneath it. Done with the tree, and the table. Done with the little area at my back door with the pansies and the little chair. I put pine limbs and some magnolia leaves and pinecones and some little birdhouses in and around it. I think it was Jackie Blue that gave me those ideas. I’ll take pix of it when I can. About all I lack now is decorating the mailbox and the china cabinet in the dining room.

Then I need to wrap some presents, which isn’t much. So I should be done with that pretty soon as well.  I have got to pick up a few more items and I should be done with the Christmas shopping.

What about you? Are you getting done with all your “to do” list as well? How about your shopping? You got all your decorating done? I sure hope so and then you can relax to and enjoy the season!! Let’s just keep in mind, “THE reason for the season!”

As I do all of my stuff I am thinking, WHAT am I going to cook for Christmas day? I know we will have cornbread dressing and gravy along with some cranberry sauce. Oh and some fried turkey but haven’t made it past that in my plans. ;)

Just SO HAPPY to be nearing the end of my decorating. Now I can breath a sigh of relief and sit back and enjoy it.

I decided to add some gold bows to the tree the other day after we got it decorated. I just felt it needed something else. I was below the tree a little when I took the pic. You can see the star really well when you stand away from the tree.

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One of the little bows.

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It’s raining out there now so later tomorrow maybe I can get outside pix.

Cute Things

While about town today I saw this and thought you all might like to see this. These are real and the whole wall with shelves are covered with them. Wouldn’t this make some little boys Christmas brighter?

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The next little goodie I have is called boo boo rabbits. They are called boo boo rabbits because when the little child gets a boo boo you stick a piece of ice into the rabbits back and they can hold onto the rabbit and their hands wont be freezing trying to hold onto the ice. These are folded up bath clothes. Aren’t they precious?

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My daughter is going to make a friend of hers a grapevine wreath so when her daughter has her baby they will have it for the door at the hospital and for home as well. I saw these and just HAD to get them for the wreath!

Monday, December 14, 2009

Goodies

Found a couple goodies today in my thrift store shopping but only can share one of them because my DH wont be getting on here. lol

Got this basket for 1.50 at the thrift store and my plans for it is for my DH a coffee basket. He loves it when we do this for him for Christmas. He loves different flavors of coffees. We can buy him all sorts of stuff for a really large basket and it’s gone within a week and a half. So this year I bought a herd of stuff. Went to the Dollar Tree and found all kinds of goodies for the basket. Anyway I got him 3 different bags of flavored coffees, one is coconut which he LOVES. Then I got him some cookies, some snacks of all kinds, creamers, some biscotti, and I don’t know what all else I got to go in there. OH I got 3 different kinds of cookies for it. Most of them I bought 2 of each one. lol

I put the books in it so you can see just how BIG it is! These are large books. I got these books also for .50 each.

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Grapevines

I just had to come on here and tell you all something. lol Today while in Hattiesburg, I was driving along behind this little ole lady in an old pick up truck. She was letting people go in front of her and it was annoying my DH. I noticed she had ALL KINDS of stuff in the back of the pick up and I was like, what in the world does she have all in that pick up. I was more worried about what was ALL THAT IN THAT TRUCK? LOL……..

SO I get closer to her at the stop sign on down the road and low and behold it is GRAPEVINES! The WHOLE BED of the truck was filled with grapevines! Now I tell you, surely this woman wasn’t out gathering grapevines TODAY!!! It was raining cats and dogs today as they say. I mean it was flooding! But the bed of that full sized pick up was full of grapevines! I couldn’t help but chuckle because I was thinking, surely she had help getting these down out of the trees huh? ;) Did you read my story about gathering grapevines? DH had to come help me pull em out! ;)

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Christmas Decorating

I am Christmas decorating in segments this year. ;) We finally got the tree up AND decorated today. I think I am going to tuck some gold ribbon here and there into the tree though and then be done with it. All the presents under the tree are ones our DD bought. She has done some shopping this year!

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These next pix are some of the ornaments on the tree. Cindy bought me the little gingerbread men and the little cardinals and also the little cookies at Cracker Barrel. She usually gets me some ornaments there each year. These are the satsuma's I dried. lol Looks like the gingerbread man eat a chunk out of this one! ;)

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Here is the wreath I fixed for the front door. I still need to wrap it IN the ribbon don’t I? I just realized it needed something else when I saw the pic. The wind has blown my bow streamers off to one side. 

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This is a little lamp my sister bought me one year. I just love how it reflects on the wall the images on the globe part. I just love having all these things family and friends have bought me all in my house. Makes one have warm and fuzzy feelings all over! :) Oh and how I do LOVE lamps! ;)

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Saturday, December 12, 2009

Mantel Decorating

Got the mantel decorated this evening. I still want to do something to the insert below it but was tired and just could not think of anything to do with it. I tried several things and didn’t like the way it looked. IF I can find another one of those picture holder do dads to match the others, that would be neat because I would be carrying over the same thing from above. I thought those would really be neat to put our Christmas cards in.

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I also thought about taking all the stuff off the shelves above my windows and sitting Christmas cards along those as well. Just depends on how many we get. The old Christmas stockings I made for us many many moons ago. They are so faded but I love them just the same. I have hours and hours in each one of those things! There is even a teddy bear that is stuffed on one of them. I should have gotten a close up of them for you all. The old felt that I hang them with is falling apart. I guess I will have to get something else for hanging them so they will stay put. I’d hate to come home one day and find one of them melted on the insert. I’d just die right there! My daughter Cindy was like 2-3 years old when I made them and she is 31, and almost 32. She’d kill me if she knew I was putting her older already! ;) 

With the over head lights off.

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Just ignore the things sitting on the hearth. I thought I could get the shot without that in it but I couldn’t. I was playing around with those candles and the pix we got in Christmas cards this year but didn’t like the way it looked. Those picture holder thingies fan out like a peacocks feathers and they look neat I think with the Christmas cards in them. I just hope I can find one more to go on the insert. I think I will like that part then.

I have two hurricane globes on the mantel on each side right at the end of the mirror but you can’t really see those. I needed to have gotten a close up I guess.

Ok I went back and got some close ups of the stockings and the other things on the mantel.

Stockings first…….

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Middle of the mantel.

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Left side…

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Right side….

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Friday, December 11, 2009

Gathering Grapevines

I decided I would take you all along with me gathering my grapevines. Too bad you couldn’t help pull and tug on them. ;) I took some pix of what us country folks call a holler. ;) It’s suppose to be a hollow…. but everyone says holler. Some pretty shots of the holler. ;)

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In this next pic you can see just how long these grapevines are! They have these trees just wrapped up!

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I wanted to show some of you that haven’t seen the grapevine in the wild…… see those things hanging off the vine? This one had it all over it. I put it against the tree so you could see them better. It’s like strings…. I’m not sure but I think the vine clings onto things with these.

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Some on the ground that I have actually cut and gotten down out of the trees. These things had went into like 4-5 trees and were really hooked on.

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I am behind the pond dam taking the pix and getting the grapevines.

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See what a tangled mess? Some of these vines have been here for many many years. I have gathered grapevines here many times. I always have a good selection to choose from. lol

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Wanted to show you this because you will be able to see this one good since it’s against the tree. Not a large vine but still neat how it has hugged this tree. ;)

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And another shot so you can see on up the tree.

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I need to come rake up some of these leaves and put in my flower beds! lol

Anyway I had tugged and pulled until I was about to pass out when I heard my cell phone ringing in my coat pocket that was hanging IN the tree. ;) I had gotten hot and taken it off. So I managed to get to the phone before it stopped ringing and it was my DH. He was wondering WHERE I was. hee hee….. so I tell him I’m in the holler behind the pond dam and I need some help pulling this vine out of this tree! I was gasping for breath while I was trying to talk. He had went to town and came back and I was gone. Anyway he said he would be right there.

Well he and I together still COULD NOT get that vine out of that tree! Actually it was in TWO trees and we pulled and yanked and pulled and yanked until at one point both of us was sitting on the side of the hill! ;) We were rolling in laughter because I just sat down when it let go of the tree just a little. We finally gave up on it and decided to cut it apart so we could get at least SOME of it out. I wanted the bigger vines since I was going to be putting them around the poles on our front porch. We finally wound up pulling 3 bunches out of that one vine after I cut it but never did manage to get the bigger vine out of those two trees. I hated that to since I had cut it and couldn’t get it out of there. But the way that thing grows it will be covered again by next winter.

Anyway we did manage to get enough for the porch poles and a little extra I do believe. ;) DH and I made a wreath out of a little of it this evening while we were trying to get it all separated. We piled it up and pulled it home in two batches, he pulled one and I pulled one. It was suppose to start raining this evening and also rain tomorrow so I was trying to get it fixed as far as I could go with it. Then my plans were, if it’s separated out here in the yard and I need one-two more pieces of it to wrap around the poles I can just run out there and grab it when it’s not raining hard. I did get all 6 poles wrapped with a little of it before I had to stop. I was afraid after the freeze we had AND the snow it wouldn’t be pliable but it was. It really needs to bend really well to be able to do anything with it. Once it dries it will break and not do right.

I bet we both will be so sore tomorrow after all of this but it WAS FUN!

I am going to wrap some more of them around the poles tomorrow I hope and then add the ribbon in them and be done! I have the wreath I bought already to hang as well.

Then MAYBE I can put the lights ON the tree! I don’t think I have EVER been THIS LATE getting my house decorated for Christmas!!!! It seems every time I get started on it DH comes around and says, let’s go some place. So there goes my decorating! DD is going to be home tomorrow so maybe she can help me get it finished.

Hope you enjoyed your trip to the holler with me. ;)

Rose

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Christmas Decorating

Went by the Dollar Tree trying to find some goodies for my husbands coffee basket we always get him for Christmas and found some really cute stars for the front porch windows. They’re not wanting to hang right though because they’re not flat on the back. I THOUGHT they were when I bought them. :( Thinking about taking the Dremel tool to them on the back so they will be flat at the point in the center so they will fit flat against the window. Don’t know if you can tell or not in the pic but they are hanging kind of sideways at an angle. They are 24” wide and very shiny and made from hard cardboard. In case you can’t tell they are gold in color.

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Then yesterday I was in Hobby Lobby and they had their grapevine wreaths 1/2 off so I found this one for the front door for $2.50. I also found some little red bells at the Dollar Tree that I am going to put in the bow and let those hang down in the wreath for the front door. I am going tomorrow and see if I can find some grapevine for the poles on the front porch. I want to put that around them and then some ribbon like someone suggested on the forum. I thought that was a really neat idea. I sure hope I can find some!!! I have TONS of ribbon! Do you think I need to put some ribbon on top of the stars?

Anyway here is my grapevine wreath and also the next pic is of the ribbon I am using on the front porch and on the wreath. The bows are already on each pole out there. I wanted to fix the wreath tonight but this mess is falling out of the wreath and making a mess! So I will wait until I can do that outside! I am just going to put the bow on top and the bells will hang from it and am also going to do another bow at the bottom of the wreath! I saw that done on a house last night and I liked it.

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