The only thing I miss is the mess...

of decorating the whole house!

With the kitchen in shambles, we are kept to one end of the house, to eat, watch tv, lounge, etc. It's like trying to live in a tiny apartment. But the end is in site, the hardwood should be delivered today, the drywall guy is coming today to start, I'm buying the wall paint today and, well it's going to be a busy day. (lucky I woke up at 4am and stayed up).

If I had the whole house to decorate, this is what it would look like, kind of...I love the blue and lime green theme for the tree, so does Spike. Actually, he advises me on most colour choices...

More blue in the livingroom. I made the stockings years ago. Bryan says his looks too girly, (get over it, do you have any idea how long that took me to stitch???).
My mom got me this big cat

(reminds me of BooBoo) for a house warming gift 7 years ago when we moved here. I found the white cat (looks like Stewie) at a clearance sale. And the mouse, well he's just a random mouse.

Now, how many people do you know that collect S'mores? Not real ones, the ornament ones. I even found a bag of loose plastic marshmallows, chocolate and wafers to display like potpourri. And check out the candle wreath, S'mores!...uhuh...

Course, I have Christmas tea stuff. Donnie gave me the gold tea-for-one set for Christmas one year. Such a good shopper!

More Christmas tea stuff.

I hate, absolutely hate this buffet, but for now it's good for displaying, and I really load it up too! The tea set belonged to my Gramma.

Hope you enjoyed the tour, I'm off to the city for root canal!!!

Let the fun begin...

How many Christmas trees do you put up?

So, this year is a little different because i can't decorate the whole house because of the kitchen renovations that are going on, but usually I have a house full of trees. These pics are from last year.

The living room has my snowman tree and Don's tree with guy ornaments on it. Right now the living room is full of tables, chairs, boxes and benches (pic of the mess to follow soon).
A big collection of bottle brush tree. These range from little wee ones to big ones.

My teacup tree in the dining room stays decorated all year.

This tiny feather table top tree is from Martha Stewart.

My main tree is in the front foyer. Last year my friend Cindy used our house as a backdrop for a Christmas photoshoot for these two little angels.

The bee tree is in my studio. Covered in bees and bee houses. It's up all year also.

In the family room is the Coca-Cola tree (pic coming). There is also a tiny tree in my bedroom decorated in purple and white. Lets see that's...8 plus so far...

Yes, I've been MIA for a bit but I'm baaacckk!

Been busy travelling, kitchen planning and other stuff.

No yard sales though, think the season is over here. So, I thought I'd post pics from last years fall decorating. Not doing it this year because of the reno that should start soon I hope. Starting in the dining room, this is the buffet done up.

Decorated top and bottom.

Closeup of some of my silver collection. Heading into the living room, this is the top of the wall unit that I got from my Mom in a furniture trade.

I love decorative cabbage plants.

I have two bookcases flanking the fireplace that I change out every season. This time of the year it holds the pumpkin stuff.

One of my cloches with dried mini corn and other unidentifiable things!

I placed an adhesive picture hanger in the middle of the mirror to hang the picture there. Notice the design at the side of the fireplace, it's done with a stencil and textured 'paste' that I tinted to match the walls.

A small, very small sample of halloween that I have. I love the vintage cat image, so I've started collecting reproductions of that.
This arrangement has expanded over the past year but it looked nice for last fall. Stay tuned for more halloween decor, I love the host parties at this time of the year.

I Hit Another Jackpot!

I have never in my life 'yard saled' this late in the year. Boy, have I been missing alot! This past Saturday was great, mind you the first 3 yardsales were flops! I picked up these two black boxes (brand new) for my new kitchen (whenever that happens).
This pretty little table square matches a set of place mats I already have. And my good dishes have purple violets on them, so this will go nice with them.

Little bottle from Belgium for my bedroom.
This was a great find. Happened across this yardsale down a back road that I was taking to come home. You never know what you'll find down those back roads! The chair came with the cushion too, but the dog is mine!Love this cute little kitty pic.
I actually passed this arrangement up the first time I saw it, then a vision came to me and I could see it sitting on my living room table.
Perfect!This pic looks like a mirror reflection, but it's actually a pair of bird salt & pepper shakers. They're just wee little ones.
I hummed and hawed over this too.
But I ended up with it. It's a double sized bed cover all done in french knots. It looks like it's never been used either.


K, so I went to the village when I was in town this week. I swear, they know when I'm coming... Aren't these cool? Napkin ring frames for a pic or a name or whatever else you can think up!

A very lady-like hanky that says MOTHER.


I love the look of a fruit bowl in the kitchen, but I HATE fruit flies. This is perfect. I got 3 each of red apples, green apples, oranges and pears at the Village that are sooo realistic looking. Those little yellow plums are real though.

I like these little arrangements that look like they have water in them. This will be nice when I decorate for fall, which will be soon I guess.
Playing around with Photoshop...

I couldn't pass by these two measuring cups. You can never have too many of them.
A little iridescent egg for Easter.

I actually saw this tray a few weeks ago when I was at the Village and I passed it by but kept thinking 'I should have got that, darn it'. This week, it was still there, so I took that as a sign! I painted the tray part blue which I think looks much better than the reddish colour it was.

That it for us this week. Can't believe it's September already. Back to school for some people, but pretty much the same old thing around here with Spike and I.

What do I do with all this stuff?

So many people ask me "what are you going to do with that?" and they say it with a sneer on their face and a disgusted voice. This is what I do with it...

I have a second kitchen in our house (used to be a granny flat) and I keep all my vintage kitchen stuff there. I have Don's mother's original stove from the 50's, her old kitchen table and chairs and even the step stool chair from her kitchen from back in the day. I'm sure Donnie spent alot of 'time-out' on that in the corner!
This cabinet was originally a medicine cabinet in the nurse's room at S.C. Johnson in Brantford. Now it holds my placemats, napkins, guest towels and doilies.

I have a great collection of crocheted potholders, some of them are displayed in this kitchen, some I use.
A few enamelware pieces that are a bit too shabby to use for much.

Love this little pot I got a few weeks ago.

Some of these kitchen utensils look medieval!

I think the labels on old spice bottles are so cool. And the colours!

Some of these bottles of spices were originally manufactured in Brantford.

The mustard bottle is new, but the look is vintage.This scale was in the general store in Renton that Don's parents ran when he was small. It has the full set of weights on the back.
When we cleaned out the house next door for Bryan, I found a lot of 'good junk', including a box full of old hand-written recipes written on the backs of envelopes, note paper, what-ever was handy I guess.Think I found these bowls next door too.
Don actually brought this home from a customer one day for moi! What a guy...
I've always wanted a full set of 'days-of-the-week' towels, but the vintage ones are out of my price range, so I embroidered my own. Love the tea theme on these.An old set of cannisters I found.
These fireking mugs were from Bryan's too. So 'Diner-ish"

Mamma, if you bring home much more, my dad's going to have to add on!