Merry Almost Christmas!

I'm pulling this out from last year to repost for several reasons.

1, because it is all still true, and 2, because I still can't find time to create a brand new original post, and 3, because I've been absent from blogland for way too long and thought I needed to get back here before you all completely forget me.

I hope you enjoy it.

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Merry almost Christmas!

~~ I LOVE CHRISTMAS ~~

Not the shopping, not the gifts, not the crowds, not the family demands,

but the FEELING that Christmas brings.

A Few of the Things I Love about Christmastime:

~ I love the settling in of heightened emotions ~

~ The increased awareness of others life situations, both good and bad ~

~ The heart tug to do something for someone else without them knowing ~

~ The need to see a miracle or make one happen in someone else's life ~

~ The choir singing Christmas songs at church ~

~ The early morning Christmas service at church where there's nothing but candlelight lighting a path to the end of the aisleway where there stands a large, lonely cross holding a crown of thorns, draped in a robust purple cloth ~

~  The song Oh Holy Night, particularly, sung by David Phelps ~
(be prepared to cry your heart out)

~ I love that people start to recognize and acknowledge the presence of angels, miracles, and Jesus ~

~ Standing in the window at mom's with a mug of hot chocolate, looking out at the woods waiting for deer to appear ~

~ Cardinals sitting on the branches of holly bushes ~

(has a very special meaning to my family)

~ Decorating the Christmas Tree. Pulling out each ornament and remembering when it was added to our collection, and the memory attached to it. A lot of crying happens while I decorate our tree. ~

~ Seeing my mother's tree for the first time each year ~
(It's always full of memories)

~ Talking with my mom or my husband over coffee in the early hours of Christmas morning about our loved ones that have passed away ~ 

~ Sitting on the porch watching and listening to the birds sing ~

~ Gathering with family in the kitchen to make Christmas dinner ~

~ ........and mama's Japanese Fruit Pie! ~

Oh, I just love so many things about Christmas!

So tell me, what do you love about Christmas?

Working in the Yard

One would think I've disappeared I suppose.

Truth is, I've been busy working when what I really want to do is get settled into our new home.

We officially moved in on the 11th of this month, and I still haven't found my silverware, cooking pans, bath towels, etc, etc.

And lest you think I'm kidding, here's the proof.....

I took this today.

Don't worry though, I did what any normal person would do in my situation -

I took a few days off work so I can find all of our necessities.

I plan to make a huge dent in this mess this week.

I've had my feel of tripping over boxes in the dark - and in the daylight too for that matter.

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However, some things just can't wait.

For me, that includes the yard.

We all know, curb appeal is everything to a house, and quite frankly, I've been itching to plant a flower or two so I can stake claim to this here land. :)

I'm not finished yet, but I'm off to a good start (and hired help sure makes it move faster).

After a short meeting of the minds, my yard guy and I decided we'd remove the black (molded) mulch, pull up a lot of the excess bushes (whose roots seemed to be growing together in the ground), and thin out the monkey grass.

Once that project was well on the way, I had to stand and stare at the yard for a while to decide how I wanted to proceed. Decisions had to be made quickly, so red mulch and anything that looked remotely like a wild flower was what I went on the hunt for.

I only had one day to get this done because I was trying to surprise the hubster, so time was criticial.

Thank goodness for my patient yard guy, Kevin. I only changed my mind 14 times before I headed to the local nurseries.

So now, if you'll remember back a few weeks, here's how the yard looked when we took the house.

(Not that bad, but definitely way too green, and too many bushes.)

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Here it is after the black mulch was removed,

the excess bushes, and all the monkey grass.

Ready for all of my new color!

And here's where we are tonight.

A few more things left to do of course, but I'm very pleased with how it's turning out.

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My to-do list still includes:

-Paint the shutters to match the newly painted door- (did you spot that?)

-Pot my annuals and place around the porch-

-Make pillows for the rocking chair and bench-

-Find new solar lights that actually work for the landscape bed-

-Find morning glorys (already growing) to weave into my trellis-

-Get a small birdbath-

-Find all of last year's painted cans to fill and scatter along my bench for color-

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Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you, YES, the hubster was surprised, and impressed.

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I'll be sure to srop back in and let you know how it turns out, and the specific plants I used for my color.

I'm excited to see them start growing and flowering.

For all of you green thumbs out there, how about a few tips on what I can do or use  to jazz up my little area?

Linking Up over at my buddy Gina's (The Shabby Creek Cottage), so I can prove I've actually been working!  :)
She's quite familiar with my yard. She's tripped on my porch and ripped her toe open on my steps. I'd show the pic to prove it, but she's threatened my life, so I guess I'll hold off on that! :)

What's Pink and White and Blessed All Over?

An Awesome Makeover for a 12 Year Old Sweetheart, that's what!

Whew, I'm tired!

That's the first thing I want to say.

And the second is..................

Move over Pottery Barn Teen, DIY bloggers are on the loose, and you've got nothing on us!

Well folks, the makeovers at The Shabby Creek Cottage are finally over, and I'm tickled pink to show you how they turned out.

I don't think there is any one DIY thing we did NOT do in the few days we converged on the cottage down in the boondocks at Gina's.

We painted, thrifted (in the shop), built, designed, decorated, sewed, fluffed, staged, messed up, cleaned up, ate, laughed, and got injured.

All part of the DIY process I suppose.

Now let's hop to it!

What do you get when you turn this:

into this:

and this:

into this:

You get this!

.....and it makes all the hard work worth it.

"It takes a village", or so they say, "to raise a child".

Well let me tell you something, it also takes a village to recreate their rooms in the blink of an eye!

Our village consisted of

From left to right:

Angie of The Country Chic Cottage

Cha Cha of The Heartfelt Home

Lisa of The Pennington Point

Mr. SCC

Hannah

Gina of The Shabby Creek Cottage

Leslie of goodbye house, HELLO Home

and the back of Jeremy, the Mr. ChaCha

and Deneen of Living in Color, who was there the day before I got there.

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There's so much to cover in this one little room that all of us are breaking it down into parts.

I'll be telling you a little about the pillows we created for Doodlebug's room in a minute,but before I do, here's where you can find all of the other project discussions.

Cha Cha had her hands in a bit of everything, but she's going to be telling you all about how to make couture clothing from curtains and lamps.



                                                      Seriously, she'll be telling you about the curtains, AND she's included a tutorial. 
And might I add, Cha Cha is about the cutest thing you ever will meet.
Give that woman a pile of scrap fabrics and you never know what brilliant creation you're going to end up with. She went on a flower making frenzy that impressed us all.
And the curtain tiebacks (that you haven't seen yet) were SUPER!

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Lisa will be telling you about the abso-tootalutely fantabolous headboard wall.

"That gal has tools and she knows how to use them."
(Sung to the tune of 'She's got Legs')


The brainchild of a group of us us gals, Lisa took the reins and came up with this:

Now I dare you to tell me WHO in all of blogland has a cuter, more fabulous headboard than this.
Go ahead, I dare you.
It is very dramatic in person.
Lisa is a quick thinking, problem solving, picture in your head bringer to life kinda DIYer.

Cha Cha's husband Jeremy did his own fair share of work.
He moved from one thing to the next every single day.
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Angie did a lot of the grunt work, like painting and caulking, and message board making.
She's a hard worker. No doubt about that.
She'll tell you about the message boards and bench in her first post.

Sweeter than sweet should be allowed to be, she's a red headed smiley face beauty with a daughter that is her exact double. Darling family.
Oh yeah, she has lots of thrifting stash too, and she came bearing some great loot that I'm sure will be showing in the form of projects on all our blogs.

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Leslie, who won the contest to come to the cottage, was my partner in crime.
She painted, painted, and painted some more. And then I drug her to the kitchen to help me sew. Little did she know what she was getting into. lol



I don't think she saw daylight again.......but I think she's still talking to me anyway.

She'll tell you about the bookshelves and other stuff over on her blog.


(I'll tell you more about her in a post next week. We spent a lot of time together in the wee hours of the morning getting to know one another. And, I just found out the kitchen in my new house is exactly like hers!)

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Then of course there's Gina and Mr. SCC, who did just about everything else.

The pre-planning, floors, walls, cutting, sanding, building, painting, execution of projects, feeding everybody, etc, etc.

Mr. SCC is about the quickest builder I have ever seen.

I told him he should consider opening a roadside furniture shop where customers could put in their orders, go get lunch, and then come back and pick it up.

He's in the wrong business for sure. He needs to be selling "furniture while you wait".

Where's Gina you ask?
It was hard to get pics of her because she was busy going from one project to another, all day, every day. I'm still searching everybody's uploads to find some pics of her doing her thang.

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And that brings me to me. I did work, pinkie swear.
Just ask Leslie. She may tell you I wouldn't let her up from her sewing chair though, so maybe you shouldn't ask her after all.
They say proof is in the picture.............

.....so, truth is, I think I've might've gotten her a wee bit stressed! :)

Leslie and I decided to do all the sewing, except for the curtains because Cha Cha wanted to tackle that. Glad she did because they turned out awesome.

Leslie and I both understand the delicacies of working with a child when it comes to decor. They want what they want, problem is, they often don't know what that is until they see it.

And, they often want change, but fear it at the same time. It's the fear of the unknown.

Kids are visual, so we knew we had to keep Hannah included in the decisions.

We layed out every pillow and let her decide if she liked it or didn't before we sewed anyting together, and I'm glad we did because she ended p with exactly what she wanted.

And, we discovered, she's pretty cotton-picking good at selecting fabric combinations.

First, I took her shopping for fabrics:

We came up with a few from Gina's craft cabinet, but we also raided my car.

Funny thing is, I keep a lot of fabric in my car for emergencies. Yes I do.

We found some great selections to work with.

Theses fabrics ended up in her pillows, tiebacks, Cha Cha's flower pins, on her bench, and on her wall.

Good thing I'm prepared for emergencies. :)

After a lot of selection, planning, prepping, and sewing, here's what we ended up with.

Since Hannah's bedding was already colorful, and had plenty of aqua in it, we thought pulling a selection of primarily pink fabrics in the pillows was the way to go.

In the beginning, Hannah didn't really want a lot of pink. However, after laying them out one at a time and letting her move the fabrics around, she discovered she liked it afterall.

The large pink check she didn't really care for initially, ended up being a bit hit after the fact.

Lisa jazzed it up with a Doodlebug design that's too cute for words, and she'll tell you about that on her blog.

Making great pillows is all about your fabric selection, not necessarily all about the design.

You can make a fantastic pillow with a few scraps.

And when you're making a collection of pillows, keeping them simple but different ususally makes for a winning combination.

When deciding on Hannah's color and fabric combinations, we knew she would be flipping her comforter over to the gray side for everyday use. The pink definitely had more drama on the gray than the aqua fabrics we had, so pink it was.

She wanted simple pillows without a lot of busy color.

I think we came up some good ones. What do you think?

They're simple, neutral yet colorful, and blend nicely with the comforter and shams, as well as the other colors and elements in the room.

They stand out against the headboard and shams, yet they don't make it appear busier than it should.

She loves them and that's all that mattered to us.



Gina found this pillow at The Artsy Chick Show a few weeks back.

I'm not sure of the vendor, but I'll find out and let you know.

Isn't it darling? It was the icing on the pillow cake.

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All in all, we had a wonderful time getting these rooms completed.

There was a lot of "Let's do this". "how about this", "what if we change it up this way", kinda stuff going on with every one of us gals and guys, but it's all that brainstorming and bouncing of ideas that made it such a success.

Scroll back a up and visit all the other blogs for the complete synopsis of the Hannah's room.

Up next..................Lauren's Room.

It's hard to pick a favorite room because they're both so perfect.

But just to give you an idea of Lauren's room, we wanted her to feel like she was living in her own art studio - and she does!

Wait till you see it!

Linking up at the following:

Get Your Craft On at Today's Creative Blog