It's Finally Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas

Hello Friends, how have you been?  Long time no see...I could regale you with all of the reasons for my absence, but I think instead, I will just share this year's mantel.  It is quite a departure from last year's very white and very peaceful "Mary Did You Know?" theme.  I have to say here that I admire all of you who get your decorating done right after Thanksgiving and every year I think that "next year,  I'll be one of the early ones" and every year, I get to it when I get to it, usually, well...about now.  I guess that's just how I roll and maybe instead of stressing over it, I should just embrace that it takes me a little longer to decide I want to get my holiday on.  Yeah, I think that's what I'll do...I'm 50 years old now, I can do stuff like that.  LOL!  

As usual, I digress.  Back to the mantel.  I made this vintage ornament wreath several years ago when they became kind of popular and you could only find them in a few cool shops and they were made with real vintage ornaments and they were super pricey, like close to $100.  I, being the dedicated DIY'er that I am, proclaimed, "I could do that and it wouldn't cost $100 either."  I began scouring eBay for vintage ornament lots and the glass garlands on the cheap.  In usual fashion, I'm sure I went overboard and bought many more than was necessary which is probably how I came to have like 10 strands of vintage glass garlands and boxes and boxes of vintage ornaments.  I'm fairly certain if I were to add up the cost of this baby, it wouldn't be a dime over $95 plus my time, so chalk up another shrewd business deal to my column.  OK, maybe not that bad, but after all of the glue gun burns I incurred on this one, I'm not sure it was really worth it.  Digressing again...anyway, I'd not had it out in a couple of years and I decided I'd really like to use it so, I cleared my mantel that is usually layered with several white mirrors over top of the big antique gold one and suspended the ornament wreath with a fishing line.  I took a couple of big glass jars that I already had and filled them with some of the aforementioned glass garlands and vintage ornaments.  I liked the look of that and wanted to keep it simple in a fancy way, so I just added a couple of mercury glass votives and called it good.  That is, until a day later when my cute 9 year old boy was helping me with the tree and just disappeared, going up to his room.  He reappeared a moment later carrying his treasured nutcracker that he got at an estate sale a couple of years ago.  He put it on the mantel in front of the wreath.  Despite my control freak tendencies, I had to admit, I liked it.  Then my 13 year old disappeared and came down bearing his Christmas snow globe which he added to one side.  I liked it, too.  I told the 9 year old to go bring HIS Christmas snow globe down and we added it to the other side.  Then, we ALL liked it.  Best of all, it was a family effort and that is really special.  What do you think?

On a completely different note, I have to tell you that on Friday, my local Annie Sloan Chalk Paint and Miss Mustard Seed Milk Paint stockist, Shades of Amber, brought in the awesome Marion Parsons, aka Miss Mustard Seed, to do a few little workshops and book signings for her book, "Inspired You".  I had signed up for one of them, mostly because I really wanted to meet THE Miss Mustard Seed.  I know, I'm kind of nerdy like that...anyway, the seminar was very fun, Marian is SUPER nice and down to earth as well as being unbelievably energetic and talented. AND I got a picture with her.  Pretty cool, huh?  I'm hoping that being that close to her maybe rubbed off on me, but time will tell and I guess you guys can be the judge at some point.

Thanks Marian, for sharing your life, your home, your talent, and even some of your sources with all of us.  You're a peach!

I see by the computer clock that it is WAY past my bedtime, so I guess that's it for now.  I'll be back this week with a little more Christmas inspiration as well as some chit chat about Marian's book. 

Until next time,