If Ornaments Could Talk

 

Hello Friends, for our family, unwrapping each ornament and sharing the memory behind it makes decorating our Christmas tree a family tradition that we try to do together each year.

 

 

Homemade ornaments always bring back memories of school days.

 

 

Three Cheers ... for favorite sports teams.

 

 

Ornaments passed down from generations.

Ornaments rescued from a trash can. 

Oh this little angel could share a story, she was destined for the trash can at a place of employment years ago, I scooped her up and brought her home with me.

 

 

Ornaments that are gifted to us from friends and family, they all tell a story.

♥

Carla 

A Little Bit of Christmas Outside

 

I was able to create my Christmas outdoor decorating this season with dried flowers from the garden, a walk in the woods and a little help from my dad.

 

The evergreen branches are from the two Christmas trees that we have in our home this season. We usually need to cut the lower branches to have the tree fit in our stand. I am happy that I can use the branches in my outside decorating. 

The dried hydrangea are from the garden as well as the millet.

The red berries I foraged in my parents woods and I found the bird nest too.

The box is an old potato box that my dad fixed up and gave me. Thank you, Dad!

And the rusty bell is a bell I use year after year.

 

The front door features my ol blue pot that I cannot move. It is full of dirt for me to plant my flowers in for the spring, summer and autumn. October though November, I had a mum in the pot for an autumn display.

Evergreens are laid on the top of the pot. An old basket a friend gave me is filled with rocks so it does not blow away in the winter wind. Then I added evergreens and berries, a bow and a rusty star.

 

Happy Christmas Decorating!

 

 

Decorating for Christmas

 This season we are keeping our decorating easier. I use to go all out, with a village, artificial snow, wall hangings and more. As the seasons of my life have changed, my boys leaving the nest, my decorating as changed as well. Simpler, using more nature in my decorating, twinkle lights and candles.

And that is just what we did this weekend.

On Saturday, I decorated the house and did the outside decorating.

On Sunday, the boys came home for the day and we decorated the tree.

We cut two small pine trees during our visit to my parents farm to place in pots. One in front of the chicken coop, the other on our front deck.

I am busy placing red bows on the tree, while the hens investigate my work.

There is nothing  quite like Christmas.

Using nature, candles and twinkle lights, making our Willow Tree Nativity look just right. 

 

 

On Sunday we unpacked old memories, while making new ones. 

Miss Penelope posed perfectly under the decorated Christmas Tree.

 

Happy December my friends.

 ♥

Carla

Decorating for Autumn Indoors

 

 This Sunday, October 24th we will host our Annual Pumpkin Carving Party. To get all ready, it is time to decorate for Autumn and Halloween.  My mom gifted me my Pumpkin Man many, many years ago. It is one of my very favorite decorations.

 

Pumpkins, ghosts and more.

 

This amber candle holder was a recent  .99 cents thrift find.

 

I collect nutcrackers. I created this display on top of our fireplace.

 

The wind kicked up today and I can feel the change in the air. The October winds are officially blowing Autumn in.

My mom's handiwork.. is Penelope approved.

 

 

The new rug for the guest room, looks to be Penelope approved.

I asked my mom if she could design and create a fun rug for our new guest room using the color grey. She did a fantastic job matching the colors. I like the design.

 

My mom is a seamstress and master at crocheting. The rug is crochet.

 

Penelope's colors match as well. 

 ♥

December Color of the Month ~ Gold

 

Hello Friends,

Each month I have picked out a color of the month. I do a post highlighting photos with that color in it, for December I have decided on Gold.

 

 

Gold glitter on Mr. Snowman.

 

 

 A gold crown on the King.

 

Gold glitter on a special ornament. Sam's First Grade teacher gifted him this ornament.

 

 

Mr. Goldfinch on top of the bird feeder.

 

Gold waving on the Ukrainian flag.

 

 

And we cannot forget to cheer for the green and gold.

 

January - white

February - red

March - green

April - pink

May - red, white and blue

June - yellow

July - purple

August - blue

September - brown

October - orange

November - black .. and I did not forget.. peek back on Thursday for the rest of the story regarding the color black.

December - gold

 

 

 

Tribute to the Troops 2020

 

 

Hello Friends,

Our Wisconsin Governor, Tony Evers and First Lady Kathy Evers have announced that the "Tribute to our Troops" holiday tree ~ a tradition that began with Governor Jim Doyle ~ will continue this year.  A message from our Wisconsin Governor..

"While others across our state celebrate the holidays, Wisconsin's service members continue to serve both at home and abroad." 

"This year, in particular, we owe them a great debt of gratitude as they serve through the pandemic, including our members of the Wisconsin National Guard who have stepped up time and time again in our state response helping local governments, working as poll workers, and assisting in our testing efforts."

2019 Tribute to the Troops 

 We participated in the 2019 Tribute to the Troops. We had the opportunity to tour the Executive Residence in Maple Bluff, Wisconsin. The exciting part of last year was, we had the opportunity to hang our ornaments on the Tribute to the Troops tree. This season there will be no holiday tours due to the virus.

Click on the link above to join us on our 2019 tour and to see the tree dedicated to our troops.

 

 

This season I made up two handmade ornaments. 

I made one with a photo of Sam and Marv together and a fun message on the back..

Two Army Buddies

Korean War and Active Wisconsin National Guard

The other ornament I made using a photo of Sam in his COVID19 testing suit.

I also cut out photos of the special pins he earned while deployed during the global pandemic.

I appreciate this tradition and thank our Governor for continuing it. It is a special way to dedicate a loved service member.

On The Road Friday ~ Curbside Pickup at the Cameron Library

 Hi Friends,

On the Road Friday posts are when I highlight a place that we have visited. Past posts have been adventures to Wisconsin state parks, our road trip to South Dakota and cross country ski adventures. Today we are going to travel just down the street from my house, to our local library. Our local library is open for curbside pickup. We can order books using the online system or calling our library for help in finding books. When our books are available for pick up, we schedule a curbside pick up.

We return our books in the outdoor book drop.

In June our librarian, Dawn asked if I would spruce up the front entrance. The library may not be open as usual, but it was still open in a new way and she wanted it to have it look "open", she swept down the cobwebs and I created three flower pots.

I created the pots using wave petunias, wandering jew and sedum, they thrived and bloomed all summer long.

I thought I had a photo of the potted plants I did for the library, I guess I do not. You can just see one of the pots in the photo below.

At the end of September I shared with Dawn that we would be happy to decorate the library entrance for Autumn. She loved the idea.

In the meantime, our son needed to swap vehicles with us. He had our Ford Escape, that you can lay the seats down, easily lay corn stalks down  and shut the hatch door.

We got his little Nissian Versa, that does not really have a way to transport corn stalks, unless you decide to get creative.

 

Thankfully, we live only a few blocks from the library. We loaded our son's car with the corn stalks, pumpkins and drove down the street to the library. A little girl riding her bike did a double look, but I am sure she added the sighting of a small car traveling with corn stalks, to the list of crazy things of 2020!

 

 

Using corn stalks, pumpkins, broom corn, and ribbon we created a fun curbside entrance for our local library.

 

Thank you for joining me on this, on the road Friday to the front doors of our local library. Is your local library open? Or are they doing curbside pick up too?

Enjoy the weekend!

♥

Carla

 

Succulents and Lego's

My friend Nancy gifted me a clay pot saucer full of succulents.

It is sitting in the center of our small oak table in our entry way.

Walking by the other day, I noticed a Lego man and a black plastic spider. 

Can you guess as to who was playing with the saucer full of succulents?

My husband.. boys will be boys.

 ♥

Carla

 

Decorating for Christmas Outdoors

Take a peek at these pine cones. I picked the pine cones up while on some  of our hikes in Georgia. The pine cones where all closed up and tight when I picked them up on the Georgia forest floor.  When I got home I set them out on a table in the basement. They slowly began to pop open. Yes,Wisconsin has pine cones, but there is something really cool about how big and fat these Georgia pine cones get. They also have a sharp point on the tips. Ouch!

I hot glued the pine cone to a willow branch. I used the pine cones in my outdoor Christmas decorating. 

 

 Pine, birch, pine cones and gold twirls.

 A pop of red.

 And now lets peek at the greenhouse.

 A little tree in the greenhouse with solar lights.

Jackfrost has been visiting the greenhouse.

  

Looking out at the greenhouse in the dark of night.

 

Using Nature to Decorate for Christmas

I love to use nature in my decorating. I will head to the woods to gather balsam branches, birch and pine cones. This season I also gathered wintergreen and princess pine.

 I used balsam branches, wintergreen and princess pine to fill my skates.

Using dried hydrangea from my garden I created two of my galvanized bucket Christmas decorations.

 I first applied some hair spray on the hydrangea. I used an extreme hold hairspray, I quickly dusted the hydrangea with gold glitter.

I then let the hydrangea dry for an hour before taking them outside to decorate.

 Since the following photos have been taken, we have received some snow. The glitter is holding up very well, when the sun, moon or lights from the entry hit the hydrangeas, they twinkle.

A flower girl Christmas!

P.S. Any time I get the glitter out for crafting, my husband looks at me in surprise! "No, not glitter!" he will say. Glitter will be following us around for the next few weeks.