Thanksgiving Day, while waiting for my neighbor to complete dinner preparations after she almost cut off the tip of her right index finger the previous day, I succumbed and put out my "public" Christmas decor in the apartment hallway outside my door. My neighbor had come to me bleeding profusely Wednesday afternoon. After she refused to turn off the stove and let me take her to emergency for some stitches, we got her bandaged and taped up and the injured digit encased in two rubber glove fingers so she wouldn't contract salmonella from the turkey, which she'd been trying to release from its wrappings with a serrated knife when the accident happened. She soldiered on that afternoon and evening and throughout the next day, refusing all help, but running a bit late, giving me time to finish up.
So I'm decorated. And I do mean decorated. I cleared out this huge storage closet in the apartment in order to access all the Christmas decor I knew was stored in there. And once I got everything out I decided I was either going to use it all or get rid of it, so this one-bedroom apartment and the area outside my door are loaded.
While I was at it I did my best to sort things and did a little purging. But I like my things, so still have to remove almost everything any time I want something out of The Closet, which I continue to consider a blessing and a curse.
I started out planning to just put decorations around in various places...like the top of the microwave...
...hanging from the kitchen rooster's wings and tail...
...layered on top of my beaten and battered wine signs...
Then I realized I'd accumulated enough decor, just in the two years I'd been living in Colorado in various thrift sorties, that I needed trees. I found two small artificial trees mounted on stands in a box on the "patio" of the Boulder Goodwill for $3.99. Perfect. So let the real decorating begin...
This is my "big" tree. Loving that cinder block wall! The perfect backdrop. Think these globe lights are big enough?
Then I did this little vignette on a bench I'm using as a side table next to the settee I had to bring in off the balcony...
...and I decorated this silk plant arrangement...
This is all last year's decor. I found the animal print poinsettias at Michael's, the long ornaments came from Goodwill and I think the two metal balls came from the Golden Community Garage Sale. The mirror is also a Goodwill find....
The tray below is always on my living room table, but I replaced some silk hydrangeas with the deer that came from Hobby Lobby last year and a little bird I think I bought at a Goodwill in Tacoma, Washington, when I was visiting my brother. I know its beak was missing and I did a darn fine job of repairing it while I was there if I do say so. Giving injured things a new life is one of the best things about thrifting.
The bird is in a small metal footed dish I found at Goodwill in Longmont along with some metal tassels I cut off a thrift store pillow, some small stone orbs that came from a rock shop in Nederland, some lace-trimmed handkerchiefs stuffed into a votive holder and two mercury glass votives containing battery powered candles.
The ornaments are some clear ornaments into which I poured acrylic craft paint either last winter or the winter before up at the cabin.
The little scenic coaster is a gift from my friend Olive with whom I walk each morning. I'm told it is a watercolor of a castle in her native Northern Ireland which she helped her mother clean when she was a girl and in which her Girl Guides group once met.
A lot of memories and good feelings captured on this tray.
Below is a wreath I decorated and that I first had hanging from the bedroom door, but I wasn't seeing it much there, so decided to hang it over the big mirror...
I had to clip out a few old decorations that had been hot glued into this wreath, another thrift store find. I then added some feathers I purchased from Hobby Lobby last year and a branch of white pears I think I found at the Golden Community Garage Sale in the fall of 2011. Here it is in the cabin window last winter...
I wondered at Halloween where this cute little metal gate had gone and was pleased to find it when I was sorting through things. I decided it would go perfectly in this wreath...
...I even gave it its own little bit of holly adornment. This is the sort of thing about which most men, if they were shopping with you, would say, "What do you want that for?" Of course, you have no idea when you spy it in the thrift shop, but it calls to you and you know you have to have it and will find the perfect spot for it or, over the years, many perfect spots for it.
I was at Salvation Army in Boulder right before I started decorating and spotted a beat-up shopping bag full of greens stuck in among the stacked wreaths. Jackpot! Finally, some holiday greens with character. I thought I had stumbled into Crown Imports in Phoenix. They weren't priced. I got the whole bag for $1!
So there are sprigs of this greenery tucked everywhere...here...
...here...
...here...
...and here...
...you get the idea.
Well, we're starting to wend our way into the bedroom, so I'll save that and the hallway decor for another day. I even have a little tutorial for making a small Christmas tree from two teardrop swags, something I learned when I worked as a floral designer for Jo-Ann's in Scottsdale, Arizona, one holiday season.
Hope you're having as much fun as I am decorating and getting in the holiday spirit.
The weather certainly is not cooperating here in Boulder although it is beautiful. Temperatures almost into the 70s, bright sun, a mild breeze from the west southwest and not a snowflake in sight. The ski areas are suffering and the forest fires are blazing again as if it were July.
This was December 1 last year at the cabin...
Definitely pining. THINK SNOW!
Teddee
No comments:
Post a Comment