More Decorated!

Preface:  I am going to the cabin and decorate a little for Christmas!  Crazy?  You betcha.  I can't wait.  I was planning on driving up for the day this Friday, but the forecast is for, are you ready...snow!  Not much, but the precipitation is going to be accompanied by temperatures dropping from 33F degrees to 19F by nightfall, making for what could be a rather exciting trip back down the canyon...and my snow tires are still in my backseat where they are staying until the old S.S. check arrives next Wednesday and I can go someplace and have my tires switched out.  So I'm staying put for now and will drive up toward the end of next week.  I've set aside some of my most rustic decorations and have one or two really fun surprises planned and will be blogging about all!

Picking up where I left off in my last post about my Christmas decorations here at the apartment, here are some shots of where my burgeoning supply of decor spilled over into the bedroom...

...the bedroom is the only room that has not escaped the ongoing "rage for white."  Some of the photos on the "white blogs" are so deliberately over-exposed you can't even see any detail.  Maybe that's the idea.

I made this arrangement in this pressed tin box last year hoping I might be able to sell it at a consignment shop in Nederland.  The shop specializes in clothing, so the proprietor had little interest or ability to showcase floral arrangements or any of the decor items I took in...everything was relegated to a high shelf in a back room.  Any customers who wandered back there rarely thought to look up at the shelf along the ceiling for product!  And if they did they only saw the underneath side!  At any rate, I retrieved this at the end of the season when it hadn't sold.  The little white birds and dangling amber jewels, purchased at Michael's I think, look right at home on top of the white chest of drawers along with the white cast iron candlesticks, the pierce-work lidded dish that's filled with dried herbs, the sea-shell sconce, and a shawl I've had for years that's there because the paint on the side of the chest of drawers needs retouching!  The two keys sticking up at right are actually hooks I found at Jo-Ann's last year.  They were in the sale section and were tacky chalky pink and blue but have been painted a lovely satin cream and are awaiting a final assignment. 

The tray of objets below was moved from the top of the chest of drawers, where it usually resides, to make room for the floral arrangement.  It is now on top of the steamer trunk with the addition of a couple of bark apples I found at some thrift shop, forgotten now, and some dark brown feathers, barely visible at lower right, purchased at Hobby Lobby...

Another floral arrangement I made last year that didn't sell at the consignment shop...

...is in behind the tray.  I love this basket with its metal feet and handle and beaded inset.  The arrangements are in small red and white pots so can be easily removed.  I probably will keep the basket no matter what I decide to do with the arrangements.  Right now, this looks tres romantique illuminated by the little lamp with the red shade!

With the goal of using every bit of Christmas decor I had stored, I made space on top of the steamer trunk for the smaller of the two trees I'd found out on the patio at the Boulder Goodwill...

I stuck some sprigs of longer-branched greenery into this one, something I wish I had done on the larger one in the living room since it gives these skinny trees a little more texture, and loaded on the remaining ornaments, icicles and a string of pearls.  I found a string of indoor lights after I had this tree dressed, but it has 100 bulbs and I think I'd have to take everything off and start over to use it on this tree.  It might be fun since I could try that decorator-recommended method of covering each branch starting at the trunk and working out.  I'm not sure how motivated I feel, but it is only December 5!

Here's a cute little arrangement, another one that didn't sell last year--good thing I can take rejection!--that I gave to another resident here in the apartment building.  She is a cancer survivor and wears pink all the time, so I was pleased she was happy to accept it...

I was so enamored of these little doll carriages many years ago when they were a hot item in all the craft stores and snapped this up when I found it at Goodwill.  It seemed to be calling out for a little-girl-pink color scheme.  I think I found all the elements at Michael's.

That does the bedroom.  

This is what I ended up putting out in the hallway...

...the lighting out here is horrific and the hallway narrow enough I couldn't get far enough back to get a good shot.  I created a high table by stacking a plant stand on a table.  I wanted it tall so I wouldn't have to cut off the brocade table cloth.  The over cloth is a silk drapery panel...

...I got both at Salvation Army for $1 each.  I guess I must have been thinking that if I had to face Pepto-Bismol-colored walls every time I leave my apartment, I might as well play into the color scheme.  I wonder who picked out this color?  The second floor is even worse.  It has a very gray-toned lavender paint that makes everyone look ill.

This is the wreath on the door...

This was fun since the plastic ginko-leaf wreath, that I snagged at Goodwill on a 50% off Saturday several weeks ago for $2.99 if I recall correctly, was not Christmasy to begin with...


...but got transformed with an infusion of pine sprigs from the two greenery picks I was able to afford at Hobby Lobby...have you checked out their prices?  Whooee!  Many of the things I have lusted for there recently in the way of garlands and wreaths, both fall and Christmas, are way in excess of $100.  I guess the Chinese are getting savvy.  Hopefully the people who are actually crafting the product are getting the lion's share of the money.  I digress.  

All of the ornaments except the butterflies came from the Salvation Army and I paid 25 cents each for those on a 50% off day...

  The butterflies were among my stored Christmas decor and I have no idea where I got them but I'm quite sure they were a thrift store find.

The "tree" on the table...

...is made of two tear-drop swags I got on sale at Michael's several weeks ago when their Christmas stuff was already being marked down 50%...


...I was having trouble finding any little trees at the time...the thrift stores hadn't put out their trees yet...so recalled this trick that I learned while working at Jo-Ann's in Scottsdale, Arizona, one Christmas season.

First you wire the two swags together...

...I highly recommend that you cut the loops first!  I cut mine afterward and ended up with only one "stem" to stick down into the pot...my usual monkey do, then monkey see...At any rate, you need to wire the swags together both top and bottom and hot glue the wire in place...

Here's the urn already prepped with floral foam (I like to build the foam up so it's above the container rim)...

 ...covered with green moss...

Blogger lesson...never take a single shot of anything!  This photo was so out of focus I had to play with the brightness and contrast and just pretend I meant it to look this way...

After I inserted the swags, stem side down into the moss covered foam, I beefed them up with some of the most inexpensive picks I could find at Michael's the same day...these were 99-cent picks so I got them for 45 cents each...

...then slathered on the icicles and some rather Japanesey looking pink and yellow jeweled picks I'd had for two years wondering what I was going to do with them...

I think they look like Geisha hair picks.  I lowered the little watercolor I had purchased earlier in the fall and topped it off with a crown I'd found at Goodwill here in Boulder...

...all part of my more is more decorating philosophy!  

Does this crown look a little too much like these old Standard Oil Crowns?



Photo courtesy of Primarily Petrolian

Also seen here, which are a fond memory from my Midwestern childhood (Can still hear my Dad saying, "Give me a couple of bucks of regular.")!...


Photo courtesy of Shorpy Historical Photos
 
Oh, did I say I was having fun?  All for now.  I have a few more things in the works.  I may still be doing this on Christmas eve.  It wouldn't be the first time!  Teddee

Decorated!

I was so sick of our too hot summer early this fall that I put up my fall decorations I think in September.  Then I was so sick of my fall decorations that I had all of my Christmas decor either up, if it was inside the apartment, or ready to be installed, if it was going in the hallway outside the apartment, the week before Thanksgiving.  

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...

...Pining for this place like crazy!  My dog walking "career" is keeping me tied down!

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...

...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

Missing the First Snow

Last year I missed the first snow at the cabin because I was stuck in Longmont after the Sears Automotive Center there, since closed, ruined my car then threw up their hands and said they had no idea why, after they installed a brand new thermostat, that my car blew up in the canyon on the way back up to the cabin at 9:30 at night, or why, after they installed a new radiator because the previous one ruptured when the car exploded, the car started boiling almost immediately after leaving their premises.  They couldn't run diagnostics and the diagnostic center they recommended couldn't take me until the next day so I had to cripple my way to a motel.  In the night, while this huge snow blew in from the plains, I decided I'd have my car towed back to Peak-to-Peak Motors in Nederland for the necessary repairs to the Sears repairs.  Here's a photo bringing back that entire debacle...

This was about October 26.

Here is a photo I took through the tow truck window while the driver had stopped part way up the canyon to put on chains...

And here's what the cabin looked like when I finally got home...

Well, here it is only October 5 and this is what I saw to my surprise when I opened the drapes this morning here at the apartment in Boulder...

Just the lightest dusting of snow.  My friend Olive didn't feel like walking this morning so I took Kooky the Pomeranian out for a quick walk and could tell from the cars coming down from the mountains on Canyon Boulevard that they'd had a lot more snow up there.  I thought I could almost pick out the vehicles from Eldora because some of them had as much as one to two inches of snow on the roofs and hoods and we always got more than Nederland.

So, I've missed the first snow again this year.  This web cam photo from the Eldora Mountain Resort (ski area) is as close as I'm going to get, I guess...

 

...or this NOAA on-line forecast...

I feel as if I'm missing baby's first steps.

I had planned to post some fall photos so, even though it looks as if winter is upon us, I guess I'll proceed.  Perhaps we'll have some Indian Summer after this cold snap.  That Columbus Day forecast of Sunny with a high of 55F degrees sounds likely.  

 

A chrysanthemum my sister purchased when she was visiting what, three weeks ago?  Loaded with buds that just won't flower...

I've brought this inside and will move it out on the balcony again when the night temps get above freezing to see if it will do anything else.

 

Here are some fall touches I've added to the balcony...

 

I've also been working on some Halloween crafts.  This "wreath with a story"...

I'm not exactly sure what that story is...It's up to the viewer...but I bought this skeleton arm and hand at Michael's last weekend when all their Halloween products were 40% off and I had a 25% off, including sale items, coupon....

I dug into my jewelry box and added the ring, made a sort of Victorian looking cuff out of some wonderful trim I'd bought at a Goodwill when I was still living in Phoenix, painted some cheesecloth black and made a rotting sleeve and wired in the little bell, which I'd bought at a thrift shop sometime over the past two years, reminiscent of those "grave bells" that were sometimes used to give those buried alive the ability to signal their reawakening to those above ground.  

I had one crow and purchased another at Michael's when I bought the skeleton hand.  I had the Victorian door knocker and just included it to the mix for atmosphere.  I added the cottonwood twigs because I'd thought, since I found them in a shopping cart outside the Boulder Savers last year, that they looked like finger bones, and the sueded brown leaves I'd saved from some fall stems last year.  I believe I'd found the white bleeding heart at the Golden Community Garage Sale.  The white pheasant feathers were another Michael's find when their stems were 50% off a couple of weeks ago. 

The nest was something I'd purchased back in 2010 at a shop in Blue Springs, Missouri.  Have forgotten the name.  The nest looked empty, so I decided, knowing crows have a proclivity for collecting treasures, to add this little ceramic heart box that I'd bought last year at the Golden Community Garage Sale.

After I added it, I decided to print off an on-line photo of a Victorian woman and insert it into the "locket."  

Is it the deceased?  Perhaps...

I plan on hanging this on the outside of my apartment door closer to Halloween and hope it won't be too disturbing to my neighbors.

Perhaps the crazy print below will offer some comic relief...

I had purchased, at a Goodwill in Phoenix several years ago, this already rather weird print of an oil painting of these two men in Victorian evening dress...I had been referring to them as The Twins.  Ironically, it was one of the framed prints my sister selected, sight unseen from my storage, since all were wrapped in bubble wrap, to bring out when she visited a few weeks back. In addition to sticking on the googly eyes, I painted the frame black and draped it with "mourning crepe," some black spider-web-pattern fabric, and another piece of the trim identical to that used for the cuff on the skeleton arm.  It will take its place outside on the wall next to the wreath.  Did these creepy men have something to do with the deceased's demise?  You decide! 


More later, Teddee