Christmas Tree is Up and Decorated

Monday, November 30, 2009

This must be a record in my house for having the tree up before December has started, but up and decorated it is! The angel for the top is missing because the light onit was burned out and the darn thing had to be ordered on ebay. Apparently it's a "specialty" item. Make sit hard to finish the tree, but it's good enough for now.

I want to say Merry Christmas to you all! The season is so quick I wanted to start wishing you Merry Christmas right now before it's over.

I don't understand why no one says Merry Christmas anymore. Who is going to be offended? And if someone is, perhaps they need to relax a little. Maybe take up miniatures!

It almost seems like we aren't allowed to be Christians anymore. It's OK to wish anyone else a joyous holiday for whatever they celebrate, just not Christmas. Don't get me wrong, I support people in whatever holiday the choose to celebrate. And if you want to wish me a happy whatever you celebrate, I surely will not be offended. Just let me enjoy Christmas, OK? :)

So Merry Christmas in this joyous season to you all! :)

Five Golden Rings. . . or Wreaths

Sunday, November 29, 2009

I can't believe it's Sunday night and I have to go back to work tomorrow. Booo! How can four days go so fast?

As I said late last night, I finished four wreaths yesterday and I did one tonight. Then I redid a bit of the other four. I think miniatures is a good hobby for me because I can fiddle with things and never really get done. I tend to do that with a lot of things. Good things these wreaths are going to work with me tomorrow or I'd be fiddling with them even more.

So here the are!

Wreath one. This one has a big red and gold bow, hanging bells, lots of poinsettias, and a couple of really pretty gold poinsettias.

Here is wreath two. This one is for the "purist." It has a plaid bow on top and a red and gold one on the bottom of the wreath. It has some golden pine cones and a huge red poinsettia.



Now for wreath three. This is the candy cane wreath. I was playing with bow making today and I got a little carried away. But people who like lots of ribbon will love this wreath.

I saw on Friday that Michael's had handmade ribbon bows for $12 and $15 a piece! Goodness - I can make a bow in under 5 minutes. Anyone want to buy a hand made bow from Mini Mischief? :)


And here is wreath four. Another one with a more country look, this wreath has plaid ribbon bows, poinsettias, and red birds. This would be so pretty in a cabin in the woods.


And finally, here is wreath five. Two bows of red and gold, lots of little red birds and poinsettias, and bells in the center.

So, which is your favorite?

Christmas Saturday

I spent the morning and early afternoon making wreaths and I got four done. Not bad! I'll show you pictures tomorrow. It's now 1:12am and I should be asleep, but I had a fun evening and I felt like writing about it.

Our best friends live in the mountains about 45 minutes away, and there was a slight rain storm last night that left about an inch of snow on the ground up there. They invited us to dinner at their house and then we headed over to the tiny mountain "downtown" to watch the parade. It was so sweet! Yes, it was a little hokey, but old fashioned and sweet for sure.

There were a lot of people walking in the parade with dogs dressed up for Christmas, and a lot of cars fixed up with lights, and Santa and Mrs Claus arrived on a lighted fire truck. And it came around three times to make it seem a little longer than it really was. Remember the scene from A Christmas Story where they go downtown and watch the parade? That's the idea. I like things like this that are more like times gone by. I even left my phone in the car during our Christmas fun. And of course it's always good to be with friends.

On the miniature front I am the featured blogger on Gaye's blog My Small Obsession. That's pretty neat. Thanks Gaye! Please check out her site. She has some neat things there.

An Evening with The San Fran

Friday, November 27, 2009

Are you sitting down? I actually made time to work on my San Fran tonight. I planned to go up to work on her about 10am, but with kids and everything else it was closer to 5pm before I got near her. But I can honestly say I made some real progress on the house this evening!

I realized I was obsessing over hiding every cord of the lighting. Once I decided it wasn't important to have it totally perfect, I was able to move forward. Letting go of perfectionism is very freeing!

I have most of the wallpapering and flooring done. I have two rooms to add ceiling papers to. I really hate doing ceilings. Just when you think you've got thing settled, the ceiling paper likes to fall off. Very annoying.

I resisted the urge to put all the furniture in and admire it, only because I'm hoping to jump back in tomorrow, although it's almost time for baseboards and crown molding and that's a project I really, really hate. But it looks so good once you get it right.

At any rate, I feel good about my progress today. I have six wreaths to deliver next week so I'll have to get back to it soon. But it was a lot of fun to be back working on the Lady this evening.

Pay It Forward - I'm a Little Behind!

In October I received the most adorable gift from my friend Kathy of The Garfield Manor as part of her Pay It Forward game. I was so excited I was all ready to get my game going. And then I got all into my wreath making. I realized this morning that the end of November is Monday and that is when I promised my gifts to arrive. And I'm not ready!

I hope my players will understand that I'm going to have to put this little game on hold until after Christmas, but for that my gifts will be a little more special then if I had to get them out in two days. If anyone wants to play I have room for a couple more.

Here are the rules:

If you want to play, comment on this post. I will make a small gift and send it to you. This will be a 1/12 scale miniature item.

There are a few limitations:

1. Until it arrives at your doorstep you will not know what it is.
   
2. It will arrive by the end of January.
   
3. I will make something lightweight and not bulky to facilitate packaging and mailing.
   

What's the catch? You must make the same offer on your blog. You do this after you receive my gift and in whatever time frame you want.

I'm really sorry for this delay but I don't think any of you want me to be a crazy woman staying up all night to get gifts out that I'm not proud of. This way I can get something really nice in miniature for you. Sound good? Thanks for understanding!

Welcome New Follower!

I have been lax in welcoming my new follower, Kat of Cardinal House Studio. Welcome, welcome! I'm so glad you are here! Of course I have a soft spot for her site because I love cardinals and my daughter's dollhouse is The Cardinal House.

Speaking of which, I have a funny story. We watched Angels and Demons last night and my daughter asked a question about what was going on. I said that the Cardinals were selecting a new Pope, and she asked me, "The baseball team???" Oh we are much too much a baseball family! But it was very funny.

If you have a moment please check out Kat's blog. She makes beautiful jewelry and has nice Etsy store here : http://www.etsy.com/shop/cardinalhouse And there is a sale going on until Monday! So you'll really be missing something without checking it out. Thanks again for joining us here, Kat. :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thursday, November 26, 2009

I hope your turkey day was wonderful. Mine was quite nice with yummy food and good friends and family.

I did the cooking today, and it turned out well. Well, mostly. I said last week I could cook Thanksgiving Dinner in my sleep. Maybe I jinxed myself!I usually have no trouble putting it all together. I had my whipped sweet potato casserole and green bean casserole all made up yesterday, as well as my cranberry dream salad.

Where I ran into a little trouble was in the turkey itself. I cooked it to 170 degrees like you are supposed to, but when we went to slice it it was still pink. Not wanting to poison anyone today, I put the slices on a pan and put them back in the oven.

Amazingly it all turned out just fine and the turkey did not dry out too much (a little broth poured over slices as they cook works wonders for moistness). But what in the world happened? Did I get mixed up and put the thermometer in the wrong place, or is the thermometer just not measuring right?

All's well that ends well I suppose. As I write this my last load is running in the dishwasher and all the goodies are put away. I'd say Thanksgiving this year is officially over. On Dasher, on Dancer, on Donner and Blitzen, and the rest as we fly towards Christmas!