Etsy Treasury Feature

Lost & Fawned featured one of my collars in her new Treasury.

{Mink & Silver}
An intimate new years party in a woods at midnight. Bring a fur coat & champagne.

So many pretty items in that listing.

Thank you Lindsey!

Hooray! I have my new Etsy shop up and running.

It's listed under my online alter ego. :) I will be adding more specialty items over the next few weeks. Please have a look and I would love to hear any feedback!

Etsy: Your place to buy & sell all things handmade lepapillonvert.etsy.com

DIY Painted Vases

I stumbled across this on my Stlye Me Pretty and Twig & Thistle feeds today. Miss-matched thrift store finds make for a bold and cheap focal point for your table setting, a wedding or a special event.

Glass and metal items are cleaned and spray painted.

Voilà!

{ Photo Credit : Style Me Pretty }

Tutorial - very, very easy - is on SMP

New meaning for Tea Lights.

I LOVE old tea cups. Part of me giggled with delight when I saw this, and part of me recoiled in horror thinking I could never bear to do it, especially if only one of the set remaining. Luckily, this beauty is new and comes from Anthropologie. I went to the site but couldn't this particular style/color.

Then it occurred to me that these would make for lovely alternatives to bridal/bridesmaids bouquets. The trick would be keeping them lit. After your ceremony, they could be placed around the wedding cake, or some other 'focus' table. You'd have to make the candle portion yourself.

Ho-Ho the Mistletoe!

We haven't gotten much done in terms of holiday decorating this year. I posted our Yule photos from last year, and today, I'd like to share our very fun Rudolph inspired table from 2 years ago. I originally wanted to go with a meadow scene. I needed something to use as a reference for measure when we looked for some deer. Enter my vinyl Yukon Cornelius toy and you could see the light bulb go off in our heads. We needed the whole set and he was part of the collectors series. We knew getting the entire collection would be fairly expensive but started looking on eBay. To our delight, we found an entire set of miniature figurines that turned out to work better than we planned for the larger models. We purchased the trees at Lowe's and the taffeta was in my scrap bin. The ice blocks are leftover plexiglass pieces from one of Michael's Tesla Coils. We set up the table as scenes from the movie.

Hope you enjoy!

What's the matter? Haven't you ever seen a talking snowman before?

If I live to be 100, I'll never forget that big snow storm a couple of years ago. The weather closed in and, well you might not believe it, but the world almost missed Christmas.

Of course the main citizens up here are Santa and the Missus. That's their home over there. First castle on the left. As a matter of fact, it's the only castle on the left.

Now don't any of you worry your heads about Santa, Mrs. Claus will have him plenty fattened up before Christmas eve. It's always the same story.

Could it be that some of you are not acquainted with the story of Rudolph? Well pull up an ice block and lend an ear.

Meanwhile, the elves are bustling with activity. Christmas is over, but they still keep busy with lessons in elf improvement.

How can I eat? That silly elf song is driving me crazy.



His beak blinks like a blinking beacon.

From now on, gang, we won't let Rudolph join in any reindeer games.



We'll have to outwit the fiend with our superior intelligence.

Old Donner felt pretty bad about the way he had treated Rudolph, and he decided the only thing to do was to go out and look for his little buck.

And no sooner did the man of the house leave when Mrs. Donner and Clarice decided to set out on their own. Now they were really taking their chances.

My name is all wrong. No child wants to play with a Charlie-In-The-Box so I had to come here.

"Where's here?" asked Hermey. The Island of Misfit Toys!

A toy is never truly happy until it is loved by a child.

Didn't I ever tell you about Bumbles? Bumbles bounce.



Rudolph with your nose so bright, won't you guide my sleigh tonight?

It would be an honor sir.

Winter Wheat Decor

So much wheat, so much love. I almost cannot contain myself!

A Scandinavian-style wreath of boxwood and dried wheat.

A garland of pine and wheat drapes across the banister, just above a 200-year-old dowry chest from Lapland.

{Source: Country Living}

Beautiful Mantle

{Source: Country Living}

Yule

We're hoping to get our Yule decorations up this weekend. In the meantime, I'd like to share with you our decor from last year. All of the greenery was taken from the yard at our old house. We also used the green acorns that we purchased for the wedding, and everything but the stag was in our possession.

Ok, it's really an antelope but we thought we could use it to represent a stag. :)
Holly & mistletoe.

The goddess was purchased by mother about 38 years ago.

I loved making the cedar garland. The trees on the right were part of our table scape the year before. This was more of the direction I wanted to go in, but I missed that turn in Albuquerque and ended up in an entirely different place. I'll post that soon.

We're big on using Magnolia branches as decor elements. Never a wrong time of year to use them!

We were featured on Apartment Therapy last year.

Tiny World Pincushions

So much love.

{Flickr} {Etsy}

Oh yeah, I'm a day late.

{Photo credit: Evita Smith}

I hope everyone had a joyous Thanksgiving yesterday. I love our new glass acorns and I'm very excited to work them into our Yule display this year.

I am working on a couple of projects. It may take a couple of weeks to bring them to fruition so please stay tuned!

Psssst...the acorns are on sale at Pottery Barn. I would like to pick up a few more next week.

Doubleparlour

I stumbled across the work of Doubleparlour today.

{Etsy} {Flickr}

'Doubleparlour is an art collaboration between Ernie and Cassandra Velasco. Both are artists who like to explore a variety of subject matters with different mediums. Some works are done as a joint effort and others are solo works. Current work includes drawings, prints, paintings and polymer clay sculptures.'

Francine already has home. Lucky them!

Inspiring Calendars

Tiny calendar on a shipping tag.

{Source}

Wild Turkeys

One of the many wonderful things about the property we rent is that we have wild turkeys. On several occasions we have seen them come up to the cars in front of the house. This picture was taken a couple of weeks ago. The cats were out at the time.


Junior, who is our beloved grumpy old cat with no teeth, decided to walk out for a closer look. The turkeys were not impressed.

{Photo credit: Michael Judd}

MIA

Hello everyone.
I've been debating whether to post this or not, but you're going to see a some downtime from me for the next few weeks. My father is seriously ill and we're moving in the direction to manage his care in his final weeks. I would like to divert myself by maintaining an upbeat attitude here, but it may be difficult at times.

Thank you.
~ Evita.

BiPolar Tesla Coil

{Photo credit: Evita Smith}

This is one of my favorite coils that Michael has built. He started on a series last year that is inspired by a vintage aesthetic, something that people would want to keep on display. This one was finished just before we moved. I hope he starts to build these again.

The porthole in front of the spark gap is a beautiful green glass that came from a cache from my mother. She started making stained glass about 20 years ago but with her back/neck/wrist problems it became too difficult for her to manage. Some of her glass supplies came from the Blenko glass factory. My brother drove up to the factory to purchase it for her.

Samhain

I will remember today the gift(s) that I have received from my ancestors and give thanks.

Our table decorations from last year.

A photo of one of my great aunts in Colombia, South America. Early 1900's.