Bon Weekend - Happy New Years Eve!

Time to close the first decade of the new century. I mentioned in a post a couple weeks back that it has been both a heartwarming and heartbreaking year, but I believe we're firmly planted in the right direction. I'm looking forward to the future!


{ Reblogged via Tumblr. }

I'm just about to soak the black-eyed peas for Hoppin' John tomorrow, and I hope you have a wonderful, fun and safe new years celebration!

My brain...

...in the backstretch of the year.


{ Ballroom, Lee Plaza Hotel, from 'The Ruins of Detroit' series by Yves Marchand & Romain Meffre. Click on the image to view larger version. }

Happy Monday!

I hope everyone had a safe and happy (and celebatory) weekend. We were gifted the beauty of snow throughout the day yesterday. The ground was far too wet for any accumulation but the big fluffy flakes came down for hours and I sat at the window staring into the wonderment. I love how snow acts as natures acoustic silencer.


{ Snow covered Blireiana plum trees photo credit: Georgianna Lane }

Frozen Cranberry Wreath

I was scrolling through Craft blog posts this morning and this charming wreath. So simple and can be disposed of in the woods when you're ready to take it down. This is so tempting to try but I think we'd have to wait until January/February to do this around here, as December can still be quite warm in the Lowcountry.



Please head over to Nest Full of Eggs for the tutorial!

Holiday Shopping 2010 with...Me!

Lindsey has been featuring holiday shopping guides by various bloggers and today is my list! She laughs that it's a little late getting up, but I'm looking at it as what you can buy with your holiday loot!


{ Click on the image or links above to view my list, and pay no attention to my typo! }

Lindsey, thank you so much for asking me to be a part of your wonderful series!

Happy Belated Birthday to My Beloved!

I treated Michael to a night at the wonderful Inn at Middleton Place just down the road from us. The modern design beautifully counters the 18th-century buildings and landscaping of Middleton Place next door. Last weekend also played host the the Grand Illumination - Christmas 1782 Tour. It was perfect timing as I found the tour information while booking our room!


Loving the brrrrrr chilly December weather in the courtyard in front of our room!

I picked up Michael's cake from Normandy Farms and drove it, along with some of our absinthiana, out to the Inn on Friday. I requested to have the fountain, glasses, absinthe, ice and water set up in the room upon our arrival and the cake to be delivered to the room while we were out on the tour. We woke up Saturday morning to the sound of pouring rain and my heart sank. I had no idea if the events of the evening were rain or shine. I decided to follow the flow of the day/evening without panic. I gleefully learned at check-in that the event was going on as scheduled. We brought our umbrellas and learned that the rooms are supplied with those AND flashlights for walking the grounds at night.

We had a fantastic time during the tour. We actually ended up on the tail end of an earlier group when we got to the house. It wasn't until we finished our supper {the food was delicious} that we learned that we'd missed half the tour! Silly us, we thought that maybe the gardens portion was cut short because of the weather. We all had a good laugh and Michael and I joined a small group heading toward the gardens. We had several good laughs at ourselves for the rest of the evening.

Blessed Yule!

I'm in a very silly mood today. We needed at little bit of this to get our butts out of bed to watch the eclipse this morning. Instead, we fell back asleep.



Silhouette Masterpiece Theatre >>

I'm working on a write-up of Michael's birthday.

Bon Weekend - Dreaming of a White Yule/Christmas

{ Reblogged via Tumblr }

Snow for the holidays in Charleston? It has happened before! If my memory serves me right the last time it occurred was just after Hurricane Hugo, and it snowed close to a foot. It was UNBELIEVABLE. Bohicket Road never looked so beautiful, nor did downtown.

We're fast approaching the close of another year, depending on which calendar you use. :) These next two weeks will most likely be gone before I know it. I've recently applied for a position that I would really, really love to have. That's all I'm going to say at this time as I'm very superstitious about overly promoting that kind of stuff. I may have even said too much by posting here but what the hell, perhaps I need to throw caution to the wind this time. I have completely abandoned making new products for my Etsy store even though many Etsy members have had faith in my work to feature me in Treasuries. To all of you, my most heartfelt thank you. I'm looking to January to reinvest myself in my work and brainstorming to come up with new ideas for products and how I present my work.

Michael's birthday is on Monday. I'm very excited and we're celebrating it tomorrow. We decided to have Monday be a celebration for him and my father. Everything is supposed to be SUPER SEKRIT, minus him knowing we're doing something tomorrow. Hopefully noting else has slipped. I haven't been able to resist a little tease here and there for the past few weeks.

Bon weekend everyone, I'll see you on Monday!

Holidays on Ice

At least when the fountain is filled! I ran across this image on Pinterest and it took my breath away! Suzonne Stirling is a crafty as all get out blogger { That beaded wreath took 80 hours to make. } and is an absintheur? I'm totally smitten.


{ Click on image to see larger version at Urban Comfort }

*Has added Urban Comfort to my Google Reader.*

Deck the halls...

We were completely stumped with how to finish our dining room tablescape. I wanted to go for a whimsical outdoor winter scene, and I started by pulling out my favorite vintage mirror and our little green trees. We picked up more on sale last week along with a bag of the crystal pellets and the white glass balls. I was determined to use the snow we made, but we needed a way to keep it contained. No solution was making itself know to us until we worked on the snow scene in the jar for Duncan. That's when I had the 'Aha!' moment to use the glass cylinder vases from the Food Bank Benefit.

I also made new place mats using leftover fabric from a corset I was commissioned to make for a wedding about 5 years ago, and my remaining white coutil. I figured that if I was going to make them, then why not make them to last?

The silver & white plates were purchased at Target two years ago.
The crystal is vintage Boda, from my mother's wedding registry.
The clear trees on the plates were purchased four years ago.
The mercury glass votive holders were purchased at Home Goods for our wedding.
I think we all know the story of those green acorns! ;)



Remember that snow tutorial? Well here are more of the results!



The blue sleigh one of my favorite ornaments and my parents bought it for their first Christmas after they were married, in 1955. The body is flocked paper and it's missing a few things but I always insist that it and a few of the other battered treasures have their place every year.

Snowflake Garland DIY

We originally bought the snowflake punch to make placemats similar to the ones I made for Halloween, but I discovered that they didn't quite work the same as the cats in the mats. They're not solid shapes, they're shapes within shapes. I could salvage this, I thought. So my next attempt was to glue the snowflakes on red poster board, only...I haven't been able to find poster board in a shade of red or green that doesn't make my eyes bleed. Needless to say, that was scrapped in favor of sewn placemats. I still had a pile of snowflakes begging to be used. I was reading some of my favorite blogs this weekend and saw photos of various dainty looking garlands, and thought to myself that these might look just as good.

Materials needed:
Poster board
Thread & needle
Snowflake Punch (we bought ours at Michaels)

Cut out snowflakes. I averaged around 50 per garland. Tie a snowflake at one end. Thread a large needle with the thread and work it through one hole, and then back through another. Slide the snowflake down a bit and continue. Once you've reached the desired length, tie off another snowflake that the end. I finished off the knot with fabric glue. It's not necessary, just force of habit. Hang the garland and space the snowflakes.



I'm very pleased with them!

Happy Monday!

We finished our holiday decorating this past weekend and I took some photos. I'll share those in another post shortly, along with a simple garland DIY. I just wanted to get something up today and say, "Hi.".

Stump Stools

How awesome are these? These Stump Stools by the Cumulus Project are made from a fallen maple tree which was taken from the forest floor in Storm Bay, BC. The cover is white leather over natural{?} foam, and attached to the wood with copper tacks. Each stool sits on small, nearly invisible feet which gives them the appearance of levitating over the ground. These stools are best suited for indoor use or a covered outdoor area.




These three have sold and I hope they make more! I could see these as a fun DIY project as well.

Bon Weekend.

{ Photo reblogged via Tumblr }

I've been a big fan of Groupon since they arrived in Atlanta. Tyler signed up for it and has gotten some great deals. The service arrived in Charleston several months ago and I have yet to take advantage of offerings...until today. I miss many, many things about Atlanta, and going to the High on our family membership is high on that list. Yeah, I went there. I've been thinking of getting a family membership to the Gibbes but honestly have not been able to justify the expense until the offer today for half the regular price. Museum visits once again!

I also hope that in the next year we can take advantage of a class or two at the museum school. I took a pottery class in '93 and loved it.

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Snow Dog

This past year has been marked by events both wondrous and unbearably heartbreaking. My father passed on the 20^th of this month, and I'll share a more fitting tribute to him then. The second great heartbreak of the year was in June when our beloved dog Duncan passed just after we moved into this house. He died of congestive heart failure and a massively enlarged heart. The irony is that he had been the heart and soul of my family for 10 years. He was there when I had to be in Atlanta during the hard months after my brother died eight and a half years ago. He was there for my mother a year later, when she got home from her countless journeys to the hospital to be with my sister-in-law before she died. He has been there for my niece and nephew, offering unconditional love to them. He was there when my dad's real decline started not long after my brother's death, sending him in and out of hospitals and rehab centers for years. Again, my mother spent countless days going back and forth to be with him, and when she got home Duncan was always at the door to greet her with a smile on his face and a wildly wagging tail. A gently placed muzzle on her shoulder kept her comforted so many times. When dad was misdiagnosed with Alzheimer's he was there to support them and he made visits to the rehab centers and helped others.

My mother has a beautiful, large glass jar in which she has created beautiful displays. We wanted to create something for the holidays, so we removed the current contents and then filled it with buffalo snow, a small tree, our green acorns, a tiny pinecone and a Dalmatian figurine we always use for the season. I sprinkled our snow over the setting and now Duncan is set to play in his winter wonderland.



I still miss you big guy. It's not the same around here without you. ♥

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Michael and I decided to forego the holiday shopping traffic during the weekend and hit up Michaels yesterday in search of supplies to finish decorating. One of the things we needed was fake snow, preferably the loose stuff. They sold out over the weekend and were not expecting any more for the season, so we used our coupons for what we could find and went down the road to A.C. Moore. Sure enough, they too were sold out. Heavens forbid, we thought, the Charleston area may be experiencing a snow shortage! We found the last bag of Buffalo Snow and put it in our basket. It wasn't what we originally wanted but decided to adapt to our very limited options. We picked up a few more things that we couldn't find at Michaels and headed to the check-out.

While we were in line Michael decided to run next door to the dollar store and try his luck. He returned in about 30 seconds. We asked our cashier if she knew possibly where to find some. She said she thought everywhere she could think of was sold out. Then she asked, "Would you like to know how to make it?". Yes, please! She told us she had tried to demonstrate the process to another customer just minutes before but he said it was 'too much effort'. We put our things down on the counter and headed back to the floral department where she grabbed two blocks of white styrofoam and starting rubbing them together. And right in front of our eyes it started snowing! We grabbed two blocks of styrofoam and headed back to finish our purchase.

This is the result we got from our efforts. Behind the cut are a few more photos.

Lost & Fawned Giveaway: Print of your choice from Elsita

Lindsey, of Lost & Fawned, is featuring some great Holiday Shopping lists from various bloggers this month. I created a list for her that will post this week. In that list was one of Elsita's papercut prints. Personally, I could have a room filled with her work. Earlier this year I shared one of my favorite pieces and also featured one of her stunning creations in an Etsy Treasury in October.



Lindsey became so smitten with Elsita's work that she purchased a papercut print to go in her and Jared's new home, which they'll close on next month. I got an excited email from her last night that Elsita has offered to sponsor a giveaway at Lost & Fawned! So…please head over to the post before Sunday, December 12th at 9:oo PM EST and tell them which is your favorite 8.5 x 11 print. A winner will be chosen at random and will be announced the following day.

Good luck to everyone and please pass this on!

Bon Weekend

It's beginning to feel like the holidays around here! We finished taking down the Thanksgiving decorations earlier this week, and sadly, I didn't get any decent photos of the beautiful job my mother did. It became incredibly busy and I didn't have time to set up the tripod and what I did snap wasn't so good. Anyways, we unpacked all of the ornaments yesterday and got a good start on the rest of the inside of the house. I can't wait to see how everything develops over the next several days.

The chandelier is far from ready, but I'm happy with the direction. So far.



Hope you all have a great weekend!

New Dedicated Independent Artists Page!

I've added a 'page' to the blog dedicated to local & independent artists, designers and crafters as well as local & independent boutiques. I've also added the Etsy Treasuries that I have curated and will also add Treasuries that I have been featured in soon. I think it's equally important for fellow featured artists to have more exposure.

Support Local & Independent Artists Page

Happy Hanukkah!

Apartment Therapy recently featured their pick of modern menorahs for 2010, featuring an olive branch menorah from one of my favorite artists, Michael Aram. I decided to look at his other menorahs, I found this stunning pomegranate menorah.



May the light and blessings of Hanukkah shine on through eternity.