My shabby chic christmas beginnings

THere is my first white christmas tree. Since I was overwhelmed with college, my mother was kind enough to craft most of my ornaments, if not the majority. The little pink angel on top, I already had.The above pictures are the dresser at the end of my bed, my light fixture in the dining room and my fireplace mantle. On the light fixture is vintage buttons strung on rusty wire. These I plan to keep up after the holidays.

The Past is Precious

Here's a picture of some precious finds that I call shabby chic. I am happy when I can find this much in one trip. I see so many blogs with tons of pictures of what they find in one trip. Where I'm from, in the south, people didn't have a lot and tended to use up and wear out what they did have. Their few belongings were precious. Some families may be returning to that frame of mind in our own times.

Picked up a couple of these white paper wedding bells, but I think I can use them as Christmas decorations too, just as well. That's my cat, "Snowball" in the background. He thinks the bed belongs to him.

A crocheted potholder in a really light green and cream colors. A tin mold, some retro napkins that are for sale in my etsy shop and a piece of pink material with hearts all over it.

This apron is so delicate and completely sheer. I can't imagine this being very useful in the kitchen. It's just too pretty.

This is a bonnet I found. This was my favorite find and I was very excited about it. I can never find these and I've always wanted to collect some.

Constance Joy

Remember I was going to tell you about the bassett hound collection? Well, here she is, the reason behind them. This is Wayne's dog. Her name is Constance Joy, but we call her Connie. She's anything but a Joy to me. This dog can destroy everything in her path if you give her access. Of course, she acts like an angel when Wayne is home.

My adopted Road

I walk the road that runs in front of my house every morning or evening. Part of the road is paved and down past a corner, it becomes a dirt road. Even though a train track runs parallel with it and the highway beside that, it is very peaceful. I love walking out in nature and hearing the birds talking to each other. This is a picture of the dirt road part. You will see in the pictures below, a sampling of the piles of trash thrown on the side of the road. This bothers me everytime I take a walk and I keep thinking I need to clean it up. Dusty and I started the other day by picking up drink cans that we will take to recycle.

Dusty helped crush the cans so we could get more in our bag. It helps to do this before stockpiling anyway. We put them all in a barrel until it's full, then dump them in the trunk of the car to take to the recycling plant.

Dusty keeps thinking he can find something useful. Most of the time, it's all just trash.

This is me holding the bag as usual. Since I did most of the work, shouldn't I get the money from recycling these?

This is just a sampling of the trash along the road. I'm feeling very compelled to get all of this picked up. The road would look and feel so much nicer without all this to look at.

This is one of the bigger piles of trash that I dread picking up. This could be 2-3 bags worth. Oh, but wouldn't it be nice to take a walk without seeing this!

Other than the numerous piles of trash, we also found two piles of scallop shells. What can I do with these?

This and that

I've been without my laptop for a few days, so I haven't posted like I wanted to. I had to have my hard drive replaced, still don't know why. Anyway...I have my laptop back and thought I would show you my son on a local church's meditation trail and a few pics of some shabby chic items in my bedroom. Only look at the items, please! My home is sooooooo far from being even started. It's sort of like the car in the movie "Christine". Putting new windshield wipers on a busted windshield! Oh well, here is Dusty taking a short break on that trail I mentioned.

This is him a bit in front of me. He was fascinated with this trail. He loves the woods. I do too, but the mosquitoes were brutal.

Losing him near the end of the trail. Hey, this is supposed to be a meditation trail, not a race trail!

Here are a few pics of items in my bedroom. It's a work in progress so I'm only showing some items. Remember, this is a battle in my family. I'm pretty in pink, they're grease pit monkeys! Here is my beloved chenille bedspread. This is dear to me. I spent a whopping $3 for this beauty at a thrift store. Nothing around my bed is quite complete, so won't show you any of that just yet. Just showing you some of what I have to work with.

This is a favorite find of mine. I respect the work that goes into needlepoint pictures because I do it myself. This is quite old and yellowed, but still speaks volumes. This hangs in my bedroom.

This is the small collection of Bassett Hounds that has been started for my hubby. More on why this in another post.

This is a vintage mirror I bought from a stash of items that was donated to my mom's church sale they have every year. I had to rescue this little girl, she belonged with me. Notice the gray walls in my bedroom? Yeah, gotta do something about that.

This is the close up of the little girl image at the top of the mirror. Isn't she just so pretty?

This is a gorgeous feather wreath I discovered. The only thing I changed was to wrap a pearl strand around it. Would have loved to have found this in white, or better yet, pink!

And apparently, I collect purses. These are some of many that have caught my eye.

A couple of garlands and a couple of finds

I was feeling a little creative yesterday, so I made a couple of shabby chic garlands for the house. These were inspired from the mound of discarded clothing and bits and pieces cluttering my bedroom. Can't show you a picture of that, but here is what I created and a couple of thrift store finds from a recent shopping trip. I have begun my venture into shabbying and chicing my home. Much to the dismay of my children and hubby! This is what my first garland consisted of. Simply pages from a poetry book, coffee filters, white embroidery floss and vintage buttons. I cut out flowers in about 3 inch diameter sizes from pages and filters with pinking shears. Crinkled the filters a little and sewed two to a page cutout with a button in the center. Punched two holes in top to slide jute rope through.

I hung the paper flower garland on my bedroom window valance.

This is a close-up of the paper flower garland.

This is a close-up of a rag garland I made. I cut up an old skirt into rag strips and tied onto a jute type rope. It's accented with two different sized yo-yo's in pink and white. I hung it below my mantle piece of my fireplace.

This is the full view of my rag garland. It drapes across a hanging cherub in the center.

My first find was this tiny little praying cherub. I believe she is chalkware. I have her on my mantle at this time.

Found this cute, pink cherub napkin ring. She just looked so lonely. And she's in my favorite color. She's up on my mantle with the little white one.

Cakes Galore!

My family has 6 birthday's in July. We usually get together for a family party. This year I decided to make each person a 6 inch personal cake. Yeah, I was on my feet all day, but I truly enjoyed doing it. Decorating cakes is a sort of passion for me. I'd do it professionally if I could afford a commercial kitchen! This is my stepsister's, Pam, cake. Didn't really know her favorite, so played it safe with vanilla.

This is my stepdad's cake. He loves chocolate. The cake is chocolate, the icing is and that's chocolate candy chopped up on top. He can't have this very often.

This is my stepbrother's, Derek, cake. I was told he like chocolate. I added a little bit of color with the icing.

This is Jazen's, my grandson, cake. I asked him what he wanted and he said chocolate, sprinkles and Spongebob. He is 4.

Mom wanted a cheese cake. I made her a New York style with blueberry, since mine below would have blueberries.

This last cake is mine. My mom used to make me a blueberry cream cheese cake for my birthdays. This has always been my favorite.

My venture into trashion!

I have this need to create new things from objects destined for the trash. My son and hubby recently had jeans that had seen better days. I wanted to try to get a second life from them, so I created a few things. Yes, the bracelet and necklace are a little outlandish, but their fun. We all need a little quirky-ish in our lives from time to time to break up the monotony. This bracelet was made by cutting six layers and cutting out the center to fit in your hand. I them glued on a faux pearl strand every other layer to dress it up a bit.

This is a headband I upcycled by covering with denim and I made a bow that I glued on the side with a found embroidered button that matched beautifully. All the more reason to hang onto all the little bits and pieces!

Above is a necklace simply made from circles cut from the legs and sort of quilted by spreading batting into the leg and sewing circles, then cutting out. I used a seam from the leg for the part that goes around the neck. I had some rhinestones laying around, so glued them in the centers.