Christmas Tree

Merry Christmas! I thought it was time to share my Christmas tree. And other decorations around the house.



The Christmas tree is very important to me. My maternal ancestors were the first to bring the Christmas tree west of the Mississippi, way back in the 1850's.



This year we went with a Mardi Gras theme. The ornaments and bead ropes are all in green, gold and purple. We tucked white and gold poinsettias in among the branches. And Spartacus loves the tree as well.



Of course we love Disneyland, so there are many Mickey ear ornaments throughout the tree. This year I didn't put the chandelier crystals on the tree. I miss them but the tree is plenty decorated!






We love filling stockings around here. Me, Husband, Son and GF, Daughter and BF and Sister.

Christmas Table

It's a lovely day for a tablescape. I'm joining Susan at Between Naps on the Porch for Tablescape Thursday.



The square plates are from Kohl's, Corsica brand. White napkins are from TJ Maxx, 12 for $12.99. Such a great price.



The white tablecoloth is from Damascus, Syria.



We spray painted boxes from Michael's. The chargers are from several years ago at Target.



Stainless is from my mother.



Silver is garage sale find. We've gotten a few of those recently. Candle holder was a gift from my honey. He asked me one day years ago if he needed to bring anything home after work. I told him a gift. This is what he brought! So sweet.



Hope you enjoyed my Christmas table. We are going to end up with two dinners, one for each kid and their bf/gf since they can't both make it home the same day.

Kitchen Dresser Update

I'm joining Susan at Between Naps on the Porch for Met Monday. Check out all the other clever things people have been up to.

Thank you all so much for your suggestions on what to do to jazz up the front of the dresser. I decided to go with the extra drawer pulls. We were also able to get a piece of black marble cut to fit on the top. It really opens up the kitchen and provides an extra space for cooking cookies as they come out of the oven!







Have a great week!
I forgot to link to the original post on this dresser. See it here.

A Dresser for My Kitchen Linens

It's Metamorphosis Monday at Between Naps on the Porch with Susan. Join her to see what other wonderful people have been working on this week.

It's time for another Dresser redo! This would be a third for me. However, I'm not sure I like this one. It is very solid heavy wood and has been stored for several years in someone's storage unit. Inside the drawers are very raw wood. I am in the process of lining them with paper, but I'm not sure that will be a good solution.

The drawer pulls were $.97 each at Home Depot. I bought some plastic beadboard for the back and painted it as well because a little bit of it can be seen from the counter of the kitchen



I used the same Behr paint in Beluga that I used on the dining table here.

What do you think? Should I keep checking garage sales for something with more character? I'd love to have some advice.
Thanks for looking.

Give-Away

Susan at Between Naps on the Porch is having a giveaway on her blog. She is sharing the lovely work of Lisa Leonard Designs. She makes beautiful silver jewelry. It's both classic and modern. I wouldn't mind a few pieces in my stocking on Christmas morning. Check out her work.

Tell others about this great designer and give-away.

Beach Bedroom

I'm joining Susan at Between Naps on the Porch for Metamorphosis Monday. Check out the other great transformations.

This is the trasformation of my Daughter's room. When we came home from living in the Middle East five years ago she was 14 and shose to have her room painted yellow. We carefully painted stripes in three shades on the headboard wall. The rest of the decorations evolved as a teeage girls room will do.



These photos show the room after I had taken all her posters and things down.



She has become enchanted with the beach recently so I decided to go that direction. The paint is Behr's Embellished Blue. It came out a lot doarker than I anticipated but Daughter loves it. We switched out the quilt I made for her in bright colors for a calm white. The curtains are a breezy white as well.



The shell wreaths are the ones we made last summer. The paining was done in oil by Husband's cousin many years ago. It's not quite finished, I want to make tropical print throw pillows and I have a chair to paint white.. That's the large dresser I posted about here.





Thanks for checking out my Veteran's Day project. I can't believe Husband and I were able to paint it without getting on each other's nerves. That was a great day!

Veteran's Day

I wanted to say Thank you to all the United States Veterans living today who have fought to keep our country free and safe from all foreign invaders. Thank you.


I'm thankful as well for my ancestors who fought in the Revolutionary War to make the United States free...


to my Great Great Grandfather who fought to keep it whole...


and my grandfathers who fought in WWII. They all served well and honorably.

And I'm proud my Son carries on the tradition in the US Army.
Thank you to all your relatives who did the same.