Living Room Nearly Done!

This morning I put the finishing touches on the Christmas tree.  Then I had to clean up!  There was glitter over everything!  I vacuumed (again), and dusted (again), and put away unused ornaments.  I practiced a bit of restraint this year, darlings :)  I did, however, add a few wine and maroon colored ornaments to the tree, to fill in some perceived "bare" spots.  They add just a wee touch of color. 

I took a new photograph of the hand-made (I made it myself!) ornament wreath, too, in the natural daylight:

You can see peeks of color where I used "filler" ornaments when I ran out of the Family Dollar ornaments (60 of them!) to make the wreath.  It looks pretty good in the daylight, I must say, and right now, in the soft glow of the lights from the Christmas tree and candle light, it looks downright decadently delicious!

Then I puttered around doing this and that and - where the hell does the time go?  About 3 p.m. I realized that I had totally FORGOT (how???) that I have to produce a breakfast casserole, bacon and sausages for tomorrow's investment club Christmas get-together and gift exchange!  EEK!  But it was too cold and windy for me to go anywhere today, and I was in the middle of putting together the branch arrangement for the top of the mantle.

That means I'll be up at the crack of dawn tomorrow to get to the Pick 'n' Save for the necessary fixings and get everything ready to go.  As long as I have it all ready, I'll be fine, as the other ladies are each bringing something to share, including a coffee pot and coffee.  Since on regular days I only have one cup of coffee first thing in the morning, I use Taster's Choice instant.  After my last coffee maker broke I didn't replace it.  So, we'll have fresh-brewed coffee for the ladies who drink coffee like I drink wine.  Ahem.  Tonight I'm finishing up cleaning downstairs.  I don't know how it happens -- I think it breeds while I'm at the office -- the dinette table is loaded with papers, magazines, unopened mail and receipts, also Christmas cards.  Oy!  So, that has to be cleaned up, the floor mopped, Christmas decorations hung from the light fixture over the table, Christmas table cloth put on, etc. etc. 

I confess I've been dinking around the past 4 hours, puttering doing this and that. The local PBS stations are in fund-raising mode right now and so there have been excellent shows on all day - like "One Pot Cooking" -- love it!  And then not one, but two films about that man who moved up to remote Alaska in 1968 and lived there for 30 years -- all by himself.  Incredible scenery and incredibly compelling.  And now, a Celtic Woman special is on.  Well, slowly things are getting done, but what I wouldn't give for a concerted burst of energy right now like the White Tornado to get the kitchen and dinette done in 30 minutes instead of 3 hours! 

And, guess what!  Oh, you'll never guess so I'll tell you.  I have hired a cleaning person!  Yes, and I can't believe I did it.  But I was thinking the other day during lunch with an old friend that I've been living in this house 21 years now and I've never cleaned the kitchen cabinets in all that time.

OHMYGODDESS! 

She's the ex-sister-in-law of my friend and she's coming Tuesday and will spend the entire day ticking off a long list of "Things To Be Cleaned" while I'm at the office.  Oh, the joy, the joy!  She actually enjoys cleaning out kitchen cabinets.  Imagine!  And she uses only totally green products (besides a vacuum cleaner, that is) -- baking soda and vinegar are her tools-in-trade! 

Naturally I have to clean the house before she gets here Tuesday morning...  This first round of cleaning will be limited to the downstairs.  There's probably a month's worth of work to be done, wonder how much she'll get done in eight hours...

I have to say that I was very pleased with how to oh-so-easy branch "centerpiece" I added to the mantle turned out.  This afternoon I ran outside and clipped some branches, and had the happy thought to cut a branch from the barberry out front - still with some red berries clinging to it!  Then I added some icicles and it's beautiful.  And so simple!  I love simple when it comes to decorating.  What's best is that it isn't overtly "Christmasy" and I'll be able to leave it in place all season. 

I have only to hang the two stockings I bought (one for me and one for Mr. Don) -- although I tore my junk drawers apart today I could not locate two screw-in cup hooks, so unless I remember to buy some tomorrow morning at the Pick 'n' Save the ladies of the Investment Club won't see those stocking hung by the mantle with care. 

All in all, I am very happy with how things turned out this year with these new adventures in holiday decorating.  Some other images from the living room:

The tree by daylight.  I know, the French ribbon looks a little funky right now but in person, it looks much prettier with the light shining through it, and right now, in the dark, with the tree lit, it's magical.

A view toward the fireplace - before the new branch arrangement was in place.  I am amazed at the difference putting it on the mantle in place of my "red lady" made.

The corner table.  The decorative plate with the cardinal is new ($3.99 at TJMaxx), everything else was already owned or free:  cardinal greeting card (saved from last year because I thought it was so pretty) is inserted into an old frame; my mom sent me a greeting card a few days ago with a pair of cardinals on it - now sitting on the table.  Cranberry votive holder from Avon is OLD, baby!  For the holidays a red light bulb holds down this corner - I've had that light bulb (along with the green and blue bulbs I also use in the room) for at least 10 years!

Tree close-up.

Another tree close-up.

To Quote Billy Joel...

You may be right, I may be crazy...

I am soooo glad tomorrow is Friday!  I have a ton of work to do around here, and I just haven't been getting it done when I get home from the office at night.  Well, last night, I did get one project nearly finished -- I made an ornament wreath of my very own!!!  Here are two photographs of my final results.  To fully appreciate this wreath, please read my partial account of my construction trials and tribulations below:

My ornament wreath.  Lopsided, really really bad bow(s) and beads
that are not actually covering up any of its flaws -- but, what the hell.

I am not a craftsy person.  While I have developed a pretty good eye over the years for color coordination, furniture arrangements, styling, and decorating in general, that 'talent' (if it is a talent) doesn't extend to doing crafts or furniture rehab projects (you known, turn a $10 Goodwill broken down table into a priceless antique kind of thing)!  But lately - I must be going through a second menopause or something, like a roosting chicken? - I've been obsessed first with visiting sewing blogs and now with visiting decorating blogs by regular people.  Regular in the sense that they are not, for the most part, trained interior designers, but are women (haven't come across this type of blog by a dude, yet) who have families and are working with limited budgets.  Some of the things they come up with are ingenious, and I just love reading their stories about and looking at their photographs of how they have turned drab blah rooms into comfortable inviting spaces that anyone would love to be in. 

For the past few weeks I've been visiting blog after blog looking for inexpensive Christmas decorating ideas.  I blogged about the ornament wreath last night.

So - I started constructing it last night after I got home.  Drat - wouldn't you know it.  First, I couldn't get the damn hanger untwisted!  Then, once I attacked the thing with plyers and my fangs (okay, kidding about the fangs) and finally got it untwisted, I couldn't get a satisfactory bend to form a reasonable circle to save my life.  So, my resultant wreath is lopsided.  Argggghhhhh!

And then, I ran out of ornaments!  Yes, I had 60 ornaments; I broke one silver one, and the other 59 went on that not quite round-shape metal clothes hanger!  How could I possibly have run out?  Every set of instructions I read said I would use 40 to 50 ornaments, at the most!  Yeah, right.  What size ornaments were those women using?  Three inchers? 

Since I do not want to buy another box or ornaments (I've spent more than enough over the past week!), this evening when I settled in for another bought of decoratitis,  I closed the gap with some larger size multi-colored ornaments that I normally use to "fill in" the inside of my tree - they're not very pretty ornaments so I put them where they fulfill a vital function of filling in "holes' in the interior of the tree but aren't really "seen."

Fortunately, because of the way the ornament wreath is constructed, these filler ornaments are tucked away at the very top of the wreath and are now mostly hidden by my "bows" - more on that fiasco below.  I used three red, two green, and two gold that blend with the other gold and silver ornaments used to construct the other 98% of the wreath.  When I declared myself satisfied (I was tired of putzing around with the damn thing), I closed the hanger circle with the plyers and brute strength and measured ribbon to hang the wreath on the empty wall of the lower staircase that overlooks the living room. 

I got that done.  I cut the French ribbon long enough!  It is holding the wreath up and the "bow" holding the two pieces of ribbon together around the bottom of the ballister from which the wreath is slung on the wall directly below is holding fast!  Goody! 

But, staring at me was an ugly top of the hanger that has the hanging ribbon through it!  It's not covered up by the ornaments.  I could probably add 50 more ornaments and that sucker wouldn't be covered and in any event that hanger won't hold 50 more ornaments, it would explode for sure and I would probably die from a million cuts from exploding ornaments.  So, time to make a bow.

Now, darlings, I have to tell you.  I have never been any good at bow-making.  My sister, Debbie, she is a wiz at making any kind of bow you'd ever want.  She also has an absolute talent for turning out beautifully wrapped and decorated presents, so pretty you don't even want to open then -- now that's pretty!  But me - nah.  I make bows like I play chess - and that's not very funny, come to think about it...

Well, I tried.  A few days ago I actually watched a You-Tube tutorial on how to make bows with French ribbon.  I'm not kidding.  I actually did that.  Now, granted, I did NOT pile up three different kinds of sheer French ribbon to make my bow, so I didn't have to alternate them back to back and then face up again.  I didn't understand why that was necessary until after I pinched my bow together in the middle, twisted it tight with a twisty tie, and started to "fluff" out the bow.  Half the bow is on the "wrong" side of the ribbon.  For ordinary ribbon it probably wouldn't make much difference, but for this particular bow I used a French ribbon that is not sheer and only had glitter heavily pasted on ONE SIDE. 

Duh.  The result is a right side of the bow that is gorgeously glittery, and the left side of the bow is dull. All the glitter is on the inside curves of that portion of the bow, and can't really be seen!

To add insult to injury, once I got the bow fluffed out as best I could (which isn't very good), I had a hell of a time getting it tied to the hanger with a twist tie, and it ended up crooked.  The story of my life :)  And, unfortunately, while my bow did start out with two equal length "tails", I ended up wrapping one tail sort of behind the bow to cover the rest of the hanger.  While successfully covering the hanger, it added even more to the lopsided effect of the bow, that has a short but gracefully curved "tail" on its right side and NOTHING on the left side.

What to do?  I do not have a second 30 feet of that particular style of French ribbon and I don't particularly want to dish out another $5.99 at TJMaxx for a second spool of the ribbon, even assuming they still have some of it in stock.  They only had a few rolls of that ribbon when I purchased it on Monday. 

I thought about redoing the bow and getting yet more glitter all over me and my living room (everthing in the room and my teeth  are sort of gleaming right now, it's rather eery).  Okay, I won't go on and on any further, darlings - I opened up a different spool of French ribbon that I had bought specifically to tuck into the tree.  I gut about two feet of it, twisted and turned it around and just sort of stuffed it on the left side of the ornament wreath.  It doesn't match.  Not that I'm a stickler for matchy-matchy but the stuff I added is sheer, whereas the original bow is quite opaque.  Sigh.

Regardless, after having two ornaments "pop" off their hangers no matter how gently I was putzing aorund with the wreath, I decided to give it a rest.  It's not perfect, but it's 100% me.  TA DA!  Just to make it even more in your face I twisted a couple ropes of gold plastic beads around it.  Added bling.  All that's missing is some neon lights and the kitchen sink.

That sucker is DEEP!  At least five inches!  It's amazing, absolutely amazing.  And now I understand the instructions in a few of the blogs I read that advised (wisely, it turns out) to hot glue the ornaments to their hangers before beginning construction of the wreath!

Well, live and learn.  Live and learn.  All tolled, I am rather proud of my lopsided, crooked creation :) And from the angle at which I'm viewing it from my desk from below, it certainly is glittery and lush looking with the silly mis-matched "bows" and those after-thought beads in the light from the Christmas tree and the green light (for the Packers) cast by the green bulb in my desk lamp. 

I sure do hope I'm not awakened at 4 a.m. by a loud crashing noise as the ribbon holding the entire contraption up decides to give way...

Does it look any better from this angle?  LOL!  Maybe it needs
fifty more strands of beads...

Getting Ready For Christmas

Me and everybody else, it seems.  Reporting from my usual archaeological sources is down right now, hmmmm, wonder why...

My house is torn apart, busy decorating, cleaning, 10,000 things that have to be done!  No time to get them all done, of course!  And what do I do, I'm taking on more projects.  I was thinking today, out of the blue, about years ago (and I do mean years, darlings) when I was in Girl Scouts and we made toilet paper "carnation" wreaths on hangers! 

Well, I actually found a website that shows how to make those toilet paper carnations (I couldn't remember, it was like 50 years ago!), but nothing about making wreaths out of them.  However, I got another idea for a wreath, and so instead of spending $19.99 to get a pre-lit battery operated artificial greenery wreath from Boston Store (on sale), I am going to try my hand at making an ornament wreath!  I saw them at lots of decorating blogs over the past few days -- I've been spending some time looking at how various clever women are decorating the interiors of their homes this holiday season and it's just overwhelming how many creative, talented and ENERGETIC women are out there! 

A dollar store ornament wreath.  I won't be adding ribbon to this model -
but I have another idea for another type of wreath that I can also
make with materials on hand...

So, tonight I stopped at the Family Dollar and picked up 40 shiny gold and 20 shiny silver ornaments (total cost: $10.00) and am going to try my hand at "crafting."  LOL! 

Meanwhile, I also picked up a great idea for a knock-out (I hope) centerpiece for the mantle -- I just have to have daylight to scooch around the backyard cutting some bare branches; tonight at the Family Dollar I picked up a box of mini-ornaments to hang from the branches, all I've got to do is artfully arrange them in a tall glass vase or hurricane lamp  and stick the ornaments on.

Sooo, mantle is not quite done.  I have a great spot for the ornament wreath - the bare wall by the stairs!  And another idea for a different style of wreath entirely...  But, here's another ornament wreath that was for offered at $81.00.  Hmmmm, $10.00 versus $81.00...

This fun wreath measures 16" in diameter. It is made with about 100 ball ornaments covered in silver glitter. The balls are reproductions of vintage glass ornaments. They are actually plastic, so they are less breakable. The balls measure 3/4" - 1 1/2".  mfg:  Cody Foster & Co.  $90.00 -- on sale $81.00