Pepper's home!

Pepper, our Chihuahua/Corgi cross, got to come home from the Vet's today after his terrifying ordeal yesterday. I would post a photo, but I feel I need to spare you the image, so instead here is one from a couple of months ago. He has a drainage shunt in his neck to remove the edema. He is not out of the woods yet, but the Vet felt he could come home. He has a follow up appointment on Monday, but Dr. Morgan told us to bring him in before then, if we felt like he wasn't doing well. He is currently snuggled up in multiple layers of towels on Rick's lap and hasn't been much interested in leaving that spot. When Rick gets up he passes him to either Hannah or myself, both of us are greeted with growling until Rick takes him back.

Rick has gone out and walked the backyard fence multiple times to see if he could find out where he got out. I am going out with him in the morning to see if I can spot it, I would have tonight but we are having a small snow storm with high winds which means it is COLD outside and that means I am not going out there tonight!

Hope your weather is better than ours!

Have a great day!

Donnelly

A New Vintage find!

Rick and I have been out and about the last two days working on our Christmas shopping. We had NONE of it done the day before yesterday and now it is all done.

On Saturday, we stopped at the thrift stores on our way home. When Rick and I thrift, we shop different areas of the stores we are in. I am happily hunting for vintage ornaments, when I hear him call my name. I follow his voice to where he is and he says pick what you would like. I love this man! I picked up the following items:

A Pfaltzgraff gravy boat. Now I have 2 of these. So now at family dinners, both ends of the table will have a gravy boat!

Then I got 2 Pfaltzgraff butter dishes. One is larger than the other one; but unless you are really looking you wouldn't notice it. Once again, I will have one for each end of our table at family gatherings. I was happy with these things, but Rick insisted I pick up this next one!

A Pfaltzgraff coffee pot with four coffee cups. I have tons of different styles of mugs, but none like these. I have 3 teapots in different styles, but this is my first coffee pot. These things are my Christmas present and I couldn't be happier!

I don't know what it is about this Brown Drip pottery, but I love it. I have quite an extensive collection that includes plates, mugs, salad plates, a wine carafe, salt and pepper shakers, sugar bowls and creamers, tea pots, large serving plates, large bowls, small bowls, a water pitcher, 2 milk pitchers and much, much more. I have pieces from Pfaltzgraff, McCoy and Hull as well as a few pieces from Canada and a few that are marked California on the bottom.

On a much sadder note our Chihuahua/Corgi cross, Pepper, got out of our backyard today and tangled with a much larger dog. We had to leave him at the vet's as he has a fairly serious gash in his neck with a semi-crushed larynx and a bruised lung. The vet opened up the larynx to clean out the damaged tissue. The vet seems to think that we will be able to take him home tomorrow afternoon, if he will eat wet dog food. Poor Hannah found him, as we were in town finishing our Christmas shopping. I would have done anything to save either one of them from this!

This little guy and I have a love/hate relationship. He definitely thinks he is the pack , aka "family" leader; which doesn't go over well with me. He also marks everything as his territory. There are days neither one of us like each other very much at all. When he is good, he is such a sweet little thing. When he is naughty, he is funny! And I love him. My family and friends would probably fall over if they knew I would sorely miss him if he were gone.

I hope that everyone has a safe and happy holidays filled with the things and people you love!

Donnelly

more vintage ornament pictures!

Here are a few of the ways I am displaying more of my vintage ornaments this year.

This is my large thrifted milk glass fruit bowl (or maybe, it is called a compote?). It sets on my great-grandma Stuhlberg's White treadle sewing machine that I bought at my grandma Elsie's (her daughter) estate sale when I was 19. This makes me happy! It now sits on my kitchen table. My small vintage silver tinsel tree now sits on my sewing machine.

Here is a close-up of my little elf. She stays out all year long. She makes me smile!

The sewing machine belonged to the same great-grandma that gave my dad this ornament when he was a little boy.
My next display is an idea that I am sure I got from someone like Martha Stuart. About 10 years ago, my mom bought herself and my youngest sister and me vintage Pepsi crates. For the first 4 or 5 years I had it, it displayed homemade bars of soap and wash clothes in my bathroom. Then it was in storage for a few years until I saw this idea. Now it hangs in my living room at Christmastime . The original idea called for mini teacup hooks screwed into the wood, but both Rick and I tried to put them in and the fact that it is missing them should tell you how successful that idea was!
Last year, Rick bought me 2 metal ornament trees at one of our local thrift stores. I came home one day and found them. I didn't even know that I wanted them until they were sitting on my kitchen table. This one started out in the bedroom, and now resides with the second one in my craft room. I don't have a photo of them in my craft room, but will take one maybe tomorrow.

The blue angel is a vintage Christmas ornament that also stays out all year. He makes me happy, too!

Hopefully, I will be back tomorrow to share the two ornament trees in my craft room as well as my Nativity set and some of my other favorite Christmas decorations. Hannah banana needs the computer to work on her Serious Interpretation for Advanced speech.

Have a great day.

Donnelly

My family thinks I am crazy, seriously!

One of the major reasons is my obsession with vintage Christmas ornaments. Every time I go to a thrift store or a yard sale, I have to check to see if there are any vintage ornaments. I have been known to purchase an entire bag or box, just to rescue one ornament. It is a sickness, really! I have enough vintage ornaments to decorate several trees. I think I am up to 9 large plastic totes full, maybe more.

Here are a few of my favorites:

I have one that my great-grandmother brought with her from Germany when her family immigrated to America. She gave it to my dad when he was a little boy. He gave it to me for Christmas a few years ago when my parents stopped decorating a tree for Christmas. It is all banged up and missing some of it's beads, but I have always loved it.

I have a clip-on cockateil that my mom's friend, Helga, gave me along with a entire box of Shiney-Brites that her Husband gave her for Christmas the year they were married. Coincidentally, Helga is from Germany too.

This little guy came with my husband when we got married. I don't know how old he is. But he has stood guard over our trees for the last 19 years; so if he isn't vintage yet, he will soon be!

Last, I would like to share the gold foil star that I made when I was 5. I am going to date myself and let you know that it has been on Christmas trees for the last 37 years. It was on my childhood trees each year. My mom gave it to me the year Rick and I got married and it has been at the top of our tree each year since then.

In the next day or so, I hope to share some of my other vintage ornaments and how I have displayed them, as well as some of my other Christmas decorations.

Hope the Christmas season is wonderful for you!

Have a great day!
Donnelly

Robyn and Clare's Ornament Exchange and Christmasy things!

I love blogland. I have met some of the nicest people through this cool world. Two of them are Robyn from http://daisyquilts.blogspot.com/ and Clare from http://clarescraftroom.blogspot.com/.They have been hosting the Handmade Christmas Ornament Swap 2009, that I have participated in. These ladies are awesome hostesses! They are quick to answer questions and are so helpful with their reminders, and a Flickr sharing group.

My partner is Linda from http://cottagegardenquilts.blogspot.com/. Linda is a Long-arm Quilter! How cool! I am amazed at the wonderful women out there who take such good care of other women's quilts.

I made Linda a cross-stitch ornament from the Just Cross-stitch Ornament Issue from 2001. The designers are Mary Olsen and Candy Scott from the Workbasket. The pattern calls for Gentle Arts Sampler Threads, which I am a huge fan of. I am not sure if they are still designing patterns or not. I am so pleased with the results!

I used the most beautiful cranberry-colored hounds tooth felted wool from our local quilt store. I used hand-dyed Belfast linen size 36. My favorite parts are everything. I especially love the french knots for the holly and the tree and I love the gold beads for the ornaments and the bells. So festive. Not sure where the ribbon came from. It was in my scrapbook ribbon jar. It is an iridescent red and gold. I made the hanger long enough to use as a door hanger, if Linda wanted to.
I handmade my Christmas cards this year. I downloaded this pattern in 2001, as well. It came in a series of 5 or 6 paper pieced ornament patterns. I have always felt that they should be made into cards. So cards they became! These have been so fun to make! I haven't sent Christmas cards for a long time and I have made whatever lame excuse I could make. This year, I decided that because I love to get something in the mail besides bills and that maybe my friends and family would too!

Here they are together!

Last night was Hannah's last Christmas concert, our last Christmas concert as parents. Hard to believe that we have been going to the same school auditorium for 19 years of Christmas concerts. This year, Hannah is in Concert Choir and Madrigals. The Concert Choir sang 2 songs. They sounded lovely! They sang "Lullaby" by John Ness Beck and "The Snow Begins to Fall" by Sally K. Albtecht. Hannah is in her black and red Madrigal's dress in the front row with the red hair ribbon.

The Madrigals sang 6 songs, 4 of which were acapella. They sang "Carol of the Bells" arr. Wilhousky, "Fum, Fum, Fum" arr. Ed. Lojeski, "We Three Kings" arr. Darmon Meader, "Bidi Bom" David Eddleman, "Masters in this Hall" Gilbert M. Martin, and "O Holy Night" arr. Mark Hayes. All of the seniors had solos in "O Holy Night". It was beautiful! Think about the music from the "Lion King" and you have the arrangement of this song. It was a fantastic way to spend a peaceful night in a hectic season! I will miss this in the years to come!

I have also realized that my last post/RANT about my Christmas tree was fueled by hormones (pms) and one too many glasses of Merlot. It is what it is. I have rethought my feelings about my tree and have decided to embrace it! I am known amongst my family and friends for my love of "Charlie Brown" Christmas trees. You know the ones. They have very few needles and tons of bare spots; but all they needs is a little TLC to shine! So why should this one be loved less than the others? It has many things going for it. It is definitely a conversation piece. It has a new element--the ornament spinners, it has NO icicles on it--a first in 19 years, it has my favorite things in the world on it--thrifted, vintage ornaments, it has the gold foil star on it that I made in kindergarten, it has a gold tinsel star that my daughter, Cassie, made for me when she was about 10 or 11, it has vintage glass bead garland on it-a first, and it has the 'Santa Suit' tree skirt around it that I love so much. I will be taking more flattering photos of it maybe tomorrow. That is, if and only if, I get my Christmas CD party favors done tomorrow afternoon. No, definitely to take photos before I start the CD's. I need good light.

Have a great day!

Donnelly

Bah Humbug!

So, I did get my tree up today.

And I think it looks good without the lights on.

At just about any angle, it is the most lopsided tree I have ever had. I love the "Charlie Brown" style trees. And I am usually pretty happy after I get them decorated with all of my favorite vintage ornaments.

This year, as I was decorating it, I thought it looked pretty good. I even found some special ornament things that spin the ornaments around. All you have to do is unplug a light bulb and replace it with the twirler.

But after taking photos of it. I am bummed out. It is horrible. It leans to the right side and to the back. Rick and Hannah worked for over a 1/2 hour trying to true it up, with no luck. So, we are stuck with an ugly tree this year.

I could just cry. Seriously, just cry.

One of my Christmas presents, that Rick gives me each year, is a Christmas party for our family and friends. So, I guess I can have all my friends and family all set on the couch at the same time everyone gets the absolute best view. Don't know how I am going to fit 30+ people on a sofa that sits 3 and have them all stay there for an entire evening.

Good thing everyone likes to be in our basement where our game room is. Everyone will be too busy playing pool, Foosball, poker and boardgames to more than glance at my tree!

Have a great week.

Donnelly