Hoho Holidays

The crafting and design continue with a slight touch of madness thrown in for good measure. The downstairs is nearly complete and even though abundant, is less than I have produced in prior years. Still quite sparkly and festive but with less post-clean up kept clearly in mind. That means no garlands winding up the stairs and no full size trees on the second floor. No snowy scenes atop the fridge, and no jingle collared pooches. Each Wednesday will be White Christmas Wednesday till, well, Christmas!

Now I must decide if I should purge those "not chosen" items from garage storage or save them for future Holiday designs. If I was my own client, I would recommend the purge because I know that every subsequent year will follow the less is more philosophy. If I reduced by 20% each year I would still have plenty of decorations to use for the next 10 years. I frequently read on blogs how collectors end up opening shops just to manage the stuff in their homes, and it is easy to understand how that occurs. So, purge it is! If I am truly brave I will let all the Halloween go first since I barely use it at all, swimming up stream against the flow of increased interest of all things spooky.

Either way the weird timing of things this year has allowed me to complete all this before Thanksgiving and while you are all busy elves the next few weeks I will be out.......shopping...... for stuff! ha! and ho-ho! see you WW.

Three G"s Today

Great Friends, Good Food and Glitter.

Do I need any more words? It could be Fantastic Friends, Fabulous Food and Flying Glitter. Five F's.

No matter the letter/letters- an all around Thumbs up Thursday.

It's beginning to look a lot like White Wednesday

I guess you can see what I've been up to lately. In between decorating two client homes, I've been scrambling to make my home festive before the Holiday show. There will be no time after, so white Christmas is arriving a bit early this year. This is what I accomplished last evening.

Of course it made doing WW easy this week and for the next few weeks also. woohoo

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The only spot in the house with red. The den/library

Holiday Baubles and Blessings

It is a new and different place I find myself in this Holiday season. On one hand, I have been so busy decorating clients homes that the idea of Holiday decorating at mine seems less than joyful. But in 44 days the kids return from opposite northern ends of the country and I want them to return to the kind of Christmas that they remember and have it as festive as it can possibly be. So out come the trees and the glitter is flying. It is a winter wonderland in the midst of the desert.

Lots of these will be made.


A couple of these


and one of these in every room


I am working on a Holiday booth this entire month, so I am trying to concentrate 3/4 of each day on the booth and 1/4 on home decor. Hopefully this will result in both tasks being completed by the 1st of December. Note* I never mastered juggling.

Hannah's friends will soon be piled on the sofas and the tv will be blasting. I cannot wait. Junk food must be stocked and loads of cookies baked. Taking inventory of my friends, almost all of them have grown children who live close by or still live at home for various reasons. They are unfamiliar with this melancholy that I court occasionally. I am thrilled for my kid's successes but do they have to occur so very far away? In short, I miss them terribly and if it were not for free long distance and iChat, I don't think I could survive this with any semblance of dignity. I am thrilled that our relationship is such that they are equally excited about returning home...murmurings of "there's no place like home, there's no place like home."

I will count my blessings every moment that they are here and approach this decorating with elfish enthusiasm. Pics will be posted as it all develops. ha! a witticism.

Fall Garden Whites

White Wednesday BOO!

It is 11:19 and this is the first moment I have had to sit down at the computer in three days. I've been organizing/designing another luscious studio and as always having a hoot! This client is an incredible bead and quilt artist, sweet as can be, and she even feeds me fabulous food. Am I blessed or what?

I will be showing a WHITE and black Halloween advent tomorrow morning. I'll tuck it in at the end of this post. Please forgive my tardiness, and I hope you'll come back to see it. My pattern was published last year in a local magazine "polished". The advent is for sale. Sorry, local pick-up only.

Hope everyone enjoyed all the WW blogs. Golly there are a passel of em' now. It'll take me all weekend to catch up. Cannot wait till my Holiday decorating is done, I'll have loads of white to share.

Pie Me Oh My

Pie
Pie
Me oh my
Nothing tastes sweet, wet, salty and dry
all at once o well it's pie
Apple!
Pumpkin!
Minced
an' wet bottom.
Come to your place everyday if you've got em'
Pie
Me o my
I love pie

Sue treated me to Marie Callendars for dinner and you guessed it...PIE! 2 full pies.( On sale right now- hurry)Lemon Cheesecake Pie and Kahlua Cheesecake Pie. We switched 1/2 pie each and I just had my first slices of a little of both. Oh Lordie! I also had my first fried green beans with a chipotle dip. My new favorite thing!

Sue and I spent a lovely day working on a Christmas Advent for her home and it came out just fabulous...all glitter and creams in a lovely silver frame. Soon as she has all the tags attached I'll show a pic.

I have had some inquiries about my large advent and I guess I failed to mention, it is indeed for sale. I am planning on taking it to a Holiday Show but if someone would like to purchase it before the show just email me. You will need a large space to hang but what a show stopper!

It is a joy to be talking about the end of Sue's chemo treatment and the great test results coming in. We talked about Holiday parties we were planning and road trips and just about everything else in between here and there and around. What a nice way to spend a crisp fall day, sharing ideas, crafting and gabbing. Perfect. oh, and pie.

In case you are thinking "I've heard that ditty before", Andie McDowell sings it in the movie Michael. "Oh yeah.....I remember now"

A wee WW

So I did end up taking a photo of a friend's White. This is a beautiful framed piece in a lovely living room in a beautiful home. Suzie tells me that these were all everyday dresses, even the longer center one. The long dress belonged to Suzie's Mom, the other four were hers. I have always thought this was a lovely piece made all the more special because of the memories. Thank you to Suzie for letting me "borrow" her White.

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*Oh, and I had the sweetest comment from this gal under the Studios Garages and Bedrooms Oh My! on 10/18

Studios, Garages and Bedrooms, OH MY!

I am having way too much fun. I have said it before, doing what you love to do is a blessing, and I am blessed. I am very busy working with some great women and having a blast. We are organizing ourselves into a tizzy and staying very busy.

When the organizing is finished the Holiday decorating begins! Many of you are unaware I used to decorate Christmas trees as a full time job. 75 different themed trees each season. One of the trees was three stories high through holes cut into the barn floors. In order to decorate between floors I used to hang upside down through the hole with someone holding my legs. This was long before OSHA. Can you imagine? The stupidity of youth, but I LOVED it.

I have several clients already booking in November and I only have limited days available in December, so if you're thinking about some help.....and yes, I'm still at reduced rates until 2010.

I want to relate some very good news. My dear friend Sue is doing very well, nearly completed with chemo and her latest PET scan shows no sign of cancer. She has been amazing through all of this, brave and strong and we are all thrilled and relieved. Sue has some radiation still to go, but then she can start preparing for her trip this summer to Russia! You go girl!

I will try to get a White Wednesday in, but I make no promises. Clients come first. Maybe I can photograph white at their houses! hmmmmm better go pack the camera in the car.

61 days till darling daughter comes home for winter break. sigh

Oh my Stars!

Wouldn't you know it? Wednesday snuck up on me AGAIN! Just this minute at 9:00pm I remembered it was Tuesday, even though I lived through all day today...A Tuesday. I offer pathetic excuses for my lack of white - two wonderful client visits today, a yummy lunch with friends and three long distance chats this evening. The landscapers arrive in the early am to do my lawn overhaul and well...I've got nothing, except this rather sad little story about a bunch of 4' glitter stars that I made.

How I meant them to look:



How some of them ended up, after gallons of stiffener: OOPS



Are you laughing? Hey, cut that out! They're just a little stiffy challenged...ahem

and this counts....they ARE white!

It's Official

I bought my first Christmas Ornament (Actually 3) this weekend! Currently we are practicing an austere program around here, but I figured I could spring for the $18.00. I passed on numerous other items that in the past would have found their way into my basket and not just for a "ride in the cart."

To those who do not understand that personal philosophy: I have found that if I put things into my cart on first whim and then proceed through the store enjoying the shopping experience, that by the end of the last aisle I have convinced myself that I really do not need this item or that item and I am quite content to return them to their appropriate shelf. Leaving the store with few and now quite often, no items, gives me a non-shopping high that is nearly equal to it's opposite.

Of course this entails returning all items back to their rightful place, otherwise said high is dampened by guilt of causing store employees additional work. Now, some of you will find this system does not work for you because you are not so easily fooled by your own mind, but giving treasures a "ride in my cart" works for this fool.

Sharing the experience this weekend was my friend Sarah. We had spent weeks together readying for the huge garage sale and I felt we deserved a fun day out and about, even on restricted budgets. Chipotle was involved, and lots of gab, all in all a nice break on a glorious fall day. The highlight being Sarah patiently guiding me through the agonizing decision of a new, delicious, clearance priced, butter yellow, leather purse to replace my beloved Michael Kors flaming orange ranger bag. My first Makowski. We'll see...After all, it is a "rebound" purse after a two year love affair.



On my way home I stopped at Home Depot and grabbed some great faded yellow ( must have been the purse influence) pots and plants that will be waiting for their new home in the yard after the de-lawning ceremony on Wednesday. Yes, I surrender to the "PC no grass", less water waste of desert living. Only took 32 years. Constant sprinkler repair and old lawn syndrome were weighing heavily in the decision process, but I am taking a leap of faith, and quite nervously forging ahead. I figure if I throw enough old wheelbarrows and galvanized tubs around it will end up OK. Major pruning to be done. I have to remove the top half of my beloved banks roses because they have broken through 2 wooden trellis that I am replacing with metal. My roses will look scalped until spring, and I just realized they are yellow!. It's official then, a mellow yellow weekend. I hope you are enjoying yours.

White Wednesday Advent

As promised, here are the first pics of the advent I have been working on for a show. This baby is 48"x 40". The pics aren't the best, I was in the garage with bad lighting, and I only took 2 closeups, but you get the idea.

I love doing these, I've been putting them together for several years and even taught a Gathering around an advent one summer. Note to those of you who have STILL not finished yours. If I can do one this size, you can easily complete your 11x16! Shall I name names - hmmm? When I saw the frame at a garage sale, I just had to have it. Too bad this one is too large for me to keep, but it will find a happy home somewhere. I'm just happy I finished it in time for WW! woo-hoo

Boo Garland from Gathering

I hope to have time to make a SPOOKY one too.
Black tulle- As a child I always wanted to take dance lessons and wear a tutu, just because of the tulle. Who knew years later I would use tulle to cover things beside a child's fanny? Tulle is named for a French town TULLE where it originated. "Learn something new every day", she says nodding her head...... I WILL have White Wednesday this week. I'm going to try to be a better WW blogger.

OCTOBER at LAST

It's not just the weather, it's not just the 1 year anniversary of the passing of sweet Viola, it's not just the end of a courageous journey for dear friend Sue, or even the conclusion of the last major job assignment. It is the windows flung open and the sound and smell of freshly mowed lawns. It is the house being cool enough now to simmer soups on the stove top and bake brownies, and burn my favorite cookie crunch candles all day long.

It is the end of the summer heat that I have always disliked, OK, I out and out HATE the heat here. It is not the sweet gentle warmth on your skin that I remember as a child. Here it is the blistering, breath sucking, melt your mascara heat that causes me to hibernate for three months, this year, nearly four.

I want to sew and bake and garden and do all the things that I am too heat-weary to do all summer long. I was meant to live in the cold, like Rhoda, I figure I would keep better.
October is the beginning of all my favorite things, gourds and pumpkins, Thanksgiving leftovers and Holiday Sparkle and Glitter. Woo-Hoo October at last.

nutella

When you make several dozen of your famous chocolate chip cookies and mail them all to your kids....when you scooped out the last of the mint chocolate chip ice cream a week ago....when there are no bags of chocolate chips, because of the afore mentioned cookies..when you have searched both fridges and found cheeses and baked ham and veggies but NOTHING even remotely sweet...you grab a soup spoon and twist off the top of a perfectly smooth, brand new jar of nutella and aahhhh...
c'mon, like you've never done it! It's a nutella and spoon kind of evening.

BEFORE

This is the right side of the "before" this morning. I never did get the left, and there are five stuffed to the gills tables inside the garage. We are very happy, very tired and very glad it is OVER!

Preview Sale

HOLY COW! We are a third of the way toward my HOPEFUL, (not even my expected tally for the whole sale) just from the preview sale! We are so thankful to those of you who came out to support us this evening and we know many treasures found wonderful new homes. Hopefully we'll see the rest of you tomorrow bright and early. 5:30 is SO early........

Special thanks to Ann and her Mom, whose name has slipped my mind, it was a long day:-(, Stephanie, Carol, Heather, Lynn, Margaret and Sue. Thanks to Heather and Margaret for helping us price.

We'll be back at it at 7am tomorrow and I promise to post a "before" of the madness. Everyone who attended tonight went home with boxes and boxes and BOXES of stuff, and it still doesn't look like we made a dent!

I also lined up a couple more October clients after they realized what could be accomplished with their "stuff ". I'm thrilled and cannot wait to get started. As my niece reminded me tonight, it is odd that I get almost giddy with excitement to do something that most people despise doing almost more than anything else. Yeah well, maybe odd, but organized!

Happy Weekend everyone and Sarah, did you know it is going to be 73 on Wednesday? (hehe)

Should I mention the soft porn, I mean Romance novels? Ha! GOTCHA!

The SALE

The SALE ( capitals necessary): Well, you see that is where I have been the past three weeks (and why no White Wednesday) and where I hope a lot of you will be this Saturday.

This project is a labor of love and friendship. Anne, a feisty, redheaded Texas broad with a heart of gold loved and adored her only child, a daughter. Playing alone for most of her childhood, the little girl treasured her toys and dolls while Anne collected vintage treasures of her own. She saved every piece of schoolwork that her daughter brought home, every precious plastic pony she played with. She rescued broken pieces of furniture, and planned to repair them some day. Political buttons, and pop memorabilia were tucked away because they would be "worth money." Anne collected dolls and supervised her own doll hospital. Opening trunks of beheaded and maimed doll parts was a little weird and sad. Everything was to be saved, "I might need it some day"..."my daughter loved this so."

Anne was so beloved by her daughter that upon her passing everything was put into storage, too painful to deal with at the time. Many years later, sadness continues but the time has come to deal. With overwhelming, leaning towers of boxes and bins, we have waded through the memories and the memorabilia and decided what is to stay, what is to go. It is not as simple as deciding what Tupperware is past it's prime, or tossing unworn clothing, though we have done that too. It has been a combined generational purge from Great Grandma to Great Grandson. Saving what is precious and pricing what is profitable.

This process has dominoed into an epiphany for my client. "It stops here." Piggybacked onto the former purge is a clean sweep of the clients archives and storage of her own. As drawers began to de-clutter, and closets were swept clean, hearts were no longer burdened with what "we should deal with." We've dealt with most of it, (a bit remains) and the culmination is the SALE. I've been inspired to clear out some cobwebs in my domain and I have added some bits of my own.

Have these same or similar issues? I am currently booking fall dates, would love to assist, and I am working at economy driven rates.