A DEBBIE-DABBLE CHRISTMAS

5 Valentine Trees and 2 Winter Trees!!

2012-02-10T11:45:00.014-05:00

Remember shortly after Christmas, I told you not to take down your trees????

Well, I did put away some of my 17 Christmas trees but I still have 8 trees up in the house.

I have 5 trees decorated for Valentine's Day and 2 trees decorated for Winter!!

I am currently changing my Craft Room tree into my Tea Cup and Rose tree that will stay up all year.

And here are the trees that are still in my home...

1st Valentine Day Tree

I left up my 7 foot Living tree and redecorated it using red and gold Valentine Day ornaments.....

2nd Valentine Day Tree

This is one of 2 trees that I have in my Dining Room...

I left up my 7 foot slim tree and redecorated it with mostly pink and white Valentine's Day ornaments.....

3rd Valentine Day Tree

This tree is also in the Dining Room.

It is a feather tree decorated with pink, gold and silver hearts....

4th Valentine Tree in the Den

I left up the 4 foot tree in the Den and changed it also into a Valentine Tree.....

It is decorated with heart ornaments in shades of ivory, burgundy and blue.....

Snow Buddy and 5 th Valentine Tree in Powder Room

I left this tree up after Christmas, removed any Christmas ornaments and added red heart ornaments....

I did add a battery operated set of Blue LED lights....

Birdhouse Winter Tree in the Kitchen

On this alpine tree, I used birds and bird house ornaments and then stuffed Buffalo snow into the tree.......

Winter Tree #1....

Winter Tree #2 in Den

This is my 2nd Winter Tree.

It is decorated with just crocheted snow flakes and clear icicle ornaments with a bird on top.

Snow and Ice Tree....

These trees will stay up until the end of February as it is Heart month.....

To see more of my Valentine Day and Winter decorations, Please visit my regular blog,
Debbie-Dabble !

I am linking up to these parties:

Masterpiece Monday

Blue Monday

Mod Vintage Mix Monday

Amaze Me Monday

Metamorphosis Monday

Cozy Home Party Tuesday

Knick of Time Tuesday

Home Decor and Organizing Link Party

Wow Us Wednesday

Rednesday

Delightfully Inspiring Thursday

Open House Party Thursday

Homemaking Link Up Party

Home Sweet Home Friday

Show and Tell Friday

Potpourri Friday

Vintage Inspiration Friday

Tickled Pink Friday

Pink Saturday

Seasonal Sunday

Sunday's Best

Woman Thing, the Link Party

The Valentine's Day Party

Valentine Par-Tay with Laurie

Please take some time to visit these terrific hosts and all those joining in on the fun!

Thanks so much for stopping by today and every day that you take the time to visit with me!

Hugs,
Debbie

FINALLY, A BIT of SNOW ADDS SO MUCH TO MY WINTER DECORATIONS!!

2012-01-17T05:26:00.003-05:00

This is what I would have liked to have seen during the Christmas season!!

Doesn't my Outside Winter Decorations look prettier with a frosting of snow??

Wait!! Outside Winter Decorations????

If you missed my post on my Outside Winter Decorations on Debbie- Dabble, Please click HERE

Below are a few pics without snow.....

I kept up the garland but took away all Christmas related items....

Added a Winter wreath to the front door.....

Snow flakes added the the garland....

And of course, all lit up at night....

The wreaths on the windows were replaced with lighted snowflakes....

The other day we had a dusting of snow....

You can see the flakes falling in the pictures......

A frosting on the black skates......

This Penguin says it all......

A Welcome Snow Man Slate.....

The winter arrangement of greenery in the basket.....

Love how the garland looks with a frosting of snow.....

Looking down toward the Flower Bed....

Told you this flower bed looks better with snow....

Mother Nature's Beauty...

It only stuck to the grass and not the roads ....

And in the back yard....

I think this snowman is looking for more snow....

Now I know that we will most likely get more snow than shown in these pictures during the Winter of 2012 here in Penna.

I truly do love Winter.

As a kid, growing up in the snowy decades of the 60's and 70's, I remember there being snow on the ground all Winter. I built snow forts and snow men in the back yard.

And We would sleigh ride on the road in front of my parent's home all the time. In thinking about this, I now realized that they must have not plowed and salted that road very good that we were able to always sleigh ride on it......

LOL!!

And my favorite thing was taking my dog, Ginger , out for a walk at night when it was snowing through out the development of new homes in which I lived growing up.

I still love Winter.

BUT after 34 years of driving through snow, sleet and freezing rain because hospitals do not have snow days, I look forward to the days that I can admire the snow from the window of my home and not have to drive any where in it!!

I am linking up to these great parties:

Home Decor and Organizing Link Party

Wow Us Wednesday

Outdoor Wednesday

Delightfully Inspiring Thursday

Open House Party Thursday

Homemaking Link Up Party

Fertilizer Friday

Home Sweet Home Friday

Show and Tell Friday

Potpourri Friday

Seasonal Sunday

Sunday's Best

Masterpiece Monday

Amaze Me Monday

Metamorphosis Monday

Cozy Home Party Tuesday

Please take some time to visit these terrific hosts and all those joining in on the fun!

Thanks so much for stopping by today and every day that you take the time to visit with me!

Hugs,
Debbie

ANNE MARIE'S HOME 2011 and MORE of my CHRISTMAS STORAGE!

2012-01-10T07:25:00.010-05:00

On Sunday, we visited with our dear friends Anne Marie and Tony.
We had a lovely time and what a break it was for me from taking down Christmas decorations.
A break I truly needed.
And I am so glad that I took TIME out to spend TIME with our friends. Remember TIME is my One Little Word for 2012!

I am going to take you on a Tour of our friend's beautiful home like I did last year but first, I wanted to show you some of the spaces in our home where I store our Christmas decorations. In my last post, I told you there is storage under our stairs through a trap door in the Hallway closet.

As you can see, our hot water heater is in there too and we are on a concrete floor with no basement.

I also have mentioned that our attic is floored and the rafter system actually creates sections.
You can see that below.....

Years ago, I numbered the Sections and keep a list of what was in each section. Everything from the Living Room is in Section 3.

Instead of taking down all of these boxes in which many of my Santa's are stored, I haul them up and down in a laundry basket after I take them out of the boxes.

I do the same thing with the living Room floral as it is stored in this massive tub.

So that is what the attic looks like . The Kitchen and Dining Room decorations are in Section 2. Some outside things that are not kept down our Storage Unit is in Section 1.

Well, enough of that and now on to my TOUR of ANNE MARIE and TONY's HOME.....

When you walk through the front door, directly to your left is Anne Marie's Grandmother's sewing machine.

She decorates it for every season and holiday. I love the black and white floor tiles!

You can see the stripes that Tony painted on their walls. Stunning!
How beautifully she has this basket decorated along with the ornaments on a silver tray.

The sewing machine is so pretty with all of the original markings on it.

This Santa is to the right of the front door.

Looking down along the hallway along the stairs ( which I forgot to take a pic of!) is this sweet little tree.

Sorry it is a bit blurry......

This vignette is set up as you walk into the Living Room. The cat was a gifted to Anne Marie.

A curio filled with all kind of pretties.....

Looking into the Living Room......

Anne Marie has displayed many of her silver pieces on the Entertainment Center....

Another pretty vignette set up in the corner.....

Love this piece hanging on the wall.....

Some of Anne Marie's Bearington Bears.....

Don't you just adore this top hat and shoes?????

Some of her Silver Bridal baskets filled with ornaments.....

A pink Christmas tree......

A Pink Victorian Style tree.....

So pretty.....

Please click on pics to enlarge.....

The sofa table.....

Just beautiful.....

Love that you can see the tree and the mantle in the Dining Room in this pic......

Lamps were bought at a local Antique Co Op...

A carriage full of dolls to the side of the sofa table and their kitty also had to get in the picture...

This pic has the fireplace screen in front of the tree to keep Kitty away ......

The Dining Room......
Tony did the ceiling himself.
What you can't see in the pics is that in both the Dining Room and the Living Room, there is glitter in the plaster so the ceiling in these 2 rooms actually sparkles , especially when the lights are on.

Anne Marie always does Tablescapes and keeps her Dining Room table set.
I so wish I could do that......

This is the wall to the right as you walk into the Dining Room.....

And then there is the magnificent Fire Place and stunning mantle!

I also want to point out the windows that Anne Marie did using Gallery Glass....

The beautiful angel was a gift from Tony and that prompted Anne Marie to change her whole theme for this year to mainly white and silver.....

The trees are from Country Folks .....

She used several silver candle holders and silver poinsettias.....

On the side of the Fire Place....
I love her carpet in the Dining Room.....

The buffet to the left of the Fire Place.....

In keeping with the theme of the mantle , Anne Marie simply hung several Angel Wings from the mirror and the lamps........

A Chocolate set on a silver tray and faux pastries displayed on more of Anne Marie's Silver collection....

In the back ground , you can see Tony's Grandfather Clock in the corner.
Anne Marie has told me in the past that it was Tony that wanted the Clock.

It was wonderful sitting at this beautiful table with the fire roaring , enjoying the company of good friends....

Look at how the silver on the table gleams.....

Anne Marie decorated her table mainly in white and silver for Christmas....

The plates that she used are from a set of dishes, The Twelve Days of Christmas , that she bought from our church Flea Market. All the stem ware came from an estate that was donated to our church flea market that Anne Marie bought.

In the center is a silver Bridal Basket filled with ornaments....

Looking into the Living Room, you can see the love seat.

See the antique butter dome on the table....

In the hutch, is Anne Marie's grandmother's china....

Anne Marie showed me some of her new treasures......

Aren't they cute?

And don't you just love this??????

Beautiful!!

And now we go into the Kitchen....

More of Anne Marie's Bearington Bears......

Just Darling!!

I love how Anne Marie displayed the Christmas tile I bought her for her Birthday!
More Silver baskets and the rest of the Twelve Days of Christmas plates which she used for dessert....

Another wall in the Kitchen by a counter bar that overlooks the Dining Room....

This is Tony's display in the downstairs Bathroom...

Men's antique shaving items....

Many of the items in their home were bought on their Sunday trips to various Antique shops , gift stores, etc. around Penna., N.Y. and N.J.

I want to create a vignette something like this for Joe on Joe's dresser in our bedroom.....

View of the Living Room from the stairs....

And now we are upstairs. This home originally had an apartment upstairs and an apartment downstairs. The whole home was completely remodeled several years ago and made into a single home.
As you walk up the stairs, you enter a sitting room/library .

On the one wall....

Another Bearington Bear in her nightgown.....

The door on the left leads out to an enclosed porch....
Love this chair.....

Also love this set.....

This was the Kitchen area of the second floor apartment.....

Love the blue, white and yellow......

There is also another full bathroom upstairs and in the area that used to be the kitchen is a refrigerator. I would never get Joe to go downstairs if I had a sitting room like this off the master bedroom!! LOL!!

Bearington Bears dressed in their P. J.'s on the sofa.....

An antique candle holder on the coffee table....

And now for the Library part.....

I so wish I had room for something like this in my house!

Needless to say, Anne Marie is an avid reader!

More of her collection of Bears....

This is on the left as you walk into the Master Bedroom....

A beautiful lamp and another sweet Bearington Bear....

First glimpse of the Master Bedroom.....

To the left, are the double closets...

And isn't this simply to die for????

Again, Anne Marie did the window with Gallery Glass...

Can't you just imagine yourself laying on this chaise ( or fainting couch) , sipping on a cup of tea and reading a book that you chose from the library in the other room??????

Another Funeral basket....

I could kick myself for throwing out several of these baskets that were in my parent's garage when my Mom sold the house....

The dresser...

And will you look at this bed!!!

At the base of the bed.....

A Victorian Style purse.....

In the corner......

Anne Marie's collection of Antique and vintage wedding and christening pieces....

Please click on pics to enlarge to see these beautiful pieces better....

Bridal dolls.....

Antique Wedding Gown.....

Stunning!!

I just have to mention that the parasol was my Christmas gift to Anne Marie. I am so glad that it matches so well with all her beautiful pieces in this room.

Another beautiful piece.....

An antique Wedding certificate....

And that concludes my tour of Anne Marie and Tony's beautiful home. I hope you enjoyed it.

Anne Marie changes her Christmas decor every year and does not put out the same things year after year. Many of her things are stored in the basement and that is where she unpacks things and then chooses what she is going to use.

You cannot imagine how I wish I could do this. I have to haul everything down out of the attic. I guess I could use my guest room or the Craft room to unpack things...

My problem is that I do not have the self discipline to not put everything out. Maybe I should try that.......

If you would like to see Anne Marie's Home decorated for Christmas Last year, please click HERE

Please leave a comment if you visited to tell Anne Marie that you stopped by to see her home!! I am trying to talk her into blogging even though she visits many of you, she does not have her own blog!

I am linking this post up to these great parties:

Masterpiece Monday

Blue Monday

Mod Vintage Mix Monday

Amaze Me Monday

Metamorphosis Monday

Cozy Home Party Tuesday

Tea Time Tuesday

Tea Cup Tuesday

Tabletop Tuesday

Home Decor and Organizing Link Party

Wow Us Wednesday

White Wednesday

Rednesday

Tablescape Thursday

Vintage Thingie Thursday

Open House Party Thursday

Delightfully Inspiring Thursday

Home Sweet Home Friday

Show and Tell Friday

Potpourri Friday

Vintage Inspiration Friday

Homemaking Link Up Party

Pink Saturday

Seasonal Sunday

Please take some time to visit these terrific hosts and all those joining in on the fun!

Thanks so much for stopping by today and every day that you take the time to visit with me!

Hugs,
Debbie

PLANNING FOR CHRISTMAS 2012, # 1

2012-01-08T08:46:00.004-05:00

Welcome to my first post in a series that I will be doing through out the entire year here on A Debbie-Dabble Christmas.

My One Little Word for 2012 is TIME. By becoming more organized in 2012, this will give me TIME to do the fun things I want to do with the people that mean the most to me.

To read about my choice of TIME as my One Little Word for 2012, please click HERE

In my last post, I told you that I felt that Christmas sort of got away from me and I guess you could say I felt a bit cheated that I did not get to do some of the things that I wanted to do and normally do during the Christmas Season.

This is NOT going to happen again.

I remember reading about a Christmas Countdown over at Leann's blog, The Old Parsonage.
Here is her post. I suggest you read it if you want to be more organized for Christmas 2012.

In Leann's post, she mentions a site called Organized Christmas.
I decided to check it out and I am so very glad that I did.
Please click HERE to check out this fantastic site.
Thanks so much , Leann!

I did tell you that I had been planning on returning to keeping a binder on Christmas. I did this years ago when the boys were younger. Both of their birthdays and Christmas are within a 3 week period so I had to be organized because my parents and my in-laws gave me the money to buy their Christmas and birthday presents with. I used to have master sheets with who was getting what from who , when!!!! I also wrote down who I had to buy gifts for, decorating ideas, storage for Christmas decorations and menu's for holiday dinners.

Organized Christmas takes this concept to a whole different level!!!

The binder I was planning on keeping for Christmas is called a Christmas Planner at Organized Christmas.

They suggest using a binder so you can add sheets as needed.

Click HERE to view the page for a list of supplies you will need to create your Christmas Planner.

You can copy from your computer cover pages and spines for you binder.

I decided to copy one of the spine pages but I planned on using it to create my own cover for my Christmas Planner.

There are many other pages that you can print out for your planner.......

And you can make Planners to use the entire year for other Holidays and just to organize your life.

The Binder I bought has a plastic sleeve on the front so you can slide your cover into it to protect it and then you can change it if you want.

I decided to use a piece of Christmas sheet music as a base for my cover.

I then printed out the Title Sheets for the sections I want in my binder. I bought Christmas computer paper on Clearance at Michael's for $1.50 a pack.

I placed them in clear plastic cover sleeves and these created sections as they stick out a bit more from the regular sheets.

I then printed out some of the pages from Organized Christmas....

And I printed out Calendar sheets, a few on Christmas paper that can be posted on my refrigerator along with one in the Christmas Planner and a few on regular sheets to make notes on in the Christmas Planner. I printed out sheets starting with September. I also took one of the many free calendars that we recieve from various charities that we contribute to and cut the sheets, punched 3 holes in them and added them to the Christmas Planner.

Another example of the many pages you can print out for your Christmas Planner.....

I started creating my cover.....

I added some images from wrapping paper I liked and glittered it up a bit and here it is.....

I could have added more to the clear plastic cover sleeve but I suspect that this Planner is going to get a lot of use and take a beating in the months to come so I decided to not add anything to the front that could be knocked off.

So that is the start on my quest in Planning for Christmas 2012. I now have to organize what I have in my Christmas Planner.

Stay tuned.......

Now in the spirit of Keeping It Real, a movement started by some bloggers in 2011 to show that bloggers are real people and live real lives with real problems and that our homes are not always in perfect condition, I am going to show you what my home looks like while taking Christmas down.

First, I am on a quest to become more organized which means getting rid of things that I no longer use or need.

The first things that I packed away after Christmas was Christmas music and movies.

Years ago, I had bought 3 larger photo storage boxes for these.

I usually replace regular CD's in a stand in the Dining Room, where my stereo is, with all my Christmas Music.

Yes, I still have cassettes. After I took this picture, I did decide to donate most of these cassettes to our church Flea Market and those that I really liked, I will replace with CD's for next Christmas ( added to a list of What to Buy in my Christmas Planner).

And I am embarrassed to say that many of my Christmas movies are VHS. These were bought years ago when my sons were young.
I did decide donate quite a few and added some titles to my list to buy for next Christmas. I plan on buying these through the year.

You also see some VHS tapes that I will not part with. Many were Christmas Decorating shows taped from HGTV back in it's early days when HGTV was worth watching. As long as I still have a DVD and VHS combo that works, I will continue to watch these. I hope I can have them transferred to DVD. Another thing I have on my list in my Christmas Planner.

Here is the lid of these storage boxes which I was able to condense from 3 to 2. I will use the other box to now store Christmas trims in .

Many of you have asked me about storage of all my decorations. I did do a post in the Summer for the Where Do You Keep It All party over at The Tablescaper.
Please click HERE if you would like to read that post.

I will be showing you where I store everything through out the year.....

I started in the Living Room taking down Christmas. This room takes me 3 days to decorate and about 3 days to undecorate.

This monster ornament box we bought MANY years ago and everything from the Living Room tree fits into it.

Next I took down and packed away the villages in the Living Room and the Dining Room.

And here is all the tubs and boxes waiting to be put back where they belong. Since these tend to be quite heavy. There is a trap door in the back of the closet you see in the Hall way. This leads under the steps where our hot water heater is and these all are stored in there along with a few things from the Kitchen and the Den.

Remember I live in a townhouse with no basement. My attic is floored and we rent a Storage Unit.

Next the boxes from the attic came down and in these tubs is everything from the Hutch and the surrounding shelves and little tables.

Notice they are marked accordingly.

This is the rest of everything from the Living Room. Most of the sets from Sam's Club that I have , I have kept in the original boxes since they are quite breakable.

Plus, 2 more of these tubs!

Yep, that is just the Living Room!! They all go up the attic . I will show you in the next post on Planning for Christmas 2012 that my attic rafters come down and actually create sections. One or Two rooms are stored in a section. Therefore, I can decorate room by room.

Now many of you asked what do I do with all my regular things. They are stored in the Christmas boxes and tubs. I use my Dining Room table as "staging" area so to speak. Everything gets unpacked onto it and then gets put out. I clean everything that is being packed away before I pack it away so then I can just put it back out when the time comes. This includes all the Christmas things that I am now packing away.

Here is a glimpse of my Dining Room table...Keeping it real.....

And since I packed away my Dining Room village, here is my bufett in the Dining Room.

I have stripped the garland going up the steps down to the greenery and when all of Christmas is put away, I will add red velvet rose garland and red lights to this for Valentine's Day.

The Living Room tree is stripped down to the lights. I will change this into a Valentine's Day tree. But I will take down and put away all Christmas downstairs first and then decorate for Valentine's Day and Winter.

Here is the Living Room hutch with all of my regular things in it. Notice I still have to get to the rest of the Christmas things.......

There are many vintage items in the hutch now including my Mom's Depression glass.

And I even managed to make a wreath for the Craft Fairs that I will be participating in for the Christmas season of 2012. I plan on doing my Christmas crafting all year round so I am not swamped last minute with things to make....

Well, that was my first post in my series of Planning for Christmas 2012. I will be posting about this from time to time but have not decided how often and when I will be posting about it .
Won't you consider joining me and showing us how you are Planning for Christmas 2012????

I am linking up to these parties:

Masterpiece Monday

Mod Vintage Mix Monday

Amaze Me Monday

Metamorphosis Monday

Cozy Home Party Tuesday

Home Decor and Organizing Link Party

Nifty Thrifty Tuesday

Wow Us Wednesday

Rednesday

Vintage Thingie Thursday

Delightfully Inspiring Thursday

Open House Party Thursday

Homemaking Link Up Party

Home Sweet Home Friday

Show and Tell Friday

Potpourri Friday

Vintage Inspiration Friday

Thrifty Things Friday

Seasonal Sunday

Please take some time to visit these terrific hosts and all those joining in on the fun!

Thanks so much for stopping by today and every day that you take the time to visit with me!

Hugs,
Debbie

GOOD BYE TO CHRISTMAS 2011 and PLANNING FOR CHRISTMAS 2012!!!!

2012-01-05T14:02:00.002-05:00

Have you taken down your Christmas decorations yet????

I did start to take mine down yesterday and this is as far as I got.

I managed to get the Village from underneath the Living Room Tree put away.

I have been working all week but I will get more done when I am off Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights. With the shear volume of decorations that I have, it will take me about 2 weeks or so.

Now, I do not take everything down.

I do believe in Winter decorations.

SO some things stay up and just have Christmas items removed. Like my outside decorations in the front of my house. Right now we are in a cold snap and temps have not gotten out of the 20's for the past 2 days. It will be back in the 40's in a day or two. That is when I will remove Christmas, bring out snow men and Happy Winter things and keep the front of the house lit each night , creating a sense of warmth through these long nights of Winter to come.

Last Year's Outside Winter Decorations 2011

This cute little snow man tea pot is something Joe got for me with his comp points from the casino. It will fit in nicely with one of my Winter vignettes......

Last year, I did a post titled " Wait, Don't take down your Christmas Tree".
Please click HERE if you would like to read it.

I do leave up several trees and decorate them as Valentine's Day trees. Some may say this is more work, but for me, it is easier than taking down and packing away 17 trees!!!

Last Year's Valentine's Day Living Room Tree 2011

Valentine's Day Dining Room Tree 2011

New Victorian style ornaments that I will be using for Valentine's Day......

So stay tuned as I redecorate the house for Winter and Valentine's Day.

I do have some new ideas up my sleeve.

I will most likely post links to these posts here as I will now go back to posting mainly on my regular blog, Debbie-Dabble.

So.........Are you planning already for Christmas 2012??

I am!!

As I stopped and reflected on this Christmas, I realized that Christmas sort of got away from me this year. I realized that as I fell behind in my decorating, I ignored and did not take the TIME to do things that I really wanted to do this Christmas.

Here is a few:

Go and visit Country Folks, one of my favorite stores to visit at Christmas

Last Year's Country Folks 2010

Attend a Christmas Tea at Sugar's Tea Room as I have other years

Sugar's 2010

Attend a Christmas concert at our church

Our Church decorated for Christmas 2011

Attend a Christmas Tea at the Stegmaier Mansion

A Tea at the Stegmaier in 2011

Just take a drive to look at Christmas lights in different neighborhoods

House in the Area decorated 2011

I put off doing these things this year because I needed TIME to finish decorating the house.

I then came to the conclusion that I pretty much spent the entire season in my home.

Now don't get me wrong, I love my home , especially decorated for Christmas but the loss of all these other things this Christmas left me feeling quite sad.

As if Christmas passed me by this year.....

So I am already planning for next Christmas ..........

I am working on a Christmas Master Plan that I will keep in a Christmas Binder that I have been working on. Maybe you think that this may be too regimented an approach but I work full time so I need to be organized and apparently, I need to be more organized than I was this year. SO I have started to plan for next Christmas.

I have already looked at this year's calendar and are you aware that in the United States, our Thanksgiving in 2012 will be an early one?

On November 22!!!!

This will give us almost an extra week added to the Christmas season!!!! Yippee!! More TIME to prepare......

December 1st is a Saturday, giving us 5 weekends in December next year....

Christmas Eve will be a Monday and Christmas Day will be a Tuesday because of Leap Year in 2012......

December 2012

I will be posting my progress and thoughts on this plan through out the year here on A Debbie-Dabble Christmas so please check in from time to time to see what I am up to.

And of course, I plan on posting all things Christmas here through out the year.

This weekend, we will be visiting our good friends, Tony and Anne Marie. Anne Marie's home is always beautifully decorated but especially so at Christmas. She has left her decorations up and I will be taking a lot of pictures so please come back for the Tour of her home this coming Monday.

Anne Marie and Tony's House 2010

You will not be disappointed!

I also want to show you this darling stocking I won in Shannon's Giveaway over at Cozy Home Scenes.
Shannon is starting a new Blog Party which will be held on Tuesdays. It will be called Cozy Home Party and you can link up posts featuring pretty much everything and anything. I know I will be linking up and joining in on the fun!

Click HERE to read about it.

I LOVE the stocking, Shannon!! Thanks so much!!

And one last thing....

Joe went to Wegman's Food Store the other day.

These cards were originally $16.00 a box......

He bought these 4 boxes for 50 cents a box!! He figured out that it was 96% off!!!

Have I trained him well or what??????

I am linking up to these parties:

Masterpiece Monday

Blue Monday

Mod Mix Monday

Amaze Me Monday

Metamorphosis Monday

Tabletop Tuesday

Cozy Home Party Tuesday

Nifty Thrifty Tuesday

Wow Us Wednesday

Rednesday

Vintage Thingie Thursday

Open House Party Thursday

Home Sweet Home Friday

Show and Tell Friday

Potpourri Friday

Vintage Inspiration Friday

Thrifty Things Friday

Pink Saturday

Seasonal Sunday

Please take some time to visit these terrific hosts and all those joining in on the fun!

Thanks so much for stopping by today and every day that you take the time to visit with me!

Hugs,
Debbie

CHRISTMAS IN OUR CHURCH

2012-01-01T21:51:00.010-05:00

First ,I would like to wish you all a very Happy and Healthy New Year!!!

On Christmas Day, I was astounded at how beautiful I thought our Church looked decorated for Christmas.

Unfortunately, I did not have my camera with me. So when we went to mass this morning, I took my camera so I could share it with all of you.

Welcome to St. Maria Goretti Church which was dedicated in 1977. So it is a fairly new parish.

As you enter the church, you are greeted by this huge live tree surrounded by red poinsettias around the base and decorated with white lights.
This tree sits in the center of the vestibule before entering the Church itself.

When you walk through the doors of the Church, this is your first view.

There is a skylight directly above the cross in the ceiling.

As you approach, you can see the beautiful marble on the altar floor.

The Sculpture on the top left behind the cross signifies Bethlehem and the Birth of Jesus.

The Sculpture to the right signifies the Holy Spirit and the bottom one signifies the Ressurection with Jesus rising from the dead and leaving the tomb.

Usually the back of the altar is flanked with several live Christmas trees lit with white lights.

This year, they decided to use these metal frames in the shape of a tree that are pot holders for the Poinsettia plants which are donated by members of the parish. These frames were used when the church was first built but I have never seen them used since we have been parishioners for the past 15 years.

I thought that the trees created out of poinsettias are striking!

Unfortunately, they did not have the little trees with lights lit when I took these pictures.

With the sunlight coming down through the skylight and the sidelight to the right of the altar, I switched to Candlelight Mode on my camera.

The red really pops, don't you think?

The manger scene is placed directly in front of the Altar.

During all masses on Christmas Eve ( we have 3), our priest carries the Christ Child into church and places him in his crib. However, at the 4:30 pm, Mass which is the Children's Mass, an actual real baby was placed in the crib during the Christmas Pageant presented by children of the Parish.

To the right side of the Altar are the 3 Wise Men.

The feast of the Wise Men or Epiphany is next Sunday on Jan. 8th.

It is customary for many in my area to leave their Christmas Decorations up until then.

With the sun shining on this poinsettia tree from the side light to the right, the poinsettias looked like red velvet.

On your way out of the church into the vestibule, you see the beautiful large live tree again.

I did not take any pictures outside of the church but you can see in this picture, looking beyond the tree, looking out the glass windows, 2 trees in huge urns on each side of the Entrance Doors.

This is a picture of what the outside of our church looks like .

The Banquet Hall is connected to the Church on the left hand side.

This is the story of St. Maria Goretti, the patron Saint of young women and victims of Rape.

b: 1890 d: 1902 Patroness of youth, young women, purity, and victims of rape

There really isn't much to tell about St. Maria Goretti because she died when she was 12 years old.

Born in Corinaldo, Ancona, Italy, on October 16 1890; her farm-worker father moved his family to Ferrier di Conca, near Anzio. Her father died of malaria and her mother had to struggle to feed her children.

In 1902 an eighteen-year-old neighbor, Alexander, grabbed her from her steps and tried to rape her. When Maria said that she would rather died than submit, Alexander began stabbing her with a knife.

As she lay in the hospital, she forgave Alexander before she died. Her death didn't end her forgiveness, however.

Alexander was captured and sentenced to thirty years. He was unrepentant until he had a dream that he was in a garden. Maria was there and gave him flowers. When he woke, he was a changed man, repenting of his crime and living a reformed life. When he was released after 27 years he went directly to Maria's mother to beg her forgiveness, which she gave. "If my daughter can forgive him, who am I to withhold forgiveness," she said.

When Maria was declared a saint in 1950, Alexander was there in the St. Peter's crowd to celebrate her canonization. She was canonized by Pope Pius XII in 1950 for her purity as model for youth.

She is called a martyr because she fought against Alexander's attempts at sexual assault. However, the most important aspect of her story is her forgiveness of her attacker -- her concern for her enemy extending even beyond death. Her feast day is July 6. St. Maria Goretti is the patroness of youth and for the victims of rape.

I hope you enjoyed your tour of my Church decorated at Christmas. I thought it looked particularly beautiful and I hope you did too.

I am linking up to these parties:

Masterpiece Monday

Amaze Me Monday

Metamorphosis Monday

Wow Us Wednesday

Rednesday

Open House Party Thursday

Home Sweet Home Friday

Show and Tell Friday

Potpourri Friday

Pink Saturday

Seasonal Sunday

Itz Festival Time!

Please take some time to visit these terrific hosts and all those joining in on the fun!

Thanks so much for stopping by today and every day that you take the time to visit with me!

Hugs,
Debbie

LAST REMNANTS of 2011 CHRISTMAS SEASON!

2011-12-30T02:16:00.003-05:00

I hope you had a wonderful Holiday season this year!!

If you would like to read about My One Little Word that I have chosen for the year of 2012 that will guide me through the upcoming year, please click HERE to visit Debbie-Dabble, regular blog and see what word I have chosen....

As this year winds down and the Christmas season is drawing to a close, I thought I would share with all of you what I have been up to.

Yesterday, the 29th, was my oldest son's 30th Birthday! I can hardly believe that 30 years have passed ....

I made turkey for Christmas Day and after I make turkey, I usually make Turkey Soup several days later.

I just make a broth soup and then have noodles cooked up and add it to the broth. I usually send 3/4's of it home with the boys as I did yesterday.

And I did get to do some after Christmas shopping.

Many of you may remember that I had gastroenteritis on Christmas Day last year and remained sick for several days and never got out to shop until almost everything was gone....

Thank God I did not get sick this year...I kept praying I would be well this year....

The day after Christmas was a bust as far as where we went for sales. If you read my previous post, you will see why.

Then several days later , Target started to put out all the Christmas items that they had over
stocked and had still had in the back.

I knew this because I have several inside sources that told me there was 40 pallets of Christmas things not brought out yet.
Target usually does this every year.

I picked up 3 sets of these at half price so they were $3.50 each.

Battery operated Warm white LED that you could put anywhere and use year round...

And here is where I used them.

2 sets fit perfectly on the 3 shelves of Joe's Grandmother's Hutch that is part of my Dining Room set. I have never been able to light this hutch up.

By the way, I bought another new camera. A better model of the the one I had , which I will be sending back to Kodak for repair. I thought it would not hurt to have 2.

You know how much I LOVE the candlelight feature on these cameras!!

I just love how my Moss Rose china and depression glass pieces look lit up in the hutch!!

All I did was wind the wire around the dishes on the shelf and place the battery packs so that you could flip the switch when you slide open the glass doors a bit.

Michael's is a disappointment because they actually had better sales BEFORE Christmas.

I bought this tin container that I stuck this little tree in for 70% off and I had a 20% off total purchase coupon. It was originally $9.99 so that took this down to a little over $1.00. I bought 2 and I put all the Christmas cards we received in the other one since I truly have no where to display them.

Next in Target were these little tinsel trees. They are 12 inches tall and were $2.50 at half price!
I bought 2 silver and 2 white because I figured these could be used for other holidays too and you could place these little cuties anywhere as accent pieces!

Now on to some crafting materials.....

These were in Target for $1.00 a pack at half price.

These were down to 50 cents a roll at Dollar General....

And I finally did get my Deco Mesh at Sam's Club. It was originally $6.92.

It never did get marked down to half price but at $4.91 a piece, I knew that was a final markdown.
A little Birdie has told me that if a price at Sam's Club has a 1 on the end, it is a final markdown and will not be marked down any further....

Bought 2 packs of this vintage looking garland at Target for $3.00 each....

This was $2.00 at Target. I saw the stars and I am thinking of using it on my Patriotic tree in the summer....
I also bought a set of red lights for that tree. Last year I had only blue and white lights on my Patriotic tree because I had packed all the red ones away with the Valentine's day decorations.

I bought 3 packs of this garland before Christmas for 70% off at Boscov's.
I saw this used on a blog and since I will have a white tree somewhere next year, I am thinking of maybe using it on that tree next year.....

And a set of purple light at Wegman's Food Store for $1.72.

I am thinking Easter.....

You may remember that I used these lights on the inside of my two 7 foot trees.
They were originally $20.00 at Sam's Club and I was lucky to find 2 sets marked down to $12.31!!
A great price for 150 count.

Okay, I always say the reason why I have so many trees in the house at Christmas is because I am addicted to ornaments...

Here are some new ones that I bought...

These were bought at Boscov's for $2.09 each with discount..

$1.50 each at Target and will go on my Summer Rose and Tea Cup tree...

I can't believe that I actually found snow flakes the color of my Craft Room walls.

50 cents a pack at Target!

And these will also be used in my Craft Room.
70% off at A.C. Moore's.
I am thinking of hanging them from my Chandy in there..

More white snowflakes and a natural bird ornament. Planning on using these on a Winter tree or two.....

And Shatterproof Balls!!

The large packs of red, gold, silver and burgundy ones were bought at Wegman's for $2.12 a pack and the tubes were bought at the Dollar Store for 50 cents a tube.

These will be for wreaths that I will make for the Craft Fairs I will be participating in next year.
I also use the Christmas flower bushes from the Dollar Store as fillers in my wreaths so I bought about 20 of them at 50% off and they are stored in our storage shed for next year's Christmas crafting...

I had also bought green balls at Wegman's too and they are on my Craft Room tree...

Love the pink, white and green on this tree...

Now these were $2.09 at Boscov's. Loved the Birdhouses with a heart opening.
Great Winter and Valentine's Day decorations.

You can see that my mind is turning anf turning, don't you?

And I bought several of these birdhouse ornaments at Dollar General that were 75% off before Christmas!!
25 cents each!!

This cute birdie was $2.09.

I guess you can see that there is a theme deveolping, don't you??? Stay tuned ......

And I loved these silver and gold framed ornaments also for 25 cents each at Dollar General!!
Can be used any time of the year...

Bought about 4 of each....

Even though this year's Christmas season is over, I am already planning for next year's season.

I will also be showing you a Christmas Organizing Project that I am working on and I plan on posting Christmas things through out the year here on this blog.

Money cards for great nieces and nephews and mailman and hairdresser for next year.
Clearance at $1.29 a pack....

4 packs of invitations for my Christmas Open Houses for next year.

Are you ready for this one...
34 cents a pack at one of the Party Marts!!!!!!

I send out close to 70 Christmas Cards.

Sandra Kuck Cards for $2.50 a pack....

These were $2.50 each......

And I forgot to take a picture of another kind that I bought for 75 cents a box!!

You are probably tired of seeing this nativity set but I bought the gold trees at Wegman's for $2.52 each to add to this vignette!

Also at Wegman's were these mercury glass candle sticks for $4.72 each!!

These can be used year round....

And Mercury glass votives for $1.12 at Wegman's.....

Christmas computer stationary for $1.50 a pack at Michael's....

That was a glimpse of my Christmas Organizing Project!!

And now a few beautiful gifts that I recieved from my dear friend, Anne Marie....

Love the little pink birdie that I placed on this little tree.....

And these sweet little ornaments.....

I wanted everyone to see these ornaments so I hung them on my Dining Room Chandy!!

So that is all of my haul so far!!

As you can see, many things I will be using year round and for other holidays!

You have to think outside the box!!

Many of you have asked when I started decorating for Christmas and when will I take everything down.

I actually had the upstairs decorated before Oct. 31. I like to have the entire house done for the weekend after Thanksgiving but I got really behind this year and did not finish until the first weekend of December.

That really set me back in regards to other things that I wanted to do this Christmas Season.
I will be doing a post about this in a few days so please come back for that one.....

I used to take my decorations down right after New Year's but I have gone back to the old tradition that is still quite popular in my area of leaving the Christmas decorations up until Jan. 6th which is the Feast of the Three Kings in the Catholic Church.

I will be honest...
I also don't start to take everything down until then because I am working full time and just can't seem to get to it until then...

Now I DO leave a lot of the decorations up as Winter Decorations and I leave up 5 trees and convert them over to Valentine's Day trees. This is actually easier for me with the volume of decorations that I have.

As I mentioned before, I will continue posting Christmas related things on this blog through out the year.
But for the most part, I will return to my regular blog, Debbie Dabble, and be doing the majority of my posts there.
I would like to invite those of you who signed up as new followers of this blog this year to please also follow me on Debbie-Dabble.

I will be celebrating my 3 year Blogging Anniversary in Jan. on Debbie-Dabble and I will be hosting a Giveaway!

I am linking up to these parties:

Home Sweet Home Friday

Show and Tell Friday

Potpourri Friday

Vintage Inspiration Friday

Thrifty Things Friday

Pink Saturday

Seasonal Sunday

Masterpiece Monday

Mod Mix Monday

Amaze Me Monday

Metamorphosis Monday

Blue Monday

Tabletop Tuesday

Nifty Thrifty Tuesday

Wow Us Wednesday

Rednesday

Open House Party Thursday

Please stop in to visit these Hosts and those who are playing along!!

Wishing all of you a HEALTHY and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
( I will be at work!)

Thanks so much for stopping by to visit today and everyday that you took the time to visit me during this Holiday Season!!

Many Hugs,
Debbie

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas!!

2011-12-26T17:17:00.008-05:00

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas!!

We had a wonderful time with our family and they ate me out of house and home!!

That is fine though!!

I worked last night on Christmas Day night. Not too bad, only 9 patients and very quiet.

Joe was off today so I sent him to Sam's Club for this.......

I would not be out of work in the morning for the 7 am opening.....

Yes, deco mesh which I thought would be half price!

WRONG!!! Regular price was $6.92 so I thought it would be $3.00 and change. Joe fought off about 40 people he said to get in the doors and he was so proud of himself being first one up to the registers and then he finds out all Christmas is NOT 50 % off and my deco mesh was one of the items not reduced!!

He tells the clerk she better beware because it is going to get ugly when all those other shoppers come to get checked out!!

Never got my Deco Mesh but I will check tomorrow on my way home from work....

We went to Target and I was very disappointed so that was a bust!

I drove home and went to bed while Joe ventured out again.

When I got up in the afternoon, I found that he had bought me one of my favorite Calendars at the Calendar Kiosk in our Mall for 50% off.

Love the Cynthia Hart Calendars.....

Then I had been talking about wanting a white tree.

And I was pleasantly surprised to find out he had gone to WalMart and braved the crowds there and bought me a 6 1/2 foot pre lit white tree for $19.00!!

WHOA!!!

Now you are thinking where in heaven's name am I going to put this tree. Well, I will figure that out next Holiday season but I think it will be replacing a tree I already have.

So that is it as far as my bargains or lack there of.

I did get another camera and it is charging so hope to have some new pictures posted tomorrow. I have to send the "old " new camera back into the company.

Hopefully, I will be back with another post in a day or two when I figure out the new camera......

Hugs,
Debbie

THE REASON FOR THE SEASON!

2011-12-24T06:32:00.006-05:00

Well, the food is in the oven and on the stove for Christmas Eve Holy Supper.

This is a Polish tradition that both Joe and I grew up with.

It is traditionally a meatless meal.

Tonight, on Christmas Eve, I will be serving Pierogies, Scallops , Shrimp, whole boiled potatoes with butter , mushrooms and Chicken Fingers for Joey who does not care for fish.

Jim and Danielle and Joey will be here tonight to celebrate Christmas Eve. I am off tonight.

We will exchange our gifts after our Christmas Eve Dinner.

I really do not buy a lot of gifts anymore as the Boys ask for money since they are out on their own.

This will be the second year that Joe and I will not be exchanging gifts. We have reached a point in our lives together that when we need something or want something we just go and buy it.

Plus in all honesty, I love to shop after Christmas when you can get better deals!!

We give Joe's parents gift cards for gas and food because at their age, they really do not need anything either.

Tomorrow, the Boys and Danielle will be back for Christmas Day dinner.
I will be serving turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, ham, kielbasi, horseradish and corn.

I have had every holiday meal here at our home for the past 24 years. Ever since my Dad passed away and my Mom sold her home 3 months later and moved to a Senior Citizen's Apartment. She used to come to both my sister's and my house for holiday meals.

Tomorrow morning , Joe and I will go to Christmas Day Mass and celebrate the true Reason for the Season, the Birth of Jesus!

I am working tomorrow night but that is okay as everything will be over by then....

And Joe is off on Monday so we will be hitting some after Christmas sales as soon as I get out of work in the morning!!

Wishing you and yours a very MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Hugs,
Debbie

DECORATING AT WORK, BAKING AND COLLECTIONS!!

2011-12-21T15:33:00.012-05:00

Well, this is most likely my last post before Christmas so.....

I want to wish all of you a MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

And may you spend it with those you love!!

I have a new Ops Manager at work and she wanted to decorate our department so that we could make a decent showing in the annual Christmas Decorating Contest that the Health Care System I work for holds.

Now other years, since they moved my department to a different location other than the main large hospital, we have had very few decorations.
Someone mentioned my name and long story short, I was sort of put in charge of Christmas decorations. Imagine that????

So here is a tour of where I spend most of my time....

Welcome to the Rehab Department in which I work.......

This is what you see when you get off the elevator in Rehab. This hallway leads down to our Break Room on the right and the Day Room for patients at the end of the hallway on the left.

I thought 2 wreaths on each side of the walls would be a nice Welcome.

I made the wreaths....

This is our Nurse's Station.....

I had this spare potted tree in our Storage Shed ( you know me with trees).

I decorated it with some Shatterproof Balls....

We don't really have the space for a large tree in the station....

This is a live poinsettia. When I was tying the bow around the pot, I thought it was silk because of the glitter on the leaves and then I saw the dirt in the pot!!!

I had this candle holder ( also down my storage shed ) so I decorated it a bit and since we can not have candles, I just put some glittered balls where the candles would go....

You can see 2 of my co workers in the background....

One of my co workers from night shift brought in the garland and gold bows....

I also had a spare Alpine trees so I put this in an out of the way spot in our busy Nurse's station and added some red and gold ornaments bought by our Nurse Practitioner.

I placed it on top of a box which I wrapped with a blanket and used a little tree skirt that I brought in from home.

Our Unit Secretary covered most of the art work on the walls with red and gold foil wrapping paper making them look like presents!

Down the hallway , is the Day Room. It is a large room with tables and the patients some times eat lunch in there. In the evening when they are done with Physical Therapy, some of them spend time in there with their families. There is a 60 inch big screen TV and sometimes, a volunteer with come in and play Bingo and other games with the patients.

So that is where we decided to place the big tree.
'Here are the windows , looking into the Day Room from the hallway. I sprayed Snow on them....

I love how you see the lights of the tree looking in the windows....

And here is the tree.....

I decorated it with just plain ball ornaments and we had a bunch of snow flake ornaments from the Dollar Store from previous years.

We had wrapped boxes as presents last year and I brought in a lighted house that I was not using for under the tree....

I know this is blurry but I thought it still looked pretty.....

Simple but I think it looks pretty. The Day Room will surely be used on Christmas Day by whatever patients that we are not able to send home and have to stay in the hospital. They can enjoy it with their families.....

Well, that was my Tour of where I spend probably most of my life!!!! And this is where I will be Christmas Day Night.....

I did find time to bake cookies....

Chocolate chip cookies , fresh out of the oven....

And Potato Chip Cookies....

I also made fudge, Ricotta Cheese cookies with Butterscotch drops and Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chip cookies.

I will be sending some home with the boys on Christmas Day.....

In a previous post, I showed you books that I had saved. These were the Christmas books that I used to read to both of my sons.

Some I bought new and some are vintage Golden Books from Estate Sales....

Frosty, Santa's Toy Shop and Santa's Surprise Book are ones that I remember from my childhood.....

And these were newer ones....

And I loved this book that I bought at a Catholic Guild Store..

I have collected Praying Santa's since then....

And Joey, my oldest son, always loved " A Christmas Carol" because there was a ghost in the story!!

LOL!!

And I want to share with you my Christmas Mug collection!!!

These are the first things I unpack when getting out the Christmas decorations!!

I have had these 3 for many years.....

I love the handles....

I collected these Coke Santa Mugs from Long John Silver's also many years ago....

Each one has the description of the picture on the front....

And I love my vintage cup that I bought at a yard sale.....

It is a Lefton....

and these are 2 new mugs that I bought for 25 cents each at a church Flea Market....

I just LOVE the pictures on these 2....

Love the horse and buggy inside this mug....

And the bottom of it.....

Well, that pretty much is the end of all the pics I took with my now broken camera.

It will take weeks to have it repaired so I am thinking of buying another one and having 2 , using one as a spare.

Any suggestions on what type of camera I should now get??? Something in the $150 $175 price range????

I am off Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights so I will be home Christmas Eve. We will be having our traditional Polish Holy Supper with pierogies, scallops, whole potatoes with butter, shrimp and chicken fingers for Joey since he does not like fish.
Joe and I will be going to Christmas Day Mass and I will be serving Christmas Day Dinner with turkey, stuffing, ham and kielbasi.
Jim, Danielle and Joey will be here both days .

That will be my Christmas present....spending it with the people I love the most.

I am working Christmas Day Night but that is okay. Hospitals don't shut down for the Holidays and someone has to do it.
I do look forward to the time when some day I can stay home for an entire Holiday and not have to go to work. In the last 34 years, I only ever had 2 entire Christmas holidays off and that was with the birth of each one of my sons.

I hope I live long enough to actually get a Christmas Eve and a Christmas Day off!!

SOOOOOOO.......

I will close by wishing all of you a very MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

I am linking up to these parties:

Open House Party Thursday

Vintage Thingie Thursday

Show and Tell Friday

Home Sweet Home Friday

Potpourri Friday

Vintage Inspiration Friday

Pink Saturday

Seasonal Sunday

http://www.aholidayhaven.com/

Metamorphosis Monday

Masterpiece Monday

Table top Tuesday

Rednesday

Wow Us Wednesday

Please stop by and visit these wonderful hosts and those who joined these great parties.

Thanks so much for visiting me!!

Hugs,
Debbie

THANKS and TWEEKS!

2011-12-19T08:30:00.010-05:00

Hello!!

First off, I have several thanks that I need to say.

I want to shout out a huge THANK YOU to everyone who visited my Christmas Blog so far this season!! Whether you left a comment or not, I truly appreciate your visits.
I know everyone does not have the time to comment during this busy time of year but I check my stats and I am amazed by how many visits were paid to my blog!!

Thank You!

I also want to thank everyone who featured or mentioned my Christmas Blog on their blogs :

Potpourri Party over at 2805

Sheila over at Note Songs

Gingerbread Party over at Cozy Home Scenes

Read 'Em All Tuesday over at Toostie Time and Esther from Shabby Cottage Collectibles for featuring my Christmas blog on Toostie's Blog!!

And to Scot at The Adventures of Tartanscot for featuring one of my trees in his Christmas Decorating Contest!!
Please click HERE if you would like to see my 17 Christmas Trees!

I also entered a Christmas Tree Contest over @ A Whimsical Christmas.

And Kirsten over at Mushki Loves for featuring my Christmas Blog!

I am so flattered!! I must be blushing!

If I left anyone out, please forgive me and email me so I can include you!!

I also want to thank Natasha over at Keeping the Christmas Spirit Alive, 365 for including my story of Polish Holy Supper on Christmas Eve and the tradition of Pierogies in her post on Christmas Food Traditions. Thanks so much ,my sweet friend!!

I also was contacted by Dave and Mary Morris who have a web site featuring Front Porches. They asked if they could use a picture of my Front Door decorated for Christmas on their web site. Click HERE for a link to their beautiful site, Front Porch Ideas and more. I will keep you posted as to when they will add my pic to their site! Thanks so much, Mary and Dave!

Please click HERE to see the page that i have been featured on.

And this is long over due but I also want to thank Cindy Adkins for including my story in her E Book "Angels at my Door". Click HERE to read about it!
Cindy, dear friend, I am so very honored!

I also want to thank those that posted pictures of my home on Pinterest!
Again, I am so flattered!!

And also THANK YOU to those who emailed me about my Home Tour!! Thanks so much!!

THANK YOU ALL!!!

Much love and many hugs going out to all of you!!

Okay, now I am starting to blubber like a fool......

Today, I want to show you some changes to my Christmas decor. After I finally finished decorating, I then had time to go around and do some tweeking!

I am so glad that I have taken a bunch of pictures and downloaded them to my computer before because my camera is on the blink!! I cannot delete pics and I cannot download pics!!
I am so aggravated about it as it is only 6 months old!
Actually I am sick about it!
So I will see where I will be going from here with this camera problem!

The first change is to the outside decorations was a dusting of snow on December 7th which happened to be my youngest son's , Jim, Birthday. It always has snowed on his birthday!!

I took this picture before I went to bed , hanging out the front door in my night gown!!
LOL!

Now here is what it looked like the next morning.....

Just a dusting but what a difference a bit of snow makes......

Love how snow looks on the garland....

And the flower bed looks so much better with a bit of snow....

Now we will go back inside....

I was inspired by so many things I have seen on Blogs and this idea was one of those inspirations....

I took gold netting like fabric that I had and arranged it on the top of the entertainment center where one of my nativity sets is.....

I also received a beautiful Christmas card that reminded me of this nativity set so I taped it to the base of the angel. Can you see it behind Baby Jesus???

Doesn't Mary on the card look like the figurine?????

I added the cute vintage reindeer to this vignette and filled it with 2 of my Childhood Knee Hugger Elfs.......

Added Shatter proof Balls to these shelves.....

Added , what I call a small accessory tree to the side of the platform in the Living Room for more lighting.....

And another one to the vignette on this chair.....
This made 17 Christmas trees decorated or lit in our home this year.....

Then Joe bought these LED branches for me. They are the Warm White LED lights and do NOT have that bluish light to them......

They add just a touch of light to the hutch...

And more Shatter Proof Balls inside the hutch....

Finished the garland going up the steps......

I have a set of Candle Lights on this garland to match those on the Living Room Tree....

When I showed you the Dining Room, I didn't have the chandy decorated yet.

I added some ornaments.....

The pink snowlfakes are from the Dollar Store several years ago and they only had 2 left then....

And sadly never carried them again!!

Can you see the crystals glistening.....

I was standing in the Kitchen one day and looked into the Living Room and just loved how the light was caught up in the crystals!

And I found 2 cute cupcakes ornaments from A.C.Moore's....

Aren't they so cute? Loved the pink and green colors. They also had them in red and green...

And I moved this angel into the Dining Room when I had no room for it out in the Den....

I just couldn't leave a tree bare so I added a pink bow to the top of this alpine tree and found some angel ornaments up in the attic....

And hung this under the kitchen cabinets....

It is actually the lid of a Christmas tin....

And I placed all of my son's childhood Christmas books in the bottom of the tin and placed it under the end table that the tree in the Den is on top of.....

These newer and vintage Golden books will be featured in another post...

Then I added a few Snow flake and snow men ornaments to this alpine tree...

And added some silver balls and ice blue icicle ornaments to the Powder Room tree...

And blue balls and a painted Snow man ornament to the swag in the Powder Room...

After seeing the pictures that I took of this tree, I adjusted the purple balls since they looked to all be in the front of the tree before and added a bow made out of purple glittered ribbon to the top....

You may or may not remember this tree skirt that I bought at a Thrift Shop for half price paying only $2.50????

Here it is in the Guest Room after I changed out the tree skirt that I had with this tree originally....

The pink ruffle matches a lot of things in this room....

And I changed up the top of my fake mantle a bit by added some vintage looking angel figurines and vintage reindeer....

So those are some of the changes and additions that I made as I went around the house tweeking decorations!!

If you missed my Home Tour, there are links to each room in my Side Bar!!

I was busy last week because of company coming and an Open House that I hold every year for people from our church that have helped us with the fund raisers that we were in charge of and assisted with.

I did forget to take pictures!! What else is new??? LOL!

I am linking up to these great parties:

Metamorphosis Monday

Amaze Me Monday

Mod Vintage Mix Monday

Masterpiece Monday

Tabletop Tuesday

Wow Us Wednesday

Rednesday

Open House Party Thursday

Potpourri Friday

Show and Tell Friday

Vintage Inspiration Friday

Home Sweet Home Friday

Pink Saturday

Seasonal Sunday

http://www.aholidayhaven.com/

Please stop by and pay these hosts and their guests a visit!!

Thanks so much for stopping by today and every day that you take the time to visit me!!

Hugs,
Debbie

17 CHRISTMAS TREES!!

2011-12-11T21:16:00.010-05:00

I have taken you all through our home decorated for Christmas with the 7 parts of our HOME TOUR.

If you missed any part of the Home Tour, please click on the links to each room on my Side bar or at the top of my blog under Recent Posts..

Now I will show you all 17 Trees together!

Yep, I added 2 more...

I'm calling them accessory trees.

Now remember, I live in a small townhouse!

If it has decorations on it and/or lights up, I count it as a Tree so here we go.....

Living Room- 3 Trees

We will start in the Living Room with my 7 foot tree, Tree # 1.

Decorated mostly in red, green and gold with a Victorian theme....

On the side of the platform is the first one of what I am calling accessory trees. It adds a little bit more light to the Village.

Tree # 2

And the second accessory tree, I added to the vignette on my Victorian chair.

Tree # 3

Dining Room - 2 trees

In the Dining Room , is a 7 foot slim tree, which is Tree # 4

It is decorated in white and pink with mostly Victorian style ornaments

On the buffet , along with one of my villages, it an Alpine tree, which is Tree # 5

I have topped it with a pink bow and added angel ornaments to this tree.

Kitchen Tree

Now we go into the Kitchen for Tree # 6, my Candy and Ginger Bread Tree!

This tree is decorated with candy and gingerbread ornaments

It is a 3 foot tree that sits in a milk can....

Den - 4 trees

Tree # 7 is a 4 foot tree decorated in shades of Burgundy and Ivory.

I also have several Thomas Kinkaide ornaments displayed on this tree.

Tree # 8 is a wire tree that holds several Charles Dickens like ornaments and vintage children ornaments.

Tree # 9 is another Alpine Tree.

I have added a vintage glass topper and several snow men ornaments to this tree.

Tree # 10 is the tree I made for the parlor of Nelson Crest, my Victorian Doll house.

I added roses and ribbon to a bottle brush tree.

Powder Room Tree

The 3 foot tree in my Powder Room is Tree # 11.

Since Snow Buddies is the theme for this room, that is what this tree is decorated with.

Along with silver balls, snowflakes and icicles....

Upstairs - 6 Trees

In the upstairs bathroom on top of the shelf unit over the toilet is a white feather tree.

Tree # 12

This tree is done in purple to match the bathroom.

Master Bedroom - 2 Trees

In the Master Bedroom, is a 4 foot tree that I call " The Tree of my Childhood" because of all the vintage ornaments that I have used to decorate this tree.

Tree # 13

These vintage glass ornaments were bought at Estate and Yard Sales and Flea Markets.

There are also a few Putz House ornaments on this tree.

In Joe's Pittsburgh Corner, is a little Pittsburgh tree.

Tree# 14

I have added Penguins, Pittsburgh Penguin Hockey and Steeler Football ornaments to this tree.

Craft/ Sewing Room - 2 Trees

On top of on of the shelf units in my Craft Room is Tree # 15, a small white tree decorated with angels and Victorian mini ornaments.

This is Tree # 16, my 6 foot slim tree.

I call it my Shabby tree since I have decorated it in pink, white and sage green.

And for my last and final tree for 2011, is my Guest Room tree which is Tree # 17.

This is a 6 foot potted tree that is decorated in bright pink and white.

I have added crocheted snowflakes and clear icicles to this tree.

Well there you have it, 17 Trees!!

Have I ever told you that I LOVE ornaments and that is why I have so many trees?????

What can I tell ya, it is a sickness!

LOL!

I am linking to these parties:

Metamorphosis Monday

Masterpiece Monday

Amaze me Monday

Mod mix Monday

Rednesday

Wow Us Wednesday

Open House Party Thursday

Vintage Thingie Thursday

Show and Tell Friday

Potpourri Friday

Home Sweet Home Friday

Vintage Inspiration Friday

Pink Saturday

Seasonal Sunday

Hooked on Houses Holiday Home Tour

O Christmas Tree @ Honey We're Home

Christmas Tree Party @ 2805

Show Your Glow Party

Itz Festival Time

Christmas party @ Holiday Haven

I'll Be Home for Christmas Linky Party

2011 Tour of Christmas Homes

Christmas Home Tours 2011

Holiday Home Christmas Tree Blogger Party @ Thrifty Decor Chick

Please stop by and visit the hosts of these wonderful parties and some of those playing along.

Thanks for stopping by today and every day that you take the time to visit me!

Hugs,
Debbie

HOME TOUR, PART 7 , UPSTAIRS AND 6 MORE TREES!

2011-12-08T09:12:00.009-05:00

Welcome to the last part of our HOME TOUR, Part 7, the UPSTAIRS.

I hope you have enjoyed your our of our Home decorated for Christmas!!

I should have most likely split this post in 2 but I wanted to complete Our Home Tour in time for all the Christmas Blog Parties!

If You missed Part 1, the Front Yard, Please click HERE

If you missed Part 2, the Kitchen, please click HERE

If you missed Part 3, the Dining Room, please click HERE

If you missed Part 4, the Living Room, please click HERE

If you missed Part 5, the Den, please click HERE

If you missed Part 6, the Powder Room, please click HERE

Now grab a cup of tea and I will take you upstairs.....

I finally finished the garland on the railing....

When I posted about the Living Room, I did not have it up as I was still decorating and it is far easier to carry boxes and tubs up and down all the steps without having to watch where you grab the railing....

You can see the lights on the garland reflecting on the pictures on the wall....

I have weaved a berry and red velvet garland through the evergreen garland.....

One of my Teddy Bear's that sing sitting on the steps.....

I have white light and a set of 40 candle lights on the garland....

The bow matches all the swag and the tree topper in the Living Room....

I have Victorian Emphera Santa's hanging from the garland.....

And Thomas KinKaide Stockings hanging at the top.....

The top of the stairs....

Some of my lusterware collection....

Now I know many of you would have painted this fan another color but I am a Victorian Style gal and I love the gold.....

Another angel....

More of my Lusterware Collection in the Hallway....

Love this pic with the sun shining through the Craft Room window into the Hall way....

A Nativity figurine of Joseph, Mary and Baby Jesus ......

Love the colors with the sun shining on it. I actually took this by mistake leaving the candle light feature on but love the way this came out.....

This is the wreath that I made last year for the door to my very small bathroom.

It is the smallest bathroom known to man .

The color scheme of the bathroom is tan, purple and sage green....

Last year, this bathroom was the only room with out a Christmas tree in the house.

I decided to change that this year...

I used my white feather tree and added ornaments that I bought at a flea market to the tree...

So this is Tree # 10

The tree is set up on the shelf unit above the toilet.

The bathroom is so small that I really can not take any other pics of it ( plus I have to clean it)

Now we will go into the Master Bedroom...

This is Tree # 11 and it is my Vintage Tree, the tree of my Childhood.

This is a 4 foot pre lit tree that I added more lights too and is identical to the one that is in my Den.

I have decorated it with all vintage glass ball ornaments and a glass topper.

And I also used silver tinsel like they used in the 60's when I was growing up.

There are also some vintage putz house ornaments on this tree...

Below is a combination Plasticville and Vintage Putz house village.....

The Plasticville red barn and blue house were always under my parent's tree on the platform that my Dad built. The rest of the pieces were flea market finds.....

The reindeer and chalk figures were my parent's.....

And lit up at night when it just sparkles.....

If you look at my side bar, you can see my childhood tree looks quite similar....

And then over in the alcove which is Joe's Pittsburgh Shrine, I have decorated a little Pittsburgh Tree for Joe....

Many of you already know that we have season tickets for the Pittsburgh Penguins AHL team, the Wilkes Barre - Scranton Penguins. Joe is also an avid Pittsburgh Steeler fan....

You can see all of his Bobble Heads....

This is tree # 12 and is set up on a roll top desk....

The tree is decorated with red presents, wooden Penguin ornaments and Steeler and Penguin ornaments....

I bought this hat for Joe to wear the week of Christmas when he is delivering mail.....

If you would like to see more of my Master Bedroom , please click HERE

And now we will go into the Craft Room....

This is a little vignette on one of the shelf units that houses my Craft supplies....

The house came from Target and was a mere $5.00 after Christmas for 75% off several years ago....

And of course the white tree is Tree # 13....

The tree is decorated with mini angel head and Victorian ornaments....

Here is a pic again taken by mistake with the candle light feature left on my camera....

And lit up at night....

Here is the Craft Room Tree which is Tree # 14....

It is a 6 foot slim tree that I bought at a church flea market .....

I call it my Shabby Chic Tree since it is decorated in colors of Pink, Green and White.....

On top of the tree, is a bow , white feathers and a doll's head....

I used white shimmery garland that looks almost like snow....

Once again, here are those mistake pics with the candle light feature....

I think I might actually use this feature again in the day time as I love the look....

I decorated this tree with pink , white and green ornaments.....

Now this tree stays up year round. I turn it into a Valentine's Day tree and then into a tea cup and rose summer tree..

And you can see the Christmas Spider in this pic.

To read about the Legend of the Christmas Spider, please click HERE

And the base of the tree....

Lit up at night and I have white and soft pink lights on this tree....

Teddy Bears , Dolls and Skates...

And the top of my Antique Sewing Machine that was Joe's Grandmother's....

The picture frame has a saying about December Babies.

Both my son's were born in December.

And that is one of their infamous Screaming Santa pictures. Please look at my side bar to see more...

LOL!!

And this mirror is above my sewing machine....

Can you see the reflection of the tree in the mirror???

If you would like to see more of my Craft/Sewing Room, please click HERE

Let's go into the Guest Room now....

Here is Tree # 15....

This tree is a 6 foot potted tree.

It is decorated in mostly bright pink and white.

It fits perfectly in this small room that is only 10 x 10!

You can see my hat rack next to the tree...

I used a vintage topper on top of the tree with a bow made out of bright pink shimmery ribbon...

The tree is decorated with some vintage glass balls , shatterproof balls, hand crocheted snowflakes , about 60 clear icicles and other specialty ornaments...

Baby's First Christmas ornament...

Dolls, an angel and bunnies at the base of the tree....

There are bright pink and white lights on this tree...

My little round table and chair.....

On the table is a church Flea market find.

Another one of the those great Sam's Club sets that they no longer carry...

I just love the pastel colors of the pieces....

The bottle brush tree is from the Christmas Tree Shop....

More of my Old World Santa's....

This one was a gift from a friend....

This is my faux fireplace mantle.....

It was a strange piece of furniture given to me for free that I turned into a fireplace mantle....

Bright pink Snowflakes.....

The top of the Mantle....

Pastel snowmen....

More of those Target houses or I guess I should say churches....

The mantle scarf was bought at an estate sale for $1.00!!

The hanger was a gift from my dear friend, Rose Marie , who just passed away on December 6th.

If you would like to see Rose Marie's beautiful home decorated for Christmas 2 years ago, please click HERE

My Teddy Bear Tea Party.....

Love the sun shining on these flowers....

And all lit up ......

The angel was a flea market sign that I embellished.....

If you would like to see more of my Guest Room, please click HERE

And that concludes the HOME TOUR of our Home decorated for Christmas.....

I hope you enjoyed it. We loved having all of you come and visit us for the Holidays!

I have linked all the posts together so if you start with Part one, our Front Yard, you can click on the links at the end of each post and continue from room to room.

Joe and I enjoyed sharing our home with all of you.....

So you have seen 15 trees and I have now added two 12 inch lit trees in the Living room so I guess you can say that I now have 17 trees lit or decorated in our home!!

Click HERE to see my 17 trees !!!

I am linking up to these parties:

Show and Tell Friday

Home Sweet Home Friday

Vintage Inspiration Friday

Potpourri Friday- O Christmas Tree

Deck the Halls Friday

Pink Saturday

Seasonal Sunday

Sundays with Santa

Metamorphosis Monday

Amaze Me Monday

Masterpiece Monday

Mod mix Monday

TableTop Tuesday

WOW Us Wednesday

Rednesday

Open House Thursday Party

Vintage Thingie Thursday

And these Christmas parties:

I'll Be Home for Christmas Linky Party

Itz Festival Time

Show Your Glow Party

http://www.aholidayhaven.com/

Christmas Cheer Blogger Block Party:

Holiday Mantles @ Michelle's

http://www.athoughtfulplaceblog.com/

http://honeywerehome.blogspot.com/2011/12/christmas-cheer-link-party-christmas.html

Holiday Decor @ Michaela Noelle Designs

Christmas Blogger Block Party

Bannisters

Hooked on Houses Holiday Home Tour

Holly Blogger Christmas

I hope you can pay a visit to all the host of these parties and some of the participants....

Thanks so very much for joining me on my Home Tour this season!!

Hugs,
Debbie

With Heavy Heart

2011-12-07T16:26:00.004-05:00

It is with a very heavy heart that I tell you today that my dear friend, Rose Marie has passed away.

She sold Victorian Style crafts under the name of Victorian Rose and her husband, Joe, who was always at her side, called to tell me that our Victorian Rose was no longer with us.

She was truly one of the most elegant women I knew and fought a long hard battle against breast cancer that had spread to her bones and other places for the past 27 years.

I will miss her greatly......

I featured her beautiful home decorated for Christmas a while ago.

If you missed it or care to see it again, please click HERE

I would appreciate it if you would be so kind to include her wonderful family in her prayers....

Hugs,
Debbie

HOME TOUR, Part 6 , the POWDER ROOM

2011-12-06T07:50:00.009-05:00

Welcome to Part 6 in our HOME TOUR.

Remember to click on the link at the end of this post to continue on to the next part of our Home Tour!!

Today I will be showing you our Powder Room.

If you missed Part 1, the Front Yard, please click HERE

If you missed Part 2, the Kitchen, please click HERE

If you missed Part 3, the Dining Room , please click HERE

If you missed Part 4, the Living Room, please Click HERE

If you missed Part 5, the Den, please click HERE

First , I want to say THANK YOU to all those who are leaving comments, to my new followers and to all those who simply stop by but do not comment. I watch my stats and see how many of you are visiting and I understand that everyone does not have the time to comment!

THANK YOU so much for your visits!!!

I have a small Powder Room downstairs but my washer and dryer is in there behind Bifold doors so it actually gets a lot of use...

Normally, I have pink frilly Victorian style decor in the Powder Room but for Winter, I change it into a Winter Wonderland....

When you walk in the door and look to the left, this is what you see....

I pulled the blue color out of the border and have a Snow Buddy Theme in this room.....

Now many of you have seen this room decorated like this before but some have not.....

And angel hanging and a wreath that I many MANY years ago....

A Snow Man picture....

I love the blue slate that I have hung above the Medicine Cabinet...

This was actually a mistake... I zoomed in a bit much and the camera took the pic but I sort of like the close up....

On a little shelf above my sink....

Not much of a sink but I do have the smallest bathrooms known to man in this house!!

And we are turning....

The shelf above the toilet....

Penguins for Joe (we have season tickets to AHL WB- Scranton Penguin Hockey)....

The middle figurine says " Penguins Hockey"!!

Below the shelf....

One of my after Clearance Target buys for $3.50!

It has batteries and lights up blue!

Now you may think how in the world is she going to get a tree on that estagere , let alone a 3 foot one....

When there is a will , there is a way!!

The tree is wired to the toile tray hanging on the wall and to the stand itself so it will not fall over or be knocked down.....

Then I straighten out all the branches right through the shelf itself....

And there it is......

And now here it is!! Tree # 9!

I can not use lights on this tree since it is not near a receptacle but for next year, I am think battery operated LED warm white lights or I may actually go with the Cool white since they do look blue and that would work in this room...

I added beaded garland, Snow Buddy ornaments, sparkly evergreen picks and blue berries along with buffalo snow stuck into the tree to fill it out!

As you can see the tree is right through the shelf...

Underneath the tree is another Target find that was $6.00 on Clearance and also lights up via battery...

Another little stand next to the estagere....

And I have Buffalo Snow under the tree......

One more shelf unit....

A swag I made...

I hang ornaments just about anywhere...

More snow Buddies....

Every Snow Buddy on this shelf has a special meaning to me....

The one of the left reminds me of my mother , who still had a wringer washer when I was a child, emptying the wringer washer with buckets.
And the one of the right is in honor of my Dad who was a carpenter by trade, see his little tool belt.

From the left, "Shop til you Drop", need I say more?
The along those same lines is "Charge!!"
And the next one is "Tea Party"

Again from the left,
"Oooops!!" , I am not the most agile person!
"Remodeling", my house is in a constant state of remodel....
And " Hill Thrill", I loved to sleigh ride as a kid since I lived on a big hill....

This is above the Bifold doors that house the washer and dryer....

And above the door way...

And here is what it looks like at night.....

Now this room will stay this way all Winter. I will change out the Christmas Snow Buddies for some Valentine's Day Snow Buddies.

Well, there is only one more Part in our HOME TOUR, the Upstairs!!

So far I have shared with you 9 trees....

There are 6 more upstairs......Click HERE to continue to the last part of our Home Tour to see the Upstairs!!

Yes, there are 15 Trees for 2011!!

They will be coming to take me away to the Funny Farm shortly.....

AND I AM FINALLY DONE DECORATING!!!

So I will have some time to start to visit everyone again and catch up!!

I am linking up to these great parties:

WOW US Wednesday

Open House Party Thursday

Show and Tell Friday

Home Sweet Home Friday

Potpourri Friday

Vintage Inspiration Party

Pink Saturday

Seasonal Sunday

Metamorphosis Monday

Masterpiece Monday

Amaze me Monday

Blue Monday

Mod Mix Monday

Tabletop Tuesday

And these Christmas blog Parties:

Show your Glow Linky Party

http://www.aholidayhaven.com/

I'll Be Home For Christmas Linky Party

Christmas Blogger Block Party

Itz Festival Time

Christmas Cheer Blogger Party:

http://www.athoughtfulplaceblog.com/2011/11/holiday-vignette.html

http://honeywerehome.blogspot.com/

Holiday Decor @ Michaela Noelle Designs

Hooked on Houses Holiday Home Tour

Holly Blogger Christmas

Please take some time to visit all the wonderful hosts of these great parties and all those who are playing along!!

Thanks so much for visiting me today and every day that you take the time to do so!!

Hugs,

Debbie

HOME TOUR, Part 5, the DEN

2011-12-03T09:43:00.010-05:00

Welcome to Part 5 of our HOME TOUR, the Den!!

Remember to click on the link at the end of this post to continue to the next room in our Home Tour!

If you missed part 1, the Front Yard, please click HERE

If you missed Part 2, the Kitchen, please click HERE

If you missed Part 3, the Dining Room, please click HERE

If you missed the Part 4, the Living Room, please click HERE

And I want to THANK everyone for all of your very kind comments!!

I also want to thank Honey over at 2805 for featuring me on Potpourri Friday this past week!!

I am so flattered and honored!! Thanks, Honey!!

Now on to my Den...
Our Den used to be the back patio of our townhouse.

Many years ago, my Dad made it into another room for us and it was the Play Room for my sons.
He took off the back door and the took out the Kitchen window.

Since it was originally a patio , it's dimensions are 8' X 20'.

When you first enter the room from the Kitchen where the back door used to be, this is what you see to the left....

The door with the wreath on it , is to a small storage room. Remember, I do NOT have a basement.

Yes, I made the wreath several years ago.....

The Cynthia Hart Victorian Calendar is hanging on the door of a pantry closet where I keep all my canned and dry goods since my Kitchen is so small.

Here is one end of the Den.....

The colors and theme for this room is mainly Burgundy, Blue and Ivory and I have mostly decorated with Dicken's like and vintage items in this room.

One wall.....

The top of the cabinet where the TV is...

I bought this solid oak reproduction Ice Chest at an Estate Sale for a mere $15.00!!!!

To one side of the TV...

A Thomas Kinkaide Music Box that plays when you wind it....

A Mr. Christmas Music Box that plays when you open the drawer.....

Again, I made all the wreaths and swags in this room several years ago...

I have finally found a Burgundy velvet like ribbon ( looked for 2 years and just could not find it)
and replaced all the bows.....

Love these carolers that I got for 50% off after Christmas one year at Country Folks Gift Store....

Have I told you how much I like shelves????

And the rest of the Carolers....

The Church Mouse was a gift from a friend.....

I try to disguise the Power Box for my all electric townhouse and the phone box......

Joe just bought me this sweet plaque at a local Department store ( Boscov's).....

This is one of 2 end tables that Joe bought at a church flea market for $6.00 each.

I do plan on painting the bottom ivory in the summer.....

I switched the Tiffany Style lamp shade onto a taller lamp base because I wanted the height of the lamp to be the same......

The lamp base is alabaster and weighs a ton!

An another one of my Old World Santa's....

Vintage looking book boxes and a sweet tin....

Some of my Burgundy Santa's....

Joe just bought this cute plaque for me at Boscov's.....

And again, you know how much I love the candlelight feature on my $100 Kodak Smart Capture camera!!

You can really see what the shade looks like lit....

And we are rounding the corner.....

Above the chair.....

Victorian looking plates that I bought on Ebay several years ago.....

I love the " Believe" sign.....

Do you BELIEVE???

I did leave my Tassel Dolls that are dressed in velvet out on this shelf......

The back door out to the patio and small yard....

Looking toward the other end of the room......

I do have a lot of Thomas Kinkaide items in this room and here is my Clock with Plates you change out for the 4 seasons......

And this is Tree # 5.......

It is a 4 foot pre- lit table top tree that I bought on Clearance for 75% off at Target one year after Christmas for $ 9.00........

I normally do not like pre lit trees because there is never enough lights on them for me and once the lights do not work, you have a problem.

I added a set of 200 LED warm white lights to this tree. Bought them at Sam's for $19.99

I am so glad that they are making LED lights in warm white because the cool white ones look blue to me and I do not care for them....

I am slowly buying the LED lights to replace my regular lights but with this many trees, it could cost me a fortune....

The tree is sitting on another one of those $6.00 end tables.......

I used this ivory beaded garland on the tree.

Can you see the roses on the beads???

I also replaced the bow on this tree with ribbon I got at a Flea Market that is vintage real velvet
ribbon and there was a price of $15.00 on the spool which looked like it was originally bought in the 60's- 70's.....

I also stuck burgundy velvet and frosted burgundy roses into this tree...

I love the way the bow looks....

The ornaments on this tree are mostly ivory and burgundy in color and are Victorian style and Thomas Kinkaide ones.....

And here it is all lit up.....

I have 2 light up Thomas Kinkaid houses underneath on the Burgundy velvet tree skirt.....

Looking at the other side of the room.....

This is the chair where I sit and BLOG!!

One of my computers is inside the armoire. I also have a lap top one....

Thomas Kinkaide cards that I framed and "A Christmas Carol" figurines that came from Boscov's many years ago when my sons were young.....

My carriage filled with Bears....

On top of the Computer Armoire is another one of those sets from Sam's Club that I bought several years ago.....

I added the wooden church and the burgundy feather tree to the vignette....

Another wreath...

The berries are blue but are reflecting the light in the pic making them look white.......

And next to the computer in the corner on a turn table is Nelson Crest, my Victorian Doll House...

To read the story about the wonderful man who built my doll house for me at the age of 88 years old, please click HERE

I have named it Nelson Crest in his honor and the family that lives there ,are the Nelson's....

Because of the candle light feature that I LOVE so much, I can show you that I have the doll house back lit.

He was not able to wire it for electricity so since it is in a corner, I have a small stool behind it and an uplight on the stool so the back is lit.....

Wreaths on the windows like my own house.....

All decorated for Christmas.....

Sorry it is a bit blurry....

From the sides....

And you spin it around to see the inside....

The bathroom....

The music room....

The little girl's room....

I did a little girl's room because I have 2 sons....

Mother and Father's room....

The Dining Room....

And the Parlor....

See the tree that I decorated???

That is Tree # 6.......

This is my perfect house because it has NO Kitchen!!!

Moving around the room again.....

This is where the Kitchen window used to be...

Looking in the Kitchen....

This is a China Cupboard the my neighbor gave me......

The top of the China Cupboard

On top is a wire tree decorated with vintage Children and Dicken's like ornaments....

This is Tree # 7.....

Also you can see my Thomas Kinkaide Calendar.....

Love these ornaments.....

I have, again , taken out all of my Blue and Red Tranfsferware and replaced it with Christmas items....

The first shelf....

The second shelf...

The third shelf...

On a small burgundy velvet ottoman is another little vignette that I set up.....

I even hang things on the door.....

And in the corner is Tree # 8.......

It was one of a set of 2 alpine trees. The other one is in the Dining Room.

I added a set of 60 LED warm white lights and just a few winter looking ornaments to this one...

On top is a vintage Made in Germany tree topper...

I placed it in a crock on top of this marble top stand.

Underneath the China Cupboard , I have placed some vintage like toys since this room was once the Play Room....

An old doll, sitting on a drum, a rocking horse, a wagon, a teddy bear and some wooden toys along with one of my Bearington Bears.....

And I filled another crock with silk poinsettia's.....

I love the sign on the marble stand which was a gift from a friend " Wanted: One Magic Hat"

Now you know that I had to show you this in candle light!!!!!

I have battery operated candles and a string of lights in the China Cupboard...

Ooops! Forgot to turn on the candles!!

And the tree lit up.....

And we are back to the door to the Kitchen.....

I spend a lot of time in this room because this is where the main computer is located and I just love the way it looks decorated for Christmas.

I hope you are enjoying the tour of our home???

Some have asked if I do all this by myself.

Being a bit ( HA, HA) OCD, YES , I do.

Joe does all the lifting and carting around of boxes and tubs.

To continue on our HOME TOUR to the next room, please click HERE
to see our Powder Room.

I am linking up to these great parties:

Seasonal Sunday

Sundays with Santa

Metamorphosis Monday

Mod Vintage Mix Monday

Blue Monday

Amaze Me Monday

Masterpiece Monday

Table Top Tuesday

Wow Us Wednesday

Open House Party Thursday

Potpourri Party Thanks, Honey, for featuring my last week!!!

Show and Tell Friday

Home Sweet Home Friday

Vintage Inspiration Friday

Deck the Halls Friday

Pink Saturday

And these Christmas Blog parties:

Itz Festival Time

Christmas Blogger Block Party

Christmas Linky Party

Christmas Party at Holiday Haven

Show Your Glow Linky Party

http://www.athoughtfulplaceblog.com/2011/11/holiday-vignette.html

http://honeywerehome.blogspot.com/

Holiday Decor @ Michaela Noelle Designs

Hooked on Houses Holiday Home Tour

Holly Blogger Christmas

Please take some time to stop in to visit these terrific hosts and there party players!!

Thanks so very much for visiting with me!!

Hugs,
Debbie