Monday, January 13, 2014

Our grandchildren...

Good morning! I hope that your day is going well.

I'm still pretty behind in getting this house up to snuff, but thought I'd share a few photos of my grandchildren, taken on two separate days. Lately I have been vacillating between using my "real camera" (my beloved early model Canon Rebel), and using my iPhone, a fairly new acquisition (used mostly when I'm too lazy to bring my Canon somewhere). If you've read some of my earlier posts, you may know that when I'm up at Birdsong, I tend to use my phone to take photos and to post to this blog, so I have started playing with some of the photo editing apps, which are actually a lot of fun to use, especially when you're trapped in a car on a long trip! The first two photos were taken with my Rebel, and the rest with the iPhone. And no, I am by no means any kind of a pro!

My daughter's children, Jordyn and Tanner.
Jordyn has begun the process of getting braces on her teeth,
so I told her that I wanted a "before" photo!


Getting a photo of Tanner in his lime green shirt
and beads was a must!
A true Florida guy!


When we saw my son's family after Christmas,
we went over to look at the fixer-upper house they had just closed
on. 
I quickly snapped these inside the currently vacant house.
Hubby had dropped his cap, and Jason picked it up to give it to him.
Bob said to put it on his head.
I snapped these with my iPhone,
used the "Old Street Frame" in the Photo.to.Lab" app, 
and thought they came out kind of good. 
Because the house is in a state of initial cleanup,
the background was not gorgeous,
so I thought this grungy frame was just the ticket.
Goodness, you just get some of the best photos 
when you don't expect to!
I plan on putting them together and printing them out 
for an old photo booth effect whenever I have time...


Then my son took a few of Bob and I with Jason. 
I used a collage application called "Framatic" on this one...


Well, I'm sure you have better things to do than taking a walk down my photographic memory lane! Thanks for joining me today!

Sunday, January 12, 2014

A new year, and a new calendar!

Hello friends! I hope your New Year has gotten off to a great start!

OK, so I went to hang up our new calendar
on the back of the pantry door.
As I looked at the old one,
I realized that it was still on the
November page!
Really? 
Yes, really. 
That pretty much sums up how frantic the
month of December was for us.


And now here it is, almost midway
through January, and I'm just
hanging this one up...


We are back from Florida, and it's good to think about returning to our old routine. I can't believe all the work ahead of me! We took the tree down yesterday, along with the outside decorations. I still have some other inside decorations to take down, and hope to do that today. But then maybe I'll wait until tomorrow. We have been so busy from prior to Thanksgiving until now. First, getting ready for our trip to Florida to celebrate an early Christmas with my daughter's family and to get my dad (12 hours each way, and we do all the driving in one day). Then to return my dad on Jan. 2nd and to see my son and family that weekend, since they had a wedding in Key West to go to when we were down there in December. Then over to the east coast of Florida (another four hours of driving) so spend a few days with our friends in Delray Beach, where they had about 20 inches of rain as soon as we left! And now catching up with everything I wasn't able to do when I should have. Whew! But it was a great holiday season! And I hope that yours was too!

Thanks for visiting.




Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Fabric Collage: "The Christmas Present"

Happy New Year to all! I hope that this year brings you everything you hope for and more! Ours was quiet, and that's just fine with me!

I was putting away a few of our Christmas gifts and it inspired me to use one of my vintage images in a fabric collage. I was was looking at this old photo and wondering if long ago these children had received this hobby horse for Christmas. I think that it is a beautiful old photo, and decided to use it along with some scraps that I had sitting on my work table.

Some ticking and burlap,
along with old lace and buttons...



...surround the beautiful old photo...


I'm sorry that there is no consistency to the color in these photos, but we are leaving tomorrow to return my dad to Florida, and I don't have time to pretty them up. I will be out of commission for a bit since we are also visiting friends while we are down there.

I hope that you have a great day and a great week! Thanks for stopping by.

 

Sunday, December 22, 2013

Little Christmas Decorating Touches and Practically Free!

Seasons greetings! I hope that you are almost ready for Christmas. I haven't been able to post much with my dad here, but you're probably busy yourselves with little time to read blogs!

Because I didn't have a lot of time to decorate after Thanksgiving, I decided to keep it simple. I also decided to keep it cheap! Most of my decorating items were things that we already have, so I won't bore you with the repetitive details of that, but here are a few small and recently acquired things that I placed around the house.

 Our little addition this year is the wicker doll carriage
that you see below. We purchased it for about $15
at a going-out-of-business sale in a small shop in Flat Rock, NC
when we were up at Birdsong. It was really trashed as they
had it sitting outside, but sweet Mr. Perch put it back together
and gave it a coat of spray paint so that we could bring it
inside for Christmas...


This morning I decorated the covered glass bowl that
often sits on our dining room table (purchased a couple
of years ago from Pottery Barn).
You may or may not know that the bird and nest
that you see in the center of my blog banner were actually
sitting in this bowl when I took the photo that appears
in the banner.
This morning I removed the bird, nest and moss,
filled it with some silver ornaments and decorations,
and inserted copies of old Santa photos from my
collection. I copied four pictures, and glued them
in pairs back-to-back so that you would see them
from all sides.
Cost: Nothing!




And above it hangs our chandelier,
dressed in some simple artificial greenery,
purchased at Michael's for 50% off.
Last year I think we still had our crystal chandelier
hanging, and could not decorate it.
For this one, we cut apart the clusters of
greenery that are meant to put in a pitcher,
and just laid them above the arms of the chandelier...


I don't think that I've ever shared photos of our master
bedroom, mainly because it is not my favorite room in
our house.
Hubby purchased the bedroom set new just prior to
meeting me. It is nice furniture, but more in the craftsman
bungalow style. We will be shortly redecorating more in
tune with our farmhouse preference,
but in the meantime all I did in here was to add the snowflake
ribbon through the spindles on the headboard
(ribbon purchased for 50% off at Michael's),
the stockings, which we already had,
and new shams, chenille pillows, and the plaid throw
(all purchased at Target for cheap).
The "jingle" burlap pillow was purchased
at the craft show that my neighbor and I went to
up in Hendersonville for about $20.
After the New Year, I will take down the stockings, 
and flip the "jingle" pillow to the reverse side,
which shows French script. 
Voila! A winter theme to take us to spring! 



The fabric reindeer were also purchased at Target. 
I think that they were about $20 each.
I splurged a little more on the bedroom 
because I never did much in the way of Christmas decorating
in here before! 


Our friend and neighbor from Hendersonville is coming for a
few days this week to celebrate Christmas with us,
so here is the upstairs guest room,
with just a touch of Christmas.
I also put up a small feather tree in here,
and some decorative things on the night stand,
all stuff that we already had
(not shown in this picture).
Again, simple simple simple!


And in the upstairs guest bathroom
I wanted to do something neutral, simple and quiet,
so in addition to some Christmas-themed bath towels,
I couldn't resist buying this collage frame at Kohl's for 60% off.
It is shabby painted metal, and was the perfect ticket for holding
copies of more of my old Santa photos.
Since the shower curtain and walls are beige,
and I used beige and brown Christmas towels,
I didn't want to go with too much color.


And last but not least, my little studio tree.
One of Miss Phoebe's relatives watches down.


I won't have much time to post now until after the holidays, so I wish you a wonderful season with many blessings!