Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from Kentucky!  

It's been a busy week baking, making Christmas gifts and cleaning house...probably the same with all of you.  

These little shoes belonged to my father in law, I believe they are probably around 96 years old.  Can't you tell I love old vintage things especially at Christmas?  There's nothing like an old fashioned Christmas to me!  If you don't believe me just listen to Frank Sinatra!  In fact I just heard him sing this song while I was uploading these photos!

We made Lavender and Rosemary soap for our neighbors.   I grew the herbs in the garden, and added some essential oils.  Embellishments.... old hat label's I brought back from France (guys old hat factory).  Guy let us walk through the old factory and pick out what we wanted.  I have all colors, hope to find something exciting to do with all of the rest. 

Wishing you and your a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

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A Cold Day In January

Hello friends,

It’s blah here in KY….we’ve had a few sunny days,

but basically old man winter’s here.  I hope he’s kind….. so far, so good.

My sorority sisters came for dinner and wine on Tuesday evening.

By the way, they LOVED the Cheddar Cheese Wafers.

They were gone in a FLASH… and made me promise to send them the recipe.

Brrrr….It’s cold today, we’re going to have a cold, drizzling rain mixed with snow and ice tonight….

Old houses can really be drafty during the cold, cold winter.

  I guess that’s why those of us who live in them…

really do have to love them.

Warm comforters, candles, good books and hot tea are my favorite's things, during January.

Really, the only thing I’ve managed to accomplish in the past couple of week’s…. clean my downstairs, and give my mantle a new look.

What about you? How do you stay entertained and comfy during the long winter months?

Take care everyone….and try to stay warm.

The sun will come out tomorrow!!!

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Inspiration?

 

Where do you get your decorating inspiration?  I would say I get most of my inspiration  from all of you.  Your ideas and tutorials are so clear that even I can duplicate a few of them.  Anyway this week I decided to go through my enormous stack of decor magazines and start eliminating a few when I saw this 2009 Country Living magazine and there it was…. inspiration from Caroline Scheeler. 

She incorporates her childhood passion and love of horses to classic films to graceful antiques.  She doesn’t like anything too fussy in her home and they’re not coaster people.  My segments exactly!  I thought I would share a few pictures of her beautiful home.

   I love how she uses the horse collar mirror for a hat rack.

 

 

This Belgium couch is super duper! 

 

She uses this beautiful old hutch as a bar.   

 

 

 

I love this black and white horse picture. 

You can check out the link above if you want to read more about her style of decorating.

After all of her lovelies I’m almost hesitant to show you my stuff  but here goes.

Since we live in horse country I have always enjoyed a little horse decor throughout our home.

 

I’ve used this old horse collar mirror in our vintage bathroom for many years.

 

I painted the inside of our old secretary white.

 

It now holds bar glasses and a few family memento's.

 

 

   

I’m checking into having this old vintage couch reupholstered similar to hers.  I found these tips from Emily Henderson today.  She’s the host of HGTV’s Secrets From a Stylist:  Reupholster vintage pieces with panache. Look at the lines.  Keep it Simple.  Use solid heavy linen or cotton velvet, because it’s expensive to have something reupholstered. Use piping and tufting.  If it is an antique, made of quality wood, don’t paint 

 

  The living room has a fresh coat of paint.  Hallelujah!  It was a job but amazingly there wasn’t any overturned paint cans and very few oops.  After forty years of painting maybe I’m finally learning how to paint.:-)  There’s a few more changes I will be posting soon but for now……

the boss says he’s ready to play ball!

 

We have these lovely daffodils blooming all over town.  When you see these happy little faces you know spring has arrived.:-)

Thank you so much for stopping by.  Have a beautiful day. 

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My Favorite Word

 

Hello friends!

   This has become one of my favorites words!  The older I get the better this word sounds.   

I have also had one of those weeks!   It started on Monday.   You know the kind!   The one that you would like to push the forward button and definitely not the repeat.   I think when you have a stressful week, clutter just adds to it.

 

I saw this idea here at House of Smith’s (one of my favorite blogs).  She has given a complete, simple tutorial on how to make one plus the website that had a 50% discount on the vinyl letters.

Total cost was $6.00 plus shipping.

 

I had the piece of wood left over from a Halloween sign.  I also painted mine with a little grey acyclic paint and distressed with stamp pad from a scrapbooking kit, sealed it and VIOLA. 

It’s sitting on top of my China cabinet for now but in the near future it will probably be traveling to our WK cottage.

How about you?  Do you want to simplify your life?

Thank you for your comments on the old post cards post.   I enjoyed reading them all and especially thank you for sharing the information about the Louisville, KY home!

See you soon!

The secret to happiness may be to not get what you want, but

to learn to want what you get.  ~Jon D. Henson~

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Hot, Hot Fall!

It was my turn to have our sorority club meeting, and my plans was to have it in the courtyard. To me its so much easier to have dinner outside.  You do not have to clean as much.  Right?  Boy was I wrong!  

The day before, I cleaned the courtyard, and even planted fresh fall flowers.

I love the shape and color of this gourd.

It was 90 degree’s outside!  Too hot for dinning outside!

So back to cleaning the inside…….my daughter and I stayed up until 2 AM!

Finally,  the table is set…..

flowers are on the dessert buffet,

Brie is ready for the oven…..

salad, Casseroles are ready…..

Dessert was a hit.

The brie was pretty good, if I must say so myself,

and we had fun!

Was it worth it?   Yes indeed and my house is still clean.

Again, I would like to thank my followers and those of you who just check in occasionally to read my blog.  I feel like I know some of you.   I love to visit your blogs and I can even remember your dogs name!  Sadly to say, I do not even remember some of my neighbors dog name.    Anyway, I think that blogging is like a little community of friends and I enjoy visiting and keeping up with what you’re doing and I hope that you feel the same about me.

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