House pictures and shopping

Good morning friends and fellow bloggers….I can’t believe I’m on here twice in one week but things are settling back into a normal pace for me finally.

I finished an order yesterday and today I will wrap up the last two of the Christmas orders….there are 3 more that will be done after Christmas and they knew that when they placed the order. I had to make a cut off date so those who got their orders in would get them in time for Christmas and I MADE IT!

Last night we took Jamie, our daughter in-law into Milwaukee shopping for Alex’s gifts. She makes out a specific list and it’s all from places I never go into so the list and Jamie was a huge help….a 16 year old girl is not something I’m used to….boys were easy for me.

Here’s what $225 bought!   Sad isn’t it? But we got some of the items on the list…Jamie and Dan will get the rest. I need to find a few add in gifts for her and she’ll be finished.

After shopping we headed straight for THE CHEESECAKE FACTORY and after dropping $98 for the dinner (horrible huh? I think it was the drinks and 3 cheesecakes that took it over the top) We ran to the car because it was absolutely freezing out! It had dropped to 2 degrees from the time we went in shopping till then….a horribly cold night.

We then headed an hour west to pick up our grandson (Dan and Jamie’s son) from work. He had ridden in with his dad, but Dan had to work overtime and Jesse didn’t want to wait around for 4 more hours for him to get done – so he called to see if we all could pick him up. All in all it worked out very nicely. We drove around looking at Christmas lights until Jesse got off work.  So that was my evening!

I took a few more pictures yesterday and will share them with you now and then that is it for me for Christmas pictures. Our Sunday’s family get together pictures were a total blur – I’m ready to toss my camera! But I had heard if your batteries are really low it will cause this and mine were VERY LOW and finally it died on me…so maybe there’s some truth to it. If I have repeats I’m sorry.

This is on the pie safe in front of the stairway

Last Feb. when I was at the Order Writing show this one vendor was selling her show samples so I purchased a couple of them.

This is my sad little Charlie Brown tree but I love it.  I purchased the wood bucket for it awhile back at the Crafters Mall at the Dells

 This is in the corner of our my kitchen counter where my little TV usually goes.

This is on top of my other pie safe

Close-up of large Santa head that’s on our fireplace

Not very interesting or creative but the decorations in the bathroom…I normally don’t do much in there because the colors are so light and I’m not a light color person so decorating with it is difficult for me.

And finally looking out into the screen room from the family room

Bye for now!
Karen

DID A LITTLE TWEAKING and MERCANTILE GATHERING MAGAZINES FOR SALE

I’ve been reading all your blogs really late at night or very early in the morning just to get them all in.
I’m so enjoying all your decorating and it inspired me to do some tweaking….i just love all your blogs…THANK YOU!

I so didn’t like me holiday decorating this year – seems after the show I had some things in place and just left them there but it wasn’t catching my eye – and after some moving around I got a few things in place and I guess that’s where they are going to stay now – it’s too late to change or even care about it.

Today we have my brother and his family along with our family coming over at noon for our semi-annual Christmas get-together….my sister and her family can’t make it I just found out because she’s sick and they live about 2 hours away….so her daughter and family decided not to come – they live together - so I can see their side of it – and I know Shirley would have felt bad being left out of it.

I will hopefully get to take a few pictures…HOPEFULLY is the key word – seems I never get the camera in hand when I have a function here.

I got up early so I could get this posted and do a bit of sewing as well. Got 2 more orders I want to get in the mail no later than Tuesday. The rest will get done after Christmas – they came in after the deadline and it’s a good thing I made a deadline because if I didn’t I’d be working through Christmas and they wouldn’t get the items anyway.

Here’s the baskets I ordered form BASKET PAM – aren’t they pretty? I like the simplicity of just them on the top of my hutch

Some fresh Christmas green added to a wood bowl with a tea light votive on our bedroom dresser

Just some fresh greens in my bowl rack in dining room

Okay, this is from last Christmas but I so liked it this way and wish it was that way again this year but the tree is in our family room and I didn’t want to change it out….but I really like the setup

Stockings on peg rack in hallway – oh, the snowman scene I bought in PA at IN GRANDMA’S ATTIC and it’s hand painted on a piece of roofing paper!

My Santa and Sheep always sits above my kitchen cabinets

I love my sugar cones – they work anytime of the year even with greens for Christmas

This is my pewter cupboard in my dining room…I just bought the set of creamer and sugar on the bottom shelf, yesterday at the consignment shop where I take my products  - the price on it was $15 and they had a 25% Off going on so it went home with me. I had my eye on it for a couple months and decided if it wasn’t sold by Christmas time it was mine…NOW IT IS.

Close-up of new creamer and sugar

  My desk in the den!

This isn’t very holidayish but I didn’t want to remove my staples from the cabinet so I put some greens around them

I guess Frosty should have come first in this line of pictures to greet you! He’s over the bench outside our back door

I hope you enjoyed this little up-date of Christmas tweaking.
I will hopefully have some new pictures later this week – in the meantime thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful week.

ALL 10 COPIES ARE SOLD!
THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO ORDERED ONE.

 

Hugs,
Karen

SNOWY EVENING and MORE SHOW PICTURES

This is my second time for doing this posting. Yesterday morning I got up early to watch the snow and all the neighbors and my husband work their butts off shoveling and snow blowing the heaviest snow I’ve seen in ages…no, I didn’t go out in it but I could see how often the ones snow blowing would stop and unplug the blades and others stop shoveling and rest on the shovel handle. Doug said you would pick up a shovel full and it would make a splat sound when it landed there was so much moisture in it.

Here are a couple pictures I took as it was coming down the night before.  I went out hoping to get good pictures but as from past experience with night time photos and snow – they just don’t turn out. I wish I could get a good shot of the yard all lit up but it’s not happening.

I also finished up decorating for Christmas…it’s very sparse this year.
After having all the show items up and all the greenery I decided to leave it minimal….I don’t have many photos because most would be a repeat of past years…I don’t vary much except put in a new item here and there but I did take a couple. Again, most are blurry because I wanted night pictures and they only turn out with the flash.
Most years I add greens and berries to my everyday decorating and it really makes it look like Christmas…easy decorating.

This is with no flash – side table in dining room

This is with the flash – huge difference!

 

 Side Table in the kitchen

So onward to the rest of the show pictures. My brother had a few left on his camera and sent them to me.

 

And last – Darren sent us a picture of his scar from the last surgery 3 weeks ago….and an update….there is no improvement in the right arm. Very sad that the right arm was perfect going in! I pray therapy will bring it back…please pray with me. The picture came from his cell phone so it’s not too good – but you can see the size of this thing – he said it’s 10 inches!
 

I hope you all are ready for Christmas. I wish I could say I was. I still have orders I’m sewing and I’m setting my goal to have the last of them in the mail Saturday. I’m not behind…just many orders at the last minute. I put Dec. 1 as the deadline but orders are still coming in and they are so nice to understand they won’t get them by Christmas. I love my customers…they are a supportive group of people with so much understanding.

Have a wonderful rest of the week and weekend everyone

P.S. has anyone else had a really bad anonymous post lately?
I had one yesterday and it was horrible – no legible words but when you clicked on it a very bad porno site came up…I deleted it! Just beware.

Karen

Pictures of my Home Show….and I’ve missed you all!

Bet you all thought I’d given up on blogging – well so did I!

It has been such a long time since I’ve been on here and I miss reading all my friends comings and goings and all the wonderful pictures of  your decorating for the holidays – of which I need to do this weekend.

Our home show last weekend was a huge success – everything we had hoped it would be and more.
We were set to open at 4 pm on Friday but there were so many customers waiting at the door at 20 minutes to 4, so we let them in….and from that moment it was non-stop until 7 pm, then after that there were a few more up till closing at 8 pm.

Doug manned the cash register, while my brother and sister in-law wrapped and bagged. This helped me be with the customers going from room to room greeting and answering questions…and offering wine to anyone wanting a little cheer – which were many! We had soft Christmas music playing throughout the house and screen room where the check out was.  Oh, our Candy Cane entrance was a success – it kept it separated very nicely.

Saturday was just as wonderful and customers started coming at 8:45 and never stopped till 3 pm and then a few here and there till 5 at closing.

We decided to have a SALE on Sunday from Noon to 2 and it was HUGE!!! We put approx. 80% of our merchandise ON SALE and told the customers at check out what we were doing and I couldn’t believe how many came back for those 2 hours.

And as far as pictures during the show…NO TIME!

So here are a few photos my brother took as I was setting up areas….I wanted more detailed pictures but didn’t have time to get my camera so I had to rely on him – I think he did a pretty good job.

FIRST IS THE DINING ROOM SET-UP

 

 

 

KITCHEN

WE HAD DIP TASTING, CANDY AND LOTS OF KITCHEN TYPE THINGS IN HERE LIKE PRAIRIE APRONS/BONNETS, TOWELS

WE SOLD OUT OF OUR JAR TOPPERS IMMEDIATELY!

DEN AREA HAD THE MAIN TREE PLUS ORNAMENTS, POTPOURRI, CANDLES AND THINGS LIKE SANTA’S AND SNOWMEN

THE BATHROOM HAD ALL OUR SOAPS, MELTING TARTS, SPRAYS AND SMELLY THINGS
This is our tub area and Doug made a board to cover it so we had more use of the space

OUR FAMILY ROOM HELD ALL THE REALLY PRIMITIVE ITEMS I WAS SELLING FOR A COUPLE OF FRIENDS….ONE WAS OUR FRIEND AND BLOGGER ‘ROBBY’ AND I MUST SAY HER ITEMS FLEW OUT OF HERE!
AND ‘JEANNE’ WHO I HAVE MENTIONED BEFORE HAS ITEMS AT THE CRAFTERS MALL AT THE DELLS AND I REALLY LOVE HER WORK. I BUY MY PRAIRIE APRONS/BONNETS FROM HER…..AS WELL AS THE BEAUTIFUL ‘SUGAR COOKIE’ MELTING TART PANTRY CAKES

HERE IS WHERE THE ENTRANCE AND EXIT WAS IN THE SCREEN ROOM – THE PICTURE DOESN’T DO THE ROOM JUSTICE…IT REALLY LOOKED NICE AND SMELLED WONDERFUL WITH ALL THE GREENERY AROUND THE ROOM AND THE HEATER KEPT IT NICE AND TOASTY WHILE GUESTS WAITED TO CHECK OUT AND SNACK ON TREATS AND COFFEE

Well that’s it for photos – sorry there were so many!
Yesterday we packed up lots of merchandise and took it downtown to a consignment shop I take things to and as we were putting it out on shelves we started selling things. When Doug took some more things down about an hour later the girl said we had sold over $100 already! Good move to take the products there, huh? And today is her Open House so it should be a good day all around.

Now today it’s getting the house back to a ‘normal’ state….going to finish putting out our Christmas decorations and work on some orders….the holiday is fast approaching and I feel behind. Maybe after this weekend I will feel more in control.

Hugs to all who read this…have a wonderful week and hope to hear from you.

P.S. – have you ever had a true friend that IS ALWAYS THERE FOR YOU?….my best friend of 30 years just phoned me to ask if she could help me with ANYTHING….like cleaning, groceries, cooking, errands, whatever.

She was here on Friday picking something up and we had the nicest visit. She said when she was here she noticed I looked beat/tired and it bothered her all weekend. WHAT A TRUE FRIEND RENEA IS TO ME AND I LOVE HER DEARLY. She has gone through the best of times and the worst of times with me. Our kids were classmates and I met her when I got my job at the Hi-Liter 30 years ago.

Anyway….I didn’t take her up on her offer because I feel in control now but I guess I am a bit tired and looking dragged out….my back and hip/leg have been killing me, being all tense with Darren’s two surgeries, many orders, the show and life in general it has taken a toll on me I think….BUT IT WON’T GET THE BEST OF ME!
Thank you Renea for being there for me as always.

Karen