Junior League Christmas House!

In the midst of the One Room Challenge hoop la

 I was invited to be part of the design team at a house on the

 

2015 Junior League of Woodstock Christmas Tour of Homes

.

That's a mouthful.

And pretty "big league' for me.

 

The lead designer at this home invited me to help and I chose two small areas.

Let me preface by saying that this was a model home. 

 The only nonresidential home on the tour and it was drop dead gorgeous

 from top to bottom.

It's very industrial chic and lots of moody colors and textures.

 To die for painted brick in the interiors in some spots.

 Really amazing.

I want to move in.

 

 

 

I chose a desk/study area in a small landing at the top of the stairs.

It's the hallway between the master and the other bedrooms. In many floor plans it's open in this area like a catwalk but this is a great use of space.

 I knew I wantd to do a gift wrap station.

And I wanted it to look like it was in use right now!!

 

We covered existing framed art that we couldn't move with pictures of the Big Guy in Red that I printed off of the internet.

We typed notes to Santa to go in the antique typewriter and left lists of naughty  and nice people laying around on the desk!

This cart was very popular. It's a hand me down .

It is really used to store floor plans in a drafting office but I like gift wrap better :)

 

 

 

It was a ton of fun and the hit of the whole deal was my tomato cage tree in a galvanized bucket.

 It's so simple and easy but sometimes that's the best.

We have a couple and I use them on our screened porch at Christmas. They have pebbles in the bottom so they don't blow over and I use plastic ornaments.

 

 

My other spot was in th kitchen on the main level.

 It was a huge bakers rack in between the kitchen and eating area.

 I knew what had to happen there the minute I saw it ... cookies for Santa!

 

This popular guy made an appearance at the Christmas Tour of Homes

 and, once again, was a big hit!!

 



 

I made stacks of air dry clay gingerbread men (I use Crayola Model Magic), painted them  and glued them to cookie sheets, spatulas and drying racks from the Dollar Store.

 

 

The "Fresh Milk" sign was a last minute, night before the tour project.

Someone asked how old the sign was and we said, "24 hours :)))))"

 

   Mollie helped me swirl white paint in milk bottles and add cute straws.

what did we do before you could buy cute straws in every color??

 

It put us all in the mood to decorate at home after Thanksgiving.

And that may be all the cookies that get "baked" this year.

 

Think I can get away with it??? 



Baby In the Manger

We had a very fun family event at church last Friday night. It was planned to kick off our Advent season. We were about a  week early but the way Thanksgiving hit we had to schedule this way and it was really perfect. Everyone was relaxed and not rushed because we weren't in the busy December season where everyone has 2 or 3 events every weekend night.
The event was called "Starry Night" and we served dinner so we needed centerpieces to go with the theme for each table and the budget was small - really small. Like $0.00 :)
So I scrounged around at home and this is what I came up with.
I had some large wooden balls and large jumbo craft sticks. I painted cute little faces on the balls and glued them to one end of the craft stick (which I broke in half)

 

 

Then I tore long strips of white sheeting that I had on hand.
 The strips were about an inch wide and about 30 inches long. 

I put a dab of hot glue on the top of the poor baby's head and glued the strip of fabric down. Then I just started wrapping the baby's head and body 
until it looked like a little baby all "swaddled" up!

 

And there you have the cutest little baby all wrapped up!

I went out in the yard and grabbed some 6 inch clay pots I had stacked up. I soaked them in Clorox water in the sink and washed them out very well. They were going on tables where we would eat so I didn't want some creature to come crawling out :)
I stuffed a couple of plastic Publix bags in the pots after they were dry.

Then I snipped a bundle of raffia into strips and
 filled my clay pot (manger) with the raffia (hay.)

Then I printed the verse that was our theme for the event onto some gold chevron scrapbook paper. I punched two holes and threaded it onto a skewer. This made a cute banner that I stuck in the pot and secured with a dab of hot glue.

 I glued the baby in the manger and 
then I repeated it until all the centerpieces were finished. 

 

 
I tied some scraps of ribbon on each skewer and when we got them placed on the tables I tied a star shaped gold helium balloon to each skewer. I didn't  take a picture of all of them on the tables but it was the perfect centerpiece - the baby in a manger was nice and low and then the bobbing gold star balloon was up high and out of the way of conversation around the tables. They were festive, the children loved them, they were perfect for our theme and I didn't have to buy a single thing other than the gold star balloons at the Dollar Tree!

And because the theme for our Advent Kick-Off was appropriately stars, we had a huge inflatable planetarium in our gym. This thing was awesome and can seat 60 people inside. Our families loved it - the tickets were $5.00 and 
benefited our Youth International Mission Trip 2014.

It was a fun and exciting Starry Night!

Let's Catch Up...

Another title could be: A Ridiculously Long Post with an Obnoxious Amount of Pictures! ( prepare to scroll quickly!!)

It's been a crazy summer and a lot has been happening since I last blogged so,
let's catch up shall we?

 
Went to our favorite hang out at the lake. They goofed around.

 
We made hundreds, no thousands, of lunches for the Summer Lunch program at our local homeless shelter. I wish I could remember how many ounces of PB and J we used :)

It rained sooooo much but my hydrangeas and ferns were huge.
 ( My weeds were too, but let's not talk about that!!)

I scrapbooked a few nights in July and that was it. I'm so far behind.

I washed rocks. Yes, you read that correctly. Clean rocks for VBS #1.

They were in town again- actually for a funeral :( but we grabbed a burger.
College Girl makes a lot of silly faces for the camera. Harrison not so much :)

She does take non-silly pictures too. Occasionally :)

Painted College Girl's bathroom ceiling very, very pale yellow - her fav color !
Bad iphone pic on a rainy day, but it is pretty!

 

Went with Dad to the favorite hangout at the marina on the lake.

 

Finished updating the "MASH "sign  in the backyard. It has only beaches that we have all 3 visited together. Some we have been to multiple times but there are 23 beaches that we have visited in less than 22 years. Unfortunately, we did not add a new one this Summer :(  It was fun to reminisce about all the great beaches we have gotten our toes wet on!

 
Could not get a grip on the fact that Christmas stuff was out full force before July 4th!

Had a great time at Kingdom Rock VBS.
We made Shields of Faith with handprint crosses in the center. Messy fun!

College Girl popped in to town for the last 2 days of VBS
 and then we met up with a great friend one night at a local Mexican place.

 

Took College Girl on a Mother/Daughter Secret Destination Weekend. She had no clue where we were going until we rolled into the Chi Omega National headquarters
 in Memphis TN.
I pulled off the surprise!! She looks so cute because I made her change in a gas station bathroom right outside of town!! I knew she would have a fit if she showed up at Chi O in norts and a big ol' t-shirt!!

After a great time at Chi O we headed downtown to the Peabody for the Parade of Ducks.
 Not to be missed. No kidding.

We had a great time at the Peabody. It is an amazing hotel.

Elvis was kind of off her radar but she was amazed

by the thousands of people standing in line to visit Graceland.

The Mighty Mississippi at Mud Island.

Popped over to Tunica, MS.

Trips change after your child turns 21 :)

PS. I didn't win a dime!! Never do.

Came home and had another art camp called " What-a-melon!"

 This one was about working wet on wet and blending colors.

The paintings turned out fabulously!

Tried the sparkler art off of Pinterest on the porch because ALL fireworks in the Atlanta are were cancelled due to rain and storms :( 

Weird ( but still fun) 4th of July - so damp and chilly we actually had Chili for dinner and watched DVD's.

Worked on a little landscaping project in the side yard in between rain storms.

Trying to tame some mud #2bighairydogs #bigdoggiefeet #whiteslipcovers

Went on a mission trip where we painted a house pink. Yep.

College Girl had to go Gluten Free so we spent two whole days at Whole Foods learning, shopping and trying samples. Easier than we thought :)

I was invited to teach a paper mosaic art project at a neighboring church.

A little art project at VBS #2.

Quick visit from CG involved slurping some oysters. Yum.

Kate Spade loveliness in the new Premium Outlets of Atlanta

that opened up 15 minutes from our house. CG is ecstatic!!!!

Painted a baby gift and went to a shower and Levi is arriving tonight!!!

Bought this delicious set of watercolors at Michael's for $5.00. I know, right?

Went to a huge inflatable waterslide at the lake on about the only sunny day in July.

It thundered when we started to leave. Lucky us!!!!

"Ombre-ed" ( is that a verb now?) a couple of

IKEA dressers for College Girls new place.

 She had been wanting soething "ombre-ed" since this dresser was painted.

Another Art Camp - "The Name Game" 

 Picture will not rotate. #Bloggerhatesmetoday

Went to see the "Grands" as CG calls them and drove through the mountains of NC

 with misty clouds all around. It was beautiful.

Visited my sister and brother-in-laws' farm and

 saw their beautiful wildflowers and their camel, Cleo.

 

Went over to Charlottesville from the Grands' to visit another national headquarters -

this time Kappa Sigma - in honor of our favorite Kappa Sig.

 College Girl wore her Sweetheart Court jersey for the pics :)

And in between all of that I have been running around presenting at conferences...

 more on that in another post on another day!

Whew! There will never be another post with this many pictures. I promise.

It took forever and this is probably more than anyone cares

 to know about us ( except maybe my mother!!!)

That's our Summer in a nutshell 

(there were a few more highlights, but see above. Enough already)

And why a Summer wrap up before mid-August? Well, we have all gone back to school in the 91 degree heat and, therefore, Summer is technically over :(

Sad ,but true.