I'm Dreaming of a Shatterproof Christmas

IIIIIIII'm dreaming of a
Shatterprooooooof Christmas
Just like the ones I used to know
Where the bright orbs glisten
And kittens listen
As IIII'm pleading, "No! Down! Noooooo!"

I had a sneaking suspicion that decorating the tree this year was going to be a bit... different... than other years.And I had barely assembled my nifty artificial tree when-- "BOINK!"-- Harry the Five Month Old Kitten appeared within its branches to demonstrate the reason I had thought going "shatterproof" in terms of Christmas ornaments this year was a pretty darned good idea.

It was nice of me, he felt, to put up this giant climbing wall for him.

"Tree kittens? I don't see any tree kittens! Where?"

Then there was the little question of adding the garland. I had some... um... help this year, but I suspect this kind of help will be more useful when it comes to taking down the tree instead of putting it up.
However, what I didn't suspect was that after a certain amount of requisite batting and climbing and biting, my furred buddies would lose interest entirely in favor of a few empty ornament boxes and a bit of Christmas ribbon. And I would be allowed to actually decorate the thing, and keep the decorations on...And it's still standing this morning!

I know. Shocking, right?
My optimism led me to decorate a tiny pink tree to put on top of my refrigerator, out of the reach (maybe) of touchy-feely paws.

I had found at Tuesday Morning some glass Alice in Wonderland ornaments from the same artist that did my dishes. So with them, and some mushrooms, top-hats and teapot ornaments K-Mart had had (completely unrelated to any Alice theme) I pulled this colorful little jobbie together.

You can see the White Rabbit, Queen's card men and a jingly little mushroom here...

And the Hat, Alice and the Cheshire Cat dressed as a snowman here.

Lastly, one of the teapots and the Hatter himself...
After all this, I guess I don't need to tell you, we were all pretty tired out...
Thank goodness for Trader Joe's shopping bags. They have a million and one uses.

Take care folks, and I hope you all aren't shattered from too much pre-Christmas activity.

Treasure Box Wednesday: The Vintage Christmas Decorating Blow-Out Post

I've been meaning to do this for a while for you all-- to gather all of the major vintage Christmas decorating posts I've done over the years into one nicely-wrapped package o' convenient fun.

So if you have a minute and wish to take a gander at some sparkle, some trial-and-error, and some off-beat Christmas tablescapes, mantle decor, an insane amount of little decorated Christmas trees, and general whatnot, this might be the post for you! Just click a link below to unwrap the joy:

• A Pine Old Time Decking the Halls
  
• A Dickens of a Time Decorating
• Hall-Decking and Other Fa-La-Las
  
• The Christmas Decorating Big Finish
• Spruced Up for the Holidays
• The Migratory Patterns of Indoor Pine Trees
• Christmas Magic, Mania and Medicine Cabinet Mirrors
• O Christmas Tree, Plus a Thrift Store Side Trip
• Young Frankentree Puts on the Ritz
• Christmas Comes to Scoobie's Ranch
• People Who Live in Cardboard Houses
• In the (Saint) Nick of Time
• In an Octopus' Parlor (Undersea Themed Christmas Tree)

Tonight I need to spend some quality time Christmas wrapping. How much do you all want to bet that my kittens will want to "help"? (Translation: everyone will be receiving a quantity of kitten hair along with the tape on every package.)

Keep warm, folks-- it's cold out there!

Christmas Comes to Scoobie's Ranch

Regular readers may remember my friend Scoobie, who had been renting from me, and recently bought a house of her own. And today, thanks to her kindness (and also the fact I had my camera with me and she couldn't stop me), I'm able to bring to you some photos of her new home in all its Christmassy glory.

Years ago, when she'd spoken about her home of the future, she'd jokingly envisioned it looking like "Old West Bordello Chic"-- a balance of lavish Victoriana, the Western rustic and a modicum of hunky cowboys. And now that she's got a place of her own, she's been enacting on that vision (well, the cowboys may be a tallish order in her neighborhood). You can see the beginnings of the look here in her entryway, with this gorgeous red Eastlake parlor furniture...
Velvety and rich, she was very lucky to pick up this matching set with already redone upholstery!

Here she gets jiggy with some pine bough garland and red ribbons. If ever a staircase was made for garland, it was this one...
Here you can see her marvelous stained glass window. I believe she said the house dates from around 1900...
Oh, this red fringed lamp was one I'd put together for her as a birthday present one year. It was the first lamp I ever refinished!...
Now, Scoobie had rented the blue room in my house. Amusingly enough, new new house came with a bedroom already blue to taste!...
And dig this gorgeous fireplace!...
She'd had a little blue bedecked tree she used before she'd moved, and it looks perfectly at home here in her new abode...
She's been having fun playing around with tablescapes, like on this dresser top...
Down in her livingroom, a very large painting courtesy of the Goodwill hangs, looking like proud expensive art...
The cowboy statuary on either side there came recently from Big Lots. They may not be Remingtons, but they look good and were incredibly affordable.

She indicates she's still working out the way she'll want to do the tree. It's a big one-- I'd say seven feet tall and burly! But as she understands better what color schemes she wants to use, she figures that should work itself out.
As it stands, she wants to remove the wallpaper from this room (it's a bit twee, really) and possibly paint the walls a warm copper or muted coral. She's going to change the curtains to some brown velvet.

And here we have this year's birthday gift-- I'd gotten this fellow at the L&L Fleatique...
He's a wonderful copper-bronze shade on a wooden base. As soon as I'd spied him, I knew he needed to gallop on over to her house!

And me, well, I need to gallop offline myself. I hope you all have a terrific week ahead of you. And perhaps I'll see you Wednesday for the last Treasure Box post before the Christmas holiday.

Take care and yeeeeeehaw!

In the (Saint) Nick of Time

I feel I'm really pushing the Christmas deadlines here, trying to get things done. But then I looked back at my blog posts last year at this time and I was saying the same thing. So at least I'm consistent-- if also perpetually disorganized this time of year.

Forgive me, folks, that this isn't a terribly long post. I'll explain why in a moment. But first I wanted to show you how the guest room has been shaping up for the holidays.

The pink McCoy pot my friend Josette gave me last year has become part of a display for this one!...

I decided to use a tree decorated all in vintage jewelry, scarves and a hat in the room this time. Only technical difficulties ensued...
Oh, sure, everything looks okay on the surface, but the bedecked lady seems to have developed a bum leg...
In fact, there was a tremendous cracking sound just moments after I took this picture and... TIM-BERRRR! I caught it just in time.

I do believe this is one job that even duct tape cannot cure. So, I'm going to be moving on to Plan B. And no, I don't know what Plan B is yet. But it sounds positive and enterprising, at least.

What I'd mainly been working on today was moving my desk, computer and everything else to one of the unused rooms on my third floor. My desk used to face this McCoy-filled closet... Now it's just for display.
In the coming months, I hope to share with you how the third floor gets transformed from a dark two-room attic which hasn't seen inhabitants since the Victorian era, to usable, bright and airy office and storage space!

Well, there's much to do... and less time to do it in. So I'm off to do some wrapping and I hope to see you for the next post, on Wednesday.

Have a terrific start to your week!

Young Frankentree Puts on the Ritz

Zot! A quick bolt of lightning was all it took!

(Okay, maybe more like an extension cord and a three-prong plug, but hey, same diff.)

"It... is.... ALIVE!" I shouted to the heavens, wearing a labcoat and my hair askew.

My new artificial Christmas fir, which I've been fondly thinking of as "Frankentree," was ablaze with light.

You can see its neck bolts here...

I'm actually quite impressed at the quality of some artificial trees these days. I mean, when I was a kid, I remember our fake tree.

It started out a longish mop handle with feet. Then it was laden with green pipecleaners with color-coded tips. Then those green pipecleaners came together to form one big pipecleaner. A giant, mega pipecleaner, if you will.

On steroids.

And where it was bare, we wrapped other, lesser pipecleaners, so you wouldn't notice the color coding.

It was class.

Now, the artificial trees come prelit, in three sections, and they unfold like furry umbrellas.

What's more, I found that while it lacked the over-the-river-and-through-the-woods fun of acquisition, it did not try to attack me while I was tightening it into the stand.
It also has not started leaning, in an attempt to sneak off to other parts of the house. I actually feel comfortable trusting this one to my vintage ShinyBrite ornaments. I hope it won't betray my trust.

This would be the first year where I didn't end up crying a little under the Christmas tree because I didn't have enough upper body strength to really get it in the stand, or because it waited until I looked away to sag leftward, or-- my favorite ploy-- it spit off two family heirloom ornaments like they were tobacco.

Shards do not say Christmas to me.
Anyway, with the tree up and decorated, I was free to play around with some other decorations. It's daunting, I must say. But I hit the front of the house with garland swags and red bows. I filled the bowl in the diningroom with purple sparkly ornaments...
And I swagged up the livingroom. This one has velvet roses, fir branches and ribbon printed in peakcock feathers...
I like how the light from the tree fell on this nice furry stocking a lovely family friend gave me last year...
I also liked how these mercury glass ornaments seem like high rise skyscrapers in this shot.
I've been plopping poinsettias here and there to tie things together, like on this sidetable... Still needs some work but you'll get the gist...
And pink poinsettias with perky plates punctuate the place over the stove!
So, that's where it stands for now at my house. There's much more decorating to come before I can put my feet up over a completed job!

How are you all faring with your decorating? (If you're already done, please soften the blow for us non-finished folks, 'kay?)

• Oh, and in case you missed last Treasure Box Wednesday, where some garage sales became music to the ears (Victorian decorating sheet music, that is) click here!

Hope to see you this coming Wednesday, friends! (And don't wear yourselves out too much in the meantime, all right?)

Blue Christmas and Tiny Purple Rebellions

Well, Elvis may have been sad and lonely during his Blue Christmas, but I think he may have just needed a splash of gold and a bit more tinsel. Because popping a few extremely early Christmas decorations around this weekend was entirely too tempting. And the joy it brought was... well...
...it speaks for itself.

Just a few strands of gold and blue tinsel (Martha Stewart, it seems, gives enough in a single pack to wind around all of Graceland), some craft store velvet poinsettias in blue and gold, a couple well-chosen metal words, and some golden mercury-glass styled pieces from Target-- and I was on my way!

The little white flocked Christmas tree was a gift from a friend last year, and it came in very handy for this one!...
Add in a little mood lighting and....

Oh, what's that? You say we have to do Thanksgiving first?

Ah, well... so we do. But...um... it'll take the burden off, post T-day, anyway!Here's the top of the bookcase of the side of the room. It looks like it needs a little something, but I haven't quite figured it all out yet...
And under the painting of the overturned cherub, a nice low bowl full of pine cones has found a place...
So, on a decorating high after the blue room success, I decided to noodle a bit with my dining room display.

Some of you may remember, at the beginning of 2009, post-Christmas, I'd cleaned up on a lot of discontinued silver and purple mercury glass pieces from Target and Michael's, so I was determined to use them this year...
In the afternoon light. the metal took on a golden hue, but it's actually mirrored silver. The white pearly tablecloth was my mother's, and the chargers were ones I got years ago.
Speaking of Mom, every time I use a non-traditional Christmas color, like this purple, I snicker a bit and think how it would have taken some energy to win her over with this display.

Even though the standard Christmas colors of red and green (as well as our interpretation of Santa Claus) had actually come about because of CocaCola marketing at the turn of the 1900s, my mom just didn't feel comfortable with blues, pinks or purples in the Christmas scheme. She was a red-and-green gal, all the way!

I respect that. But I do love incorporating the colors of the room into my Christmas decor. The purple candle there, by the way, was discounted decor from Halloween. Waste not, want not...

And just a close-up of the mercury trees on the mantle. They've been waiting almost a year for their debut...
And here are a few others on the table. The ornaments in the bowl are ones I use every year, somewhere in the house...
Well, that's about the final notes of this song of Christmas decorating!

• If you missed Wednesday's post on painting a plethora of pink in the powder room, click here.

And if not, I'd like you thank you for visiting today. Thank ya... thank ya very much!