Happy New Year to All

How are y'all doing ? I hope your holiday time was wonderful with family and friends. As you know, we had a loss of a very dear grandfather during the holiday . On top of that , last night our son came down with a high temperature and has been sleeping for most of the morning . You know he doesn't feel well because he is very grouchy and he's never grouchy . I hope and  pray that it's NOT the flu. We have decided since it's been so crazy and busy for the past 2 weeks that we are going to start the New Year off  Relaxing. Yes , with a capital R . We are all going to relax in our jammies on the couch and probably not last long enough to watch the ball drop . My  Honey will be getting the trucks ready and gearing up for the 16 inches of snow that's predicted we will get by the end of week . I did manage to change one of the bathroom's during the holiday which I will show in another post.

Merry Christmas to All

Merry Christmas to All from our family to yours. I hope your day is filled with love, laughter, tradition and lots of memories. I want to thank all of you who visit here and the kind emails that you send.  I will be busy up until Sunday as we have had a unexpected death of a grandparent who was very  near and dear to us. I hope you and your family have a very happy and safe holiday.

Rusty Antique Garden Urns and Fountain

Last week while we were at our favorite garden center shopping for our Christmas tree , I fell in love with this old planter that was out by the front gate.  It turned out to be a 2 hour trip because I just kept finding one piece after another and visioned it in our garden.

Let me show you some pieces that I was drooling over for my garden.

Decorated Christmas Tree 2013

We finally got our tree last week and finished decorating it a few days ago. Our tree is put up every year in our Master bedroom.  The room is about 20 x 30 and it seems the best place for our tree.  It has the large doors that go out to the balcony and a great focal point when you come down the driveway.  I use smaller trees throughout the rest of the house.
This year I added some porcelain and ceramic decorations and a lace bow/ribbon for a vintage look.

Holiday Gifts for the Teachers

Hello Everyone.   Today is the start of  Christmas vacation for our son.  They had a small Christmas party at the school with a Santa , snacks and small gifts.  As a way to say  '  Thank you  ' to the teachers , I made them a gift.  Although you can never say thank you enough to the teachers for all the hard work they do, a small gift as a sign of appreciation during the Holidays is always nice.

Decorated Kitchen Window for Christmas

I am so unbelievably late with decorating this year.  It has been so busy the past few weeks.  All my ' junk ' from that demo house is still loaded in the trailer at the shop , going to the Patriots games , and now all this snow.  He has to get all the trucks ready for plowing and it just snowballs from there.
I actually had a moment to get the kitchen window decorated today.  We went shopping for our Christmas tree this evening.  If  we didn't go tonight then  who knows when we would be able to go with more snow coming tomorrow.  Very hectic ...

Painted Wooden Sign and Post

I finished painting the post I made the other day. I made a sign for the Holidays . Paint the post white first and let it set for about 10 - 15 minutes.

Wrought Iron Gates for our home - my early Christmas present

Those who know me , know of my LOVE for anything old and iron.  Every year we go to this high end garden center for our Christmas tree that also sells expensive antiques , statues and fountains and so on . They sell the type of antiques for people with homes that are Mansions with gardens that are  listed as Estates for the wealthy people.  I can only dream when I go in there.  While we were walking through the garden center , I saw this beautiful wrought iron arbor with some rust showing throughout it.  I fell in love with it.  I looked at it over and over and then I saw the price.  I said to my honey,  " I would love this for our garden. . .  oh, maybe someday ."   Christmas morning came and he said your present is out in the yard. There it was flat on the ground.  I could not believe my eyes.   It took three of us to move it and set it up.  We set it up over the summer and added a lace vine to each side.  The vine has tiny white flowers and grows rapidly.  It is so gorgeous.

Wooden Sign Post for the Holidays

If you have no porch at your house to decorate for the holidays , don't worry , you're not alone.  Since I don't have much space to decorate when you come to my front door , I decided to make a post to hang a holiday sign and some decorations.  I had a bunch of scrap wood in the garage and out in the yard.  I grabbed the pieces that were the closest to the size I needed to make the post.

Pine Cone Christmas Tree for Den

We headed out early this morning to go to the Patriots game. We got home this evening and had some time to take some decorations out.  I started with this pine cone tree that I made a few years ago.

Christmas decorating is late this year

By this time in December , my decorations are out and on display .  I am late this year and lots of reasons why. Busy , busy and busy . Let me tell you why.

I went to this demo / hoarder house that is being torn down sometime tomorrow.  Just look at the  ' junk ' that I loaded into my suv.  It's times like this when I wish I had a box truck. 

Chalk Painted dresser with a stencil

Last year I got this dresser from a woman who was down sizing.  It's old and definitely shows it's age. The top was peeling and part of the hardware is missing.  I thought this would be a great piece to try chalk paint.  I let it sit for awhile out in the garage. That's where my projects await me.

I was looking thru some blogs that I follow and got my inspiration from Red Hen Home (www.redhenhome.blogspot.com).

How to make a Pine Cone Wreath - DIY

I told you about a couple of wreaths that I made last week for Kim. Here is one of the wreaths and the way that I like to make pine cone wreaths.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING from East Coast Styler

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. The wonderful smell of food cooking all day. The gathering of Family and friends.

Wishing you all a HAPPY THANKSGIVING.  I will be taking a few days off so I can spend time with my family - just eat and watch football. See you soon, Lisa

Holiday Wreaths as a way to say ' thanks '

A month ago I met this wonderful woman named Kim. She collect these beautiful pinecones , thistle , and eucalyptus pods a few years back in California and Colorado and was saving them in her garage. She wanted to make ' something ' with them someday. Well she never got around to it and passed them onto me. There were bags and boxes of them.  I was thrilled because the pinecones were so different from the pinecones here in Massachusetts. I made a promise to her that I would make her a gift with the pinecones, etc.  I wondered for a couple of weeks what could I create for Kim that would be a wonderful gift as way to say ' thanks '.  I had come up with so many ideas that I could do with the pinecones , but not knowing her style or what her house looked like on the inside it came down to making a wreath for her front door for her home.

I wanted to make something that she could have for the years to come.  She can easily change the bow to give a it a fresh look year after year.
I'm on my way to deliver it to her, along with a second wreath of ribbon and door knob bells.

 

I will take pictures of it on Kim's door and show them when I get back home.  I'm a little sluggish today because last night we went to NFL patriots game and boy,  it was colder than cold.  It was around 6 degress with the windchill.  The wind was just going thru me.  We definitely dressed properly but it didn't matter.

This is what we do for fun. We have one more game to go to for this season.  I just hope it's not as cold as last night.  There's something about the air at 1 am that just makes it feel colder when you're already freezing. My camera was freezing up so that's all I took for pictures.  Needless to say, it was a great night despite freezing out feet off. I will show a tutorial of how I made the wreaths in another post when I get back home from Kim's.

Holiday Solar Lanterns - DIY

I have these lanterns outside for the summer with candles in them for tabletop lighting on the deck. I was going to put them away for the winter but decided to try to use them for the holidays instead.

As you can see the lanterns are old and rusty which I love, not to mention all dented.  I went by the dollar tree store and picked up 2 holiday solar lights. I then masked and painted the lanterns with black spray paint.

I took the solar lights apart to use the tops of them only for this.  I tried to goop the light inside the lantern , but it didn't hold.  There is probably too much candle wax on the bottoms in the lantern.  I had to think of something else to hold the lights in place. Yup, I borrowed some of my son's good ol' play-doh and I he had some black on hand.  I made a couple of play-doh balls and stuck the light into it inside the lantern. I molded the edges over the sides.  I tested the lights to see if they would light up outside at night and they did.

Once the play-doh dried and hardened , I added some pinecones cut in half around the base of the lights. I also added some holiday greenery at the tops of the lantern.  When the spring comes , I will easily be able to take the holiday lights out and re-use the lanterns again for the spring. I think I can get another year out of them.

                                                  I just need to hang them outside.

Another ' CHUNKY ' Wood Frame - DIY

It's been a very busy week trying to get the outside of house freshened up to get ready for Holiday decorating. I have about 5 projects I'm working on that I should have finished in a day or two.  Here is our thermometer that we rely on more than once a day in our house.  I had some scrap wood lying around so I thought it would beef it up a little.

DIY SCRAP WOOD ' CHUNKY ' FRAMES

While I was staining and painting the house , it was hard not to notice some of my outside decorations weren't looking so good. I thought I would clean them up a bit and add to the frames.

Making Room for Christmas/Recycling Toys

Hello Everyone.  I hope you had a great weekend.   I spent the whole day removing all the leaves from the deck , flower beds and backyard on saturday.  The weather was too beautiful to be indoors.  I started in the morning and spent the whole day and into the night on sunday making room for Christmas. When you have a toddler , timing is everything.

Spray painted Lights

While I was out staining the front of the house last weekend,the lights were looking shabby.

Rather than buying new lights, I thought I would try to paint them to freshen them up a bit.

I masked the light with painters tape.  I didn't get fancy with it as you can see.  I was on the ladder most of the day so I kinda just wanted to do this quick before I put all the ladders away.  I spray painted with black. It actually looks like we changed the lights.

The light stands out more painted black. I just have 2 more to go.

The white trim does not match with the wood exterior.  I have a new color that I picked out for the trim.

Wait until you see what color I picked....

Another DIY project.

Stenciled Lampshade

While everyone has Christmas decorating on their mind, I'm stuck doing " leaves " this whole weekend. I happen to be the landscaper here, so I guess I just have to do it- under protest. That's where I will be all weekend. I did manage to stencil the lampshade today.

The lamp shade was blending in with the wall so I thought I would make it stand out just a bit. The base was painted green so I painted it black with spray paint.

Recycled Cabinet Door

I take trips to the local Restore often to see what has changed since my last visit. I often find myself leaving there with ' stuff ' and later asking myself " what am I going to do with this? " I got a plain old cabinet door for $5. I didn't need it for anything and didn't even know why I bought it. Maybe because I thought it was a good deal. It was hanging around in my garage (place where I create) and 4yr old son said to me " Mom, look what I did with the pencil ! " He wrote all over my new $ 5 cabinet door which would now need to be painted since he was bearing down on the pencil.

Here's the cabinet door. I didn't have much scrap wood in my pile and now I was in the mood to do something with the cabinet door. I looked around the yard and there it was...a section of fence. I wish now that I didn't use that section of fence because we need it for the yard but it's too late.

Oopps...

No-Sew Window Valance

It's that time of the year again.. Brrrr...cold.  The good ol' New England Winter is on the way.  This morning I dropped my son at Nursery school and came home.  When I walked in to my kitchen it felt very cold, not from the temperature, but from the look of it.  I thought I would make a quick no-sew window valance.

Since this window gets the morning sun and it's the only window in my kitchen, I like it with no valance.  I try to get as much natural light as I can.  Do you like my 1980's Kitchen?  Someday it will be renovated just not anytime soon.  There are other bigger and better projects going on now.  I will show you them later.  I had some time today to make some small changes in my kitchen.  I had a piece of  leftover burlap and I stole some curtain rod ' clips ' from another room.  I cut down the burlap material and folded the edge over. I used the clips and hung the curtain. It took about 10 min. I'm using a tension rod so I can take the valance down in the spring and not have any holes in my cabinets.

The clips can be found at any major store like walmart, home goods, target.  I bought mine at crate & barrel when I lived in my apartment some time ago. I got the propeller at a tag sale about a month ago.  I wasn't sure where I was going to use it yet but I had to have it.  I hung the valance and the first thing that came to mind was the propeller. what do you think ?

I also added the hand towel hook on the cabinet door. The kitchen has a warmer feel to it when you walk in especially from the cold outside. The greatest part is it only took about 10 minutes to do it.

Go " Green " for Halloween

I donated a few bags of recycled Enfamil formula bottles to the school.  I use them for leftover paint and some craft supplies.  Here's what the art teacher at the school did with the children for Halloween.

Adding an Addition

Today is a big day. Not only is it Mom's birthday but it's the day we meet with the Architect to see the first drawings of the new addition.

Today we will learn all about variance's and setbacks and all the ' legals ' involved when you add onto your home. Every town has their own rules/bylaws that need to be followed. Some town's require special permits for everything.

This is the side of the house where the addition is going to be located, keeping the existing chimney on the inside. This is so exciting.I just can't wait to get in there and do what I love to do.....DECORATE and CREATE. By the way, Happy Birthday MOM, Love ya XOXO Check back later and I should hopefully have some drawings of the new space.