Another Farmhouse Christmas -- a month late!

Hey folks. I hope you had a lovely holiday season. Of course, I am late, late, late posting a blog about our Christmas. That seems to be par for the course with me these last few years though. 

We had a wonderful Christmas here in our new-to-us farmhouse. It is SO much bigger than the last place and we were anxious to decorate, though next year we've plans for even bigger and better decorations. 

We had 3 full size trees this year, though truthfully the one in the dining room is entirely too short for that space. With 10' tall ceilings, a 6.5 foot tree just looks silly. Beautiful, but silly. We have plans to acquire some taller trees over the summer so that in November, we will be able to decorate our main floor with trees that are more suitable for such tall rooms. 

Like last year, our 'main' tree was in the dining room and had a huge assortment of vintage ornaments in all colors. It took several hours to decorate but the end result was totally worth it. Don't you agree? 

My office tree is always my favorite with the pastel colors and vintage ornaments. This year, I put all of my vintage angels in one spot. I never realized that I had a collection of angels. An unintentional collection, I suppose. I put them and my Gurley candles on the shelves near my desk. 

Our main bathroom got kitschy with my flamingo ornaments and decorations. Makes it feel all tropical despite the freezing temperatures in the house. 

These little trees usually go by the front door, outside, but we never use our front door to come in/out, so I brought them inside this year. I think I'll try to find some tall, skinny trees before next Christmas. As you can tell, our hallway is huge. I jokingly call it our bowling alley. 

On my ugly old Louis Vuitton trunk, I put my small collection of Santa blow molds, and above it I hung up the vintage light bulb wreaths I made. 

The beautifully wide staircase got the same treatment as last year -- garland and traditional red and green ornaments with bows. I think I'll search for fluffier/wider garland next year. 

The dining room has an awesome fireplace that's been closed off but it retains its original mantel so I left some of my milkglass vases and put some of my Christmas decorations on there, too. The stockings are new but I love that they have that retro look to them. 

Even the coffee cafe room got a small tree this year! I had this in my bathroom in Maryland in 2007 but it fits perfectly here. 

I kept the outside decorations to a minimum this year. We're still unsure what the rental agency is planning on doing with our non-existent driveway but right now, we use the backdoor exclusively, so that's what I decorated. Next year, we'll do up the front but we just ran out of time this year. I put this old sled I bought in 2004 by the backdoor and hung some greenery on it, and hung a pair of itty bitty ice skates on it. 

I am kind of embarrassed to admit that my decorations are still up! It is freezing cold in this old house, with no central heat, so the decorations at least seem fitting. And they make me smile which is kind of hard to do when the house is 38-40 degrees. lol I realize that it's time to take it all down and pack it away for 10 months. I think I'll start decorating in early November this year so that I can fully enjoy it. 

Anyway, it's already the end of January (how'd that happen?!) and we're having a very non-snowy winter here in the mountains of western NC. I am disappointed, to say the least because I LOVE snow. We keep having snow in the forecast and the peaks are getting snow but not here in the valley. At this point, I'm kind of over winter -- if it's not going to snow, let's just move on to spring. We anticipate having a lot of visitors this spring/summer/fall. We live in a vacation destination and thankfully have a house big enough to accommodate guests now. We have a lot of plans to do landscaping and outdoor projects to make it more visitor friendly and well, we can't do that until it warms up. So, if we aren't going to get snow, it might as well go ahead and be spring, right? 

Hopefully I will be back soon with more pics of our place. I get so caught up in keeping up with inventory in my 3 Etsy shops, plus Instagram, and the daily tasks of running a house, that I forget all about blogging for months at a time. I need to be better about that this year. 

Farmhouse Christmas

Christmas has come and gone, again, and it feels like it all happened in the blink of an eye. I didn't get to decorate as early as I'd hoped, but I still got two trees up, the porch decorated, the hallway decorated and stockings were hung. It was a lovely Christmas here, just the two of us and the two doggies, and it was very low key and simple. I have lots of pics to share but let me start out with this one first:

Yes! This happened this past Saturday night at a local resort here in Asheville. After a really nice dinner, the man told me he wanted us to have our picture taken in front of this huge tree by the professional photographer, and much to my surprise, once we were in front of the tree and the photographer was busy snapping away, the man dropped to one knee and asked for my hand in marriage! Completely SHOCKED, as if you couldn't tell from the look on my face. lol 

Now, on to the holiday decorating pictures. My white office tree which is primarily decorated in minty pastel shades of green, blue and pink, with lots of vintage ornaments mixed in. 

 

 

 

 

 I've always had a 'themed' main room tree -- for several years it was blue and silver, then in 2008, I switched to copper and aqua and browns and that was my plan for my main floor tree this year until the man expressed his desire to have a colorful, non-matchy tree, which kind of gave me palpitations at first since I'm always so matchy-matchy on the main tree but after some thought, I decided why the heck not. I mean we live in this beautiful old farmhouse, so a mismatched, retro style theme would be perfect. 

Unfortunately, I requested my mom to bring my aqua and copper ornaments for the main tree, thereby leaving all of my retro, brightly colored ornaments in SC in their garage, but I scrounged up enough extras here that I've been hoarding for crafting purposes that I was able to pull off a retro themed tree!! I ended up loving it SO much that I doubt I'll go back to my formal-ish tree until/unless we move into a much bigger house that has a formal living room! 

 

 

Once I had the tree decorated with all the brightly colored Shiny Brites and West Germany and Poland ornaments, I figured I'd continue the vintage theme and use a vintage Christmas tablecloth as my tree skirt. I used one on the table too and filled my Tom and Jerry punch bowl with vintage ornaments and tinsel garland. 

 I've wanted to make a wreath like this for several years but never got around to it until now. It is huge and I love how it turned out. I used over 50' of vintage tinsel garland and over 70 vintage light bulbs. It is perfectly kitschy and I am tempted to hang it up inside year round! 

I continued the retro Christmas theme on the banisters of the stairs in our hallway. I put up green garland and then put ornaments every couple of spindles, hung from ribbons and topped with bows. I decided red and green was a good, old-timey look that went with the retro theme.

And I decided to hang up this vintage Santa Mail felt creation from 1957 by the door. I bought this thing back in 2011 at a rummage sale at an assisted living facility while I still lived in MD. It cost me a dollar but it is priceless to me. I love it so much!! It's holding all of the holiday cards I received this year! 

In our bathroom I put up my small tabletop tree and used pink and green ornaments on it. It's my tacky flamingo tree! I ended up putting the majority of my flamingo ornaments on the main tree because they are too heavy for the branches of this little tree but I still love it, even though it's mostly just the ball ornaments. I used some doilies I found last month at a thrift store to make a tree skirt for this one. 

In my office I have a couple of shelves above my desk that usually hold my spaghetti poodles and other dog decorations but I took those down for the holiday and put up my Gurley candles in their place. 

Despite not having children, we were still up by 7:30 yesterday, thanks to Mr. Marty. I don't know how he knew that it was Christmas, but he did, and he would NOT go back to sleep. He sat by our bedroom door, whining, until we got up and told him we'd go see what Santa brought. He was so excited. He sat right by the fireplace waiting for us to get their stockings down and pull out the goodies. Santa brought him and Scarlett 2 new toys each, some cookies and some sausages for puppies. And then they each got new fleece material for their beds. Marty got 2 bow ties and his sissy got a new coat, since she's always cold. 

As you can see from the following pictures, Scarlett was not at all interested in being awake at 7:30, nor was she interested in gifts. Marty played with the toys and then took a nap. That was how the day went, actually. We opened gifts, ate breakfast, took naps, ate lunch, took more naps and generally were lazy like sloths! It was the perfect day. I said last Christmas that this year I hoped to be in the mountains having a nice, quiet, low key Christmas and that is exactly what happened!

I am so excited for 2014 and all of the wonderful new beginnings we'll have. We are planning to wed sometime next year, though we have no idea where or when. The man starts a new job in January, for which we are both very thankful and excited about. After several really depressing years, I have to say that this year has been amazing and I know 2014 will be even better. 

 

Leaf Peeping and Farmhouse Organizing

When we moved to NC in early July, we were in the middle of one of the wettest summers on record. I think that first month we were here, the rain topped 20" for the month. August was pretty wet too, and we had hoped that despite all of the torrential downpours, that the leaves would still be brilliant this fall. Well, sadly, they aren't that spectacular. In fact, the leaves that didn't just fall off while still green are spotted with fungus and mold and the colors are pretty muted this year. 

Having said all of that, leaf peeping even ugly spotted leaves while living in the mountains is still pretty awesome. My mom came up this weekend and we took a short break from house stuff on Saturday afternoon to take a drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Some of the mountains were still really green, while some were completely naked already but there were some patches of color here and there. The views were awesome either way!! 

I am still in the trying to get everything organized and put away phase of this  move and while I'm mostly done, I am waiting until it's all complete before taking pictures. It's been a slow process and I had hoped to be all done by now but life happens. 

I have been busy getting both Etsy shops back up and running, concentrating mostly on my Christmas shop, since it's only 2 months until Christmas. I cannot believe how fast this year has gone by!! I am excited to bring all of my Christmas decorations up from SC in the next few weeks and get busy decking the halls. It will be the first Christmas since 2009 that I've really been able to decorate the way I like. I don't think I did anything in 2010 (separated from the ex and I think he may have put the tree up) and then in 2011, I was living in the small apartment so no decorations. I did put up my white tree last year in my office but that was it. This year? Yeah, I am going all out!! There is room for my white tree, the main room tree, a mantel, a huge front porch with tons of rails. I know the man is going to think I've lost my mind but hey, it's what I do. lol 






 

Vintage Gurley Candles

I found a large glittery Gurley tree this week!!! My first Christmas Gurley of the season. I was so excited to get my paws on that little baggie of vintage goodness. 

It goes great with my other Gurley Christmas candles: 

And a few weeks ago, I had the extreme pleasure of finding an entire baggie of Gurley Thanksgiving candles. I have never ever found even one Thanksgiving Gurley's in all my years of thrifting so this thrilled me -- 3 turkeys and a pilgrim  boy & girl! So excited to add them to my collection. 

And last but not least, the giant jack o lantern I found the other year. I ::heart:: it so much! 

I still haven't decorated for Christmas -- probably won't. Don't feel like digging through my bff's garage for all of the stuff. 

And, I think after the first of the year, I'm moving home to SC. I haven't decided if it will be in January or in April when our lease is up. I am incredibly homesick and so tired of living up here away from  my parents and sister and niece. I will miss the thrifting opportunities here but it's so much more affordable to live there. I never in a billion years thought I'd *want* to move home but the fact is that I want to live somewhere that I can afford to maybe one day own a house, somewhere that's affordable enough that I can go on vacation a couple of times a year, somewhere that doesn't cost $1500/mo just for a stupid apartment with no yard and a lease that allows the landlord and maintenance 24/7 access to your house with no warning and no courteous call beforehand. 

I am praying that the honey can find a job there and will consider moving but if he chooses to stay in MD, I will understand. I just feel like I've given up so much over the years by being a military wife and having lived so far from my family and it's time to think about what will make ME happy. So much weighing on my mind but I think this is what I need to do. It doesn't have to be permanent but I've lived away from my hometown for over 8 years now, five of which I've been stuck here alone in MD so it's time to go home. 

Five Weeks

The holidays are quickly approaching and with less than 6 weeks until the big day, I am starting to think that I won't even get a tree put up this year. My holiday decorations are, for the most part, buried in my bff's garage 20 miles away. And when I say buried, I mean buried. As in those were the first boxes I put in there last spring because I thought 'oh, I'll have time to come here and sort this mess out over the summer' and well,that didn't happen. So, the likelihood of having a tree this year? Slim. lol

I've been busy busy busy sorting through vintage Christmas goodies here at my house though. I spent all day yesterday taking pics, editing, listing like crazy in my new kitschy Christmas shop on Etsy: Very Kitschy Christmas and also uploading pics to my new kitschy Christmas blog: Very Kitschy Christmas blog. 

If you have a second, please check the links out and tell me what you think! I decided to make new places for all the Christmas stuff so I could keep it separate from the rest of my vintage goodies!! 

 

Nine Weeks til Christmas

 

 

Have you started shopping yet? Aside from scanning in 100s of vintage Christmas cards, I'm not even thinking about Christmas yet. I'm enjoying the pretty fall colors on the trees, the nice crisp mornings, the rainy weather, the early nights. 

 

 

The Baltimore Big Flea is this weekend and I am hoping to find lots of vintage Christmas goodies for my shop. And once Halloween is over, hopefully the thrifts will start putting out more Christmas items. I'm ready to get my paws on some vintage Shiny Brites but for now, I will go get another cup of pumpkin spice coffee and enjoy the bright yellow tree outside my living room window!! 

Twelve Weeks til Christmas

Are you prepared? I'm not. Not even close. I have no idea if we're going to exchange gifts. I'm thinking not but I hope we do because I am going to be awfully sad if we don't have at least some gifts under the tree. 

 

I finally bought a new all-in-one printer the other day. I have been meaning to get one for a while but kept putting it off but the other day, I walked right into Office Depot, determined to not leave until I had a printer in my cart. I ended up buying a Kodak, which wasn't my first choice, but they no longer carried the Brother one that I really wanted. I had one hell of a time installing this printer and ended up having to redo the entire wireless network at my house!! I was so frustrated, I swear I was on the verge of tears! I did eventually get it all worked out and I'm happy to say that I can now print invoices and postage, pictures, well, everything really, all from the comfort of my sofa! Wireless printers are the best invention ever!

 This morning, I took a few minutes to scan in some of the antique Christmas postcards I bought last fall at the Baltimore Big Flea. I fell in love with all of the gorgeous graphics, the pretty pastel colors and most of all, the sweet letters written on the reverse of the cards. Most of the paper is still in pristine condition for being 112 years old but I wanted the ability to print the cards onto cardstock to use in crafting. I would feel so guilty if I cut up the original ones. 

So, the weather is finally cooling off again and I am so excited that it's going to be a crisp weekend. I think we're going to have scattered showers tomorrow and the highs are only supposed to be in the upper 50s and I am just so thrilled that it's this time of the year. The honey has drill this weekend so I get to fill my time with all sorts of fun things, like scanning in 100s of vintage cards. 

I saw on the weather channel that they are forecasting SNOW over in the mountains of WV tomorrow through Sunday. How crazy is that? The leaves haven't really even started to change yet and they're going to have snow showers? I think it would look crazy weird to have green leaves and snow! I'll admit that I'm slightly jealous that they'll be seeing flakes. 

 

I was lucky enough to find quite a few vintage sheets while I was out thrifting yesterday so today I get to iron and photograph those and get them listed on my new vintage sheets blog and also on Etsy and Flickr. I have two sheets that I've sold before to several people that have in turn used them as backdrops for photo booths. Isn't that a great idea?? And I've sold a ton of sheets to a fabulous dress designer in NYC that makes the most beautiful bridesmaids gowns out of them. I love knowing my vintage finds are being reused by people that love them as much as I do. 

Okay, well, the coffee is gone from my cup so I guess that's my clue that it's time to get busy ironing. Have a fabulous Friday and a great weekend too, friends!

VTT- Vintage Christmas

I'm participating in Vintage Thingies Thursday, hosted by ColoradoLady. Please hop on over to her blog to see the other participants.

Did you know it's less than 17 weeks until Christmas? Well, it is!! These are some of the goodies I found at the estate sale the other week, some of which will make their way  into my Etsy shop but most of them are keepers for my own collection!!

My finds included a tiny box of Shiny Brites

a perfectly pink Putz house (my first!)

a baggy full of bottle brush trees

some spun heads

 

A honeycomb Santa

 
There was a whole table full of the Putz houses but like a dummy, I'd only brought $20 with me and that wouldn't have been enough to buy all of my goodies so I just bought the pink house. I'm kicking myself for not getting the others. I'm also kicking myself for leaving behind the fabulous pieces of barkcloth that were there two days in a row. 



And a couple of weekends ago, I went to a barn sale and picked up two more Gurley candles to add to my collection - a choir boy and a pink glittery tree. They had been sitting in the case at that barn sale for months so I finally rescued them. 

Also at the barn sale, I found a couple of Whitman Christmas Carol books

 and a promotional Esso Christmas Carol book from 1953. 

 
The graphics on each are so stunning. 

Later this week, I plan on tackling the daunting task of scanning in some of the hundreds of Christmas Cards from the brothel lady's suitcase. It's probably going to take me forever to get through them all but it's been almost a year and I promised myself when I bought that suitcase that I would actually USE the items inside so I better get started.  

Thanks for visiting me today for Vintage Thingies Thursday. I hope you enjoyed show & tell for the week. Do you have your Christmas lists started yet? lol