Annual Decorations in Town

Our weather temps have been very erratic.  One day it's ice cold, the next it's mild.  We've had dustings of snow and torrential downpours with wind.  Hardly conducive to taking walks!  But I did get downtown one sunny, cold morning to get some snappies of the decorations in the daylight.  Am hoping to take night shots when the lights are on.  

This is at a neighbour's house.

The rotary at my end of town. Hard to see but there's a scrawny little tree between Charlie & Woodstock.

So many pretty lights!

This is at Bay Village service station across from the rotary on Main Street.

In the park at the train bridge.

You can take the gingerbread faces out and put your own face in the holes.  I'm not sure why the dad gingerbread man looks so evil.

I hope to get down to the other end of town soon to shoot their decorations as well as the other rotary.

Making Time to Craft

Such a busy time of the year!  No matter how prepared and organized I am, it still seems to be rather frenetic.  Not sure why; I don't have near the people to buy gifts for anymore.  Hardly anything to ship out.  I do send lots of cards but I don't have the time to hand make them and the list of 'homemade cardworthy' people has grown to epic proportions.  I used to do 15-20, but with everyone on FB now I run the risk of hurting feelings if I send to one person who publicly thanks me and other people feel slighted that I didn't deem them homemade cardworthy when they see it.  So my solution has been, unfortunately, to not do it anymore.

But I've still made the time to do some crafts in between decorating, dealing with a sick dog last week, errands that never seem to end and preparing for my other craft show at the Sandwich Legion.

I have been wanting to try floss wrapped bangle bracelets with jump rings and charms.  Rather than using a solid colour, I broke out the variegated floss.  I ended up replacing the seahorse with a 3rd turtle and sending it to a cousin's daughter, who has 3 turtles.

As usual, the project took way more time than I'd expected.  Wrapping alone took over 2 hours, close to 3. And then I remembered how much I really hate working with jumprings.  

I'd like to keep the purple one but sadly bangles have always been way too big for my hands/wrists and they slide off easily. The red and black one was done with 2 skeins of floss in those colours and wow what a pain it was to wrap!

I realized I never did post the pics of the 2 jar snowglobes that I was able to get to seal and not leak.  This one got a little cloudy because the paint has probably washed off a bit.  It's hard to tell but it's a snowman with a big hat and holding a pole with a hanging lantern.

I really like this one with the white tree and lamppost.

Then during my decorating spree, I unearthed some balls that I forgot I had.  I got those plain jewel tone balls many years ago at Costco and then the following year they came out with the same balls, with gold glitter designs and I started to use them instead.  I also got those smaller glittery balls a couple years ago for a potential project that I don't even remember now.  So I spent some time tying more fishing line to them to make another ball chandelier.  

Came out really pretty but to the detriment of my neck and upper back.

This coming Wednesday night I'll be stepping WAY out of my comfort zone, craft/art wise.  Stay tuned.....

Closeups of some Faves

I made this a couple of years ago and while the results are pretty nice, this was surprisingly difficult to find the right pieces to fit.

This is another one that I regretted starting almost right away, but soldiered on.  

Our 2012 ornament by Sayuri Glass on the Cape.

A spun glass bell that I've had since 1974.  The reason I know the exact year is that my mom labeled all my ornaments.  It was a tradition that when I was decorating the tree, my parents would present me with a new ornament for that year.  They started my first Christmas of 1964 and my last one was Christmas of 1988, my last one on the east coast for 22 years.  These ornaments are fragile antiques now yet somehow they've survived being shipped to the west coast and multiple moves after that.

I love how this blue glass leaf looks with all the colours.  My former boss, Robyn, gave this to me Christmas of approximately 2005.  She bought it in Cannon Beach, OR, one of my fave places.

My ornament from 1972.  I love this horse.

Made this 2 years ago too.  Fun, but messy.

Put this together last year.  I misjudged the paper size, so this is really huge.

This was bought in the late 90s, in San Anselmo, CA, I believe.

Finally, I call this "Pepper's star".  This was one of the ornaments I made for the craft shows.  It, along with the others, sat undisturbed on the top of the tote, which was on the floor in the back room, and easily reachable by both dogs.  A week before the Cape Tech show, I went into the livingroom and found this one on the floor in front of Pepper and she was looking at me as if to say, 'Ai can haz dis one? Ai want dis.' It was so cute and endearing that I decided to keep it.  At 14, or nearly 14, I am facing the reality that this might actually be my last Christmas with her, which sucks.  And while I have other ornaments with her name engraved on them, she kind of picked this herself.  How could I not keep it for my sweet baby girl?

Oh and here's the kitchen window in the sunlight since you can see it much better.  I really like how it came out.

My bff Michelle made the stained glass candle on the left.

Those 3 'stained glass' things are Makit Bakit crafts that I made way back in the mid-70s.  I'm going to guess 1973 or 74.  I had to put one of the snow globes on a tupperware to raise it above that ADT sticker!

My former boss, Robyn, gave me the fused glass & beaded snowman, over 10 years ago.  I wish I could remember where she said she got it.

Those crocheted snowflakes are one of the best purchases from the Lillian Vernon catalog!  Or maybe it was Miles Kimball.  Got them well over 20 years ago.  

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like....well you know

I don't know why it's taking longer each year for me to decorate but it does.  The first day the house looked like it exploded.  I could have opened a gift shop with the amount of knick knacks that were in the livingroom. You see, I'm one of 'those people' who has to lovingly wrap and store the every day decorations while the holiday ones are out.  That means the time consuming task of transferred the every day stuff from the Halloween box to the Thanksgiving/Fall box to the Christmas boxes.  The other reason it's so time consuming is that this house is pretty small, and therefore cannot accommodate every single decoration and tree that I own.  So I have to go through four or five boxes/totes full of tree ornaments and knick knacks to decide what I want to put out.  

Started with the outside lights and added a second strand.

This is the first year I decided to put stuff in the kitchen window.  I realize it's pointless because you can only see if you are outside and it's daylight.  This is not a street-facing window, and with the curtains always shut, we can't even see it inside the house.  I put my 3 homemade snowglobes in it, plus some fake greens, white lights and a bunch of vintage glass balls that I got for a steal at a junk shop a couple years ago.

One little tree, on top of the stereo speaker

Two more little trees and a bejeweled bottle.

Putting these out each year gets more and more bittersweet as time slips by.  Each piece has a special memory or two associated with it, from my childhood to my last few years in Washington. We are making new memories too, of course, but this is only our 4th Christmas together.  So when I put stuff out I have a tendency to linger over it.  

Like the little free silver Santa bell that came unexpectedly with a catalog order in California.  I remember my delight when I saw it in the bottom of the box.  The Peace on Earth pom pom lion & lamb that my dad picked out on his own for my stocking when I was a kid cause he thought I'd think it was cute.  And the time I had a Christmas bonus burning a hole in my pocket in 2007 and I splurged on a large set of Rudolph figures.

And all the cross stitch projects I've done.  The gold tinsel tree that was in my dollhouse when I was little.

How I worked on this Santa day and night for months to get it done in time to show in the 2002 Puyallup Fair, destroying my eyesight in the process.

Fans of South Park will recognize Mr. Hankey the Christmas Poo on the left.

I was digging around in the bottom of one of the boxes and pulled out that ceramic Seahawks ball! I forgot I had it and I also thought I left it behind.  

That's our first ornament hanging on the brass hanger, from 2011.  Behind it is a musical trio of mice that winds up and spins slowly to 'Santa Claus is Comin to Town'.  My Aunt Glady & Uncle Yimmy gave that to me when I was so little that it seems that I've always had it.  The 2 stained glass candle holders were bought at a cool shop in Orinda, CA called McWhorter's. I bought them in 1997, when I was working for Gillin Jacobson.  And that ceramic crescent Santa was bought on rainy Friday night, day after Thanksgiving, in San Rafael, CA in either 96 or 97 when we went downtown for the annual tree lighting and Christmas market. Someone on the street was selling it for like $4.00.  It's one of my fave decorations.

The Putz houses I got off ebay 2 years ago, to replace the ones my parents had and either lost, gave away or were stolen (I made the pink trees).

In the archway and w/o flash to show the lights in the garland.

Another angle.

Next to my chair.

Some of my friends decorated before Thanksgiving but that's a little too early for me.  I will probably leave these up till New Years, or whenever we are able to have Christmas with the kids.  Have you all decorated?  How long do you leave them up?