Sometimes Here Sometimes There

Another Christmas on Prince Edward Island

Christmas this year was far better than last. Last year I had just given birth to my beautiful little Elsa and was rather bloated and sore. Because of that I was far too tired to make the most of the Christmas season. This year however I did better. I still had those lingering bah humbug feelings, I'm just not the holiday celebrating sort. But with Liam being four years old and finally understanding that the 25th is something a wee bit more special than any other day I have to get over my hum buggery and be jolly with the rest off them. So Oliver baked chocolate chip cookies, I decorated our nicest tree yet and we watched all of the cheesy Christmas movies in between bouts of Bing Crosby singing Christmas carols.  I think we succeeded in making Christmas special for Liam and hopefully each year we'll do even better! I hope everyone out there had a very happy Christmas as well! Here are some pictures of our little Christmas celebration, enjoy!

 
Elsa amidst the Christmas morning chaos. Picture taken with Instagram on my iphone.

This is what I get when I ask Liam to smile nice for me!

Totally unimpressed! Boo and Mr. Bingley napping on the couch. Picture taken with Instagram on my iphone.

Oliver and the kiddos playing with Liam's new Handy Manny toolbox. When asked what he wanted for Christmas Liam would always shout "HANDY MANNY!"

Still playing with the toolbox!

Vintage mercury glass balls and the Union Jack! Just some of my pretty vintage Christmas treasures on display. Picture taken with Instagram on my iphone.

The Christmas wreath I made years ago using yarn, vintage doilies, mercury glass balls, and other vintage treasures. This is the first year I've had this wreath out. When I first made it I didn't like it so I put it in storage. This year my feelings changed and now I finally have it out :) Picture taken with Instagram on my iphone.

My vintage deer collection. These guys only come out for Christmas which makes them even more special! Picture taken with Instagram on my iphone.

Our Christmas Decorations

I have officially finished decorating for Christmas! Oliver and I finally agreed to forgo the traditional Christmas tree this year due to not being prepared. We still needed to pay for the tree, tree skirt, base to put the tree in, garland and lights. Even if we managed to get all of that on sale it would still have worked out to quite a bit. This way we can get Liam the number of Christmas presents we'd like to get him rather than having to cheap out for the sake of having a tree. I did however feel rather bad about being Grinch-like in the case of the tree (Oliver wanted one I did not) so I made him a non-traditional tree while he was at work on Friday. You can see the tree I made him in the above photo. It has some of my spun cotton birds on the branches, some simple pine cone ornaments I made and the nest I made which was shown in a previous post.

This photo (above) shows the base of the tree I made Oliver.

This is a close-up of the stocking I originally made for Liam but it turned out a wee bit smaller than I had wanted. Now it's just a decoration rather than Liam's stocking. I put the whole thing together by hand because my sewing machine skills aren't all that fabulous as of yet. The heart was made with the backside of a vintage cross-stitched table runner. The blue flower is vintage velvet millinery and I also added some vintage mercury glass balls, an antique postcard and a vintage rhinestone shoe clip in the shape of a bow.

This is a fairly simple ornament I made using a large vintage rhinestone broach. I removed the pin from the back and added a Swarovski crystal I had on hand to the center. I think it looks so pretty hung with my favorite dark green vintage seam binding ribbon :)

These deer are vintage, well, all except for one. The one with the rather large head and huge eyes in the bottom left corner is actually a Little Petshop toy that I couldn't resist adding to my deer collection. I put one deer in a shadowbox with vintage wallpaper pieces, vintage spun cotton mushrooms and a vintage seam binding ribbon around it's neck. The mercury glass picks are also vintage and are sitting in an empty glass jam jar. This display sits atop our fireplace mantle.

More vintage treasures on the mantle. These gnomes were Ebay purchases long ago. The pine cones are a garland I made.

Oliver bought the two vintage mercury glass bell ornaments for me last month at an antique shop in Cornwall. The nutcracker I've had for a number of years and used to belong to a set. I gave the entire set to my niece Julia (she had a thing for nutcrackers) but kept this guy for myself. The dog and camel are vintage Italian nativity animals. They are part of the set that I played with as a child. The shoe is one of two antique 1800's button-up baby boots I own. The framed landscape in the background is an embossed antique Victorian print, the floral print is vintage and the collage in the top left corner is a collage I put together using antique paper scraps, antique lace and an antique Victorian greeting card featuring mushrooms (the frame is an antique as well). These things are also displayed on our fireplace mantle.

This is what I have sitting atop an antique table in our living room. The transferware bowl and framed portrait are antiques, the Christmas tin and spun cotton dove in the bowl and also the milk glass vase in the background are all vintage.

So there you have it! That's all we're doing as far as decorating goes this Christmas but next year I promised Oliver we'd have a real old fashioned Christmas tree :)

More Christmas Decor

Here I am, finally getting around to posting something. Yes, I've been a wee bit unavailable as of late. Trying desperately to get the Christmas decorations done before Christmas is over and neglecting my Internet duties. I think I may be close to being finished, or at least enough to have a half-way decent tree this year. We don't actually have a tree up yet. I think we will be going tree shopping next weekend weather permitting. We are going to have a real tree this year and we're hoping to find somewhere we can cut it down ourselves, a tradition we would like to start and continue each and every Christmas (although the environmentalist in me feels a little bit bad about doing such a thing). Our decorations are very woodsy. I've used my various nature supplies such as birch bark and moss and last weekend we went to town and found some more spun cotton birds to adopt and adorn the tree with (I already have some vintage birds). As for a tree topper, I wanted something woodsy, a star or angel wouldn't do so I handcrafted a medium sized bird's nest to wire to the top of our tree. I used a lot of natural materials to make it, right down to the feathers straight from a Blue jay's undergarments. No Blue jays were harmed in the making of my nest though. The photo below shows the front of the nest. It's a little over exposed but you get the idea.

Today I actually didn't do anything Christmassy. I took a break from crafting and instead I worked on a painting. It was very nice to get back to painting although not easy seeing as Liam is still insisting on sitting on my lap the entire time I paint. He fidgets quite a bit and has to surround my work area with his toys, bowl of cheerios, sippy cup and anything else he deems important. I have gotten quite used to having him there though and he's usually pretty good about staying away from wet paint. Anyway, it's late and I still need to cook dinner. Have a lovely weekend everyone!