Cottage & Family:
Christmas

Can you believe Christmas
is over and
Valentine's Day is just
around the corner!

My daughter Stephanie,
who creates our Ellie Grace line,
has done some custom
orders for Valentine's
baby headbands and
a bow tie!
They are so cute that I
wanted to show you ~
I am sure some Valentine's
baby headbands will
be showing up
on the website soon too!

We have had so much
fun this Christmas
season having two
babies to celebrate
with!

We really wanted to
take them to see Santa
even though we thought
they may cry ~

Isaac sat on his lap
kind of not sure
what we were doing
and Ellie slept through
the whole event ~

We saw Santa at
Bass Pro Shop so there
were some other things
to do while we were there ~

The babies tried out
camping chairs ~

They got to take their
first Merry Go Round ride ~

Hung out with Daddy ~

Sat on a buffalo ~

And last ... sat
in front of a huge fireplace ~

Ellie, Noah & Stephanie

Isaac, Kristin & James

Babies with
Grammy & Grampy ~
(Grampy was on his way to work)

Merry Christmas!!

This year I wanted all
of my Christmas decorating
to be creams, burlap,
mercury glass and greens ~

The challenge was to
take things I had and
kind of recreate them
and also to use things
that I had around
my home already ~

We have an artificial tree
but I wanted fresh greens
for the awesome smell ~
I went to Lowes and they
gave me cuttings that
were just laying around
from their fresh
Christmas trees ~ It was
awesome!! I left
with an armload ~

Then I got some of my old
glass ornaments and
washed them in warm sudsy
water to make them
turn into a wonderful
mercury glass ~

Next I took a wreath that
was shoved in the attic
and took off all the old
decorations ~

Then I added
clippings from the greens
all over and used
some hydrangea
blossoms that were still
on bushes ~
Then added some of the
mercury balls that
I had washed ~

This is our mantel with
stocking for my precious
grand babies ~

I am still using the
hydrangeas that
I showed you in this post ~
The colors have faded
but they work great for
my tree ~

My armful of greens
helped create all of
these simple little
Christmas vignettes
and it smells great!

Have fun decorating!

hugs,
Lori

This year we wanted to renovate
our Christmas decor, but
we had so many Christmas
decorations already!

So, we decided to reuse some old
decorations, add a few Black Friday
finds, and a touch of vintage
flare to make a handmade Christmas
that was in our holiday budget ~

Our creation tools:

Adding German Glass Glitter to
the ornament toppers and
music sheets to the ornaments
added vintage touches ~

We also made some Mercury Glass
ornaments ~
You can find the tutorial for
Mercury Glass here ~

After a day of creating we
had all new decorations
for our handmade Christmas ~

Have fun this Christmas adding
your own handmade touches to
your decor ~ Merry Christmas!

We love the farmhouse look
of vintage enamelware ~
Since Christmas is right
around the corner, we
thought we would show you
an easy decorating idea
using enamelware for the holidays ~

All the fun things we found
at the flea market ~

First, we drilled holes in the
bottom of a bucket ~

Then added soil from our garden ~

And planted holiday plants such
as rosemary which we can use in
our Christmas cooking ~

The finished project is an easy,
colorful addition to your
vintage decorating ~

We have lots of enamelware
on sale here so you can create
your own farmhouse decor ~

We had fun today working
on a tutorial that is
super easy ~ We have made
it even easier with kits
available on our website :)

This project we are showing
early so that you have
plenty of time to work
on it before Christmas ~

These 12 days before
Christmas bags can be hung
as we have shown or
you could put them on
your Christmas tree ~
We thought it would be fun
for children to find the
number and open a little
gift for that day ~
You could fill the bags
with candy canes
or a hand written fun
thing for the day ~
Use your imagination ~

1. We have tea dyed the
bags so the first
step is to use the citra
solv method to transfer
the numbers on the bags ~
You could also stencil
numbers on ~

2. Glue strips of lace
across the top of the bag ~

3. Cut a piece of tea dyed
cheesecloth into a
2 x 2.5 inch square ~
Scrunch it in the middle
and glue it on the lace ~

4. Glue on a button ~

Next just fill with
fun things that can
be opened each of the
12 days before Christmas ~

You can use string with
clips to hang them
or you can hang them on
your tree ~

If you would like to
purchase a kit to make
your own they are
available here ~

Have fun!!

I am so excited to see

the Farmhouse Style as

one of the top trends for

2012! I am thinking it doesn't

really surprise me though :)

Romantic Homes magazine has a

couple of our products featured for

the Farmhouse style ~

{the two bucket things }

These are now out of stock but

we did get in other items that

I love and will continue

to get more things all the time ~

❤

I am off to get caught up

from Christmas fun!

Last night I got to go

to Lisa's house for a

Christmas crafting night ~ It is

so much fun to get together with

people who "get" the same stuff that

you do ~

Her house was recently in the

Dallas Morning News with some

beautiful pictures of her holiday decor ~

Well needless to say I knew that

I would pretty much not get any crafting

done because I really wanted to

look at all of her beautiful

Christmas decorating and awesome

vintage vignettes everywhere ~

Here are just a few of them ~

~ this is above the bathtub ~

~ over a doorway ~

~ this is the top of her headboard

with a mirror above it ~

It ended up that everyone pretty

much admired her home in awe, ate, chatted

and watched Charlene make

a necklace for Lisa out of some

of Lisa's vintage finds ~

( Lisa, Charlene & Cindy )

I have been wanting to make a

necklace with an old coin purse

for awhile so it was really fun to watch ~

Right before we left Cindy

had Lisa autograph her copy

of the newspaper ❤ ~

We were totally goofing around

with having her sign the paper

just because it was too fun ~

You've gotta love crafting with friends!

Oh my gosh I had to share with you this

AWESOME week of giveaways at

James Brandon Photography!!

Are you wanting to make your pictures better?

There are 5 days of giveaways that you can

win to do just that !

In total he is giving away

$800 in products ~

All you have to do

is leave a comment! Sooo easy!

My sister and niece have

been visiting me in Texas for

the last week ~ They live in California

and so we try and go back and forth

as much as we can ~

We hit the road shopping all week

starting with Canton's First Monday

{never can get enough junk!! }

Then as much shopping and

crafting as we could squeeze in ~

It was really cold and rainy most

of the time so we spent one day in

front of the fireplace watching movies

and Chelsey ( my niece ) taught

us all to crochet ~

{below is my daughter Stephanie and above

is a good friend Bethany, my niece Chelsey and

daughter Kristin }

Kristin added a rose and I just

love it !!

One day we decided to go

to the Gaylord Texan Hotel because

it is just gorgeous at Christmas ~

{ my sister Kim & I }

{my niece Chelsey, sister Kim, son in law James

daughters Kristin & Stephanie }

It is always fun to have them come

visit and sad when they leave!

I miss my family in California like crazy!!

I guess it is time for us to take

a trip there again soon ~

Today was one of those

random days where I go from

one project to another and

create a disaster everywhere I go ....

Actually most days are like that :)

While I was creating I took some

pictures along the way to show

you a quick and easy

Christmas stocking ~

I tea dyed the stocking first ~

If you don't have one I have

blank tea dyed ones here for sale ~

Then ripped two 2.5 inch

strips of ticking ~

I gathered mine on my sewing

machine but you can also gather

by hand ~

Next use a fabric glue

( my ultimate favorite is

Fabri Fix ) to glue the

gathered ticking strips on to the

cuff of the stocking ~

Just glue them where you like the

way they look ~

Next I made some rolled roses

out of tea dyed muslin and also

a tea dyed tag for a name ~

I tied the tag with jute and then

glued it on with the roses on top ~

That is it !!

This stocking is for sale on my

website if you don't want to make one ~

Chat soon!