Celtic Ball

Last Saturday, my sister and I were able to attend the Celtic Ball!

If you want a detailed write-up of our costumes you can see mine and hers. 

'A lady does not place her weapon on the table.'

There was even a bagpiper! (and he played the Star Wars theme) 

Until next time!

SG

Deck the Halls!

This year's Christmas decorating ideas are brought to you by Pinterest. 

This was the tree that was on the front porch. But come the first strong gust... well, let's just say that it was quickly brought into the house. ;) Perfect size for the porch, a bit big for the living room. 

Our solution for displaying Christmas cards. :) 

We even got a hand-signed by all the employees Christmas card from our local farm store. Does that tell you how often we go there? :D

Our neighbor brought over arm-loads of holly. It ended up in just about every corner we could cram it in. ;) Then we shared the rest with some friends. There was that much holly. 

If you go through the pinterest board, you'll see inspiration for this. ;) 

And the cat helped too. He supervised. 

That tree. I want to climb it. 

"My brother is guessing his presents." -Eli's self-caption.

Christmas Decorating

I don't know why, but I'm excited for Christmas this year. I was rip-roaring ready to go before Thanksgiving, but Mom wouldn't let us play any Christmas music before the grand turkey day. Needless to say, we played it anyway to irk her. We're such loving children. Maybe it was all the nostalgic Christmas pictures starting to make the rounds on Pinterest. Maybe it's because we didn't really get to decorate for the season last year (we had some good friends with their many minions staying with us - I'll take them over decorations any day). Maybe it's because I actually feel like I have energy to do Christmas-y stuff; last year all I wanted for Christmas was a chance to hibernate. 

Needless to say, we've started to decorate.

And what a better place to start than the front porch! 

Yes, there's a tree on the porch. 

With lots of bells. 

And berry garland

The decorative bird house even got trimmed. 

I found this little beauty at the same antique store that I got the dulcimer. 

Does somebody want in? You're quite subtle. I must be cold out.

This wreath is what started it all. Once we set it on the front door, we knew what sort of 'feel' we wanted to have. 

On a random side note...

Do you know how hard it is to find Christmas decorations without glitter plastered all over?

Rescue

Living on a Christmas tree farm, you'd think that we'd bring the biggest, fattest, tallest tree in the field into the house. That is an urban myth. It is my duty now to dispel of such thoughts. Last year, we didn't even have a tree. This year, we have a rescue. 

When an oven decides to smell of electrical burning, Mom sends everyone outside so that we don't breathe in the stench. We finished our chores. We really couldn't think of anything else to do. Then someone suggested that we go find our tree! Brilliant idea, I say! So off we went a-tromping through the field. We found several trees that sort of met the strict criteria, and we couldn't agree on any single tree (of course). Then, as we were headed back to home base, there it was - a lonely, slain tree sitting out there in the middle of the field severed from its life source. Someone must have cut it and found a better one, poor thing. There was only one thing to do with it. Give it some love and bring it into the house. We trimmed off the lower branches, gave the tree a shake, took fifteen minutes to cut an inch off the stump, and stood the tree up in it's stand. 

It looked pathetic. It couldn't decide if it would be a Charlie Brown tree or a Dr. Seuss tree. And my sister hated it from the get-go. She now hates me for bringing it into the house. Maybe she'll hate her Christmas present just as much. :P

Meanwhile, my brother, who has the highest standard that a Christmas tree can attain, was away at college classes. He had no clue what we were doing. His facial expression when he walked in the door was priceless. Appalled. Sheer shock. He also hated the poor tree. 

Despite the vocalizations of dislike, we strung lights up and decorated it. It didn't look as bad, but the top was still on the funky side. 

Oh well!  

At least we have a tree this year. 

Merry Christmas everyone!

Encore

A friend of mine posted more pictures on FB! Here's a few of my favorites!

I don't know if I posted this already, but it's a cool picture

More Flap Jack Flipping!

And more line dancing! Can't quite tell what Dad is doing though. ;)

And a special presentation of the Texan Terrorist. 

Brain Spark

You know in comics, when someone gets an idea, there's a lightbulb above their head? Mine comes in sparks. Once it sparks though, it's kinda hard to stop the neurons from spreading the spark all over the place. ;) About a week ago, we got an ad for Joann's home decor fabric. Inside said ad was this picturesque picture of someone's couch. On said couch was a bunch of mundane, normal pillows, but then, there it was! A gorgeous pillow with a chrysanthemum fabric flower sewn right on top. I had to make it. I didn't have any directions but I absolutely had to make this pillow. For those of you who have gone shopping with me to any boutique-y store/bazaar/show, I have an obsession with unique pillows. I have a few pillows in my room now, but this surely would be the piece-de-resista'nce! I sat all through dinner brooding this sudden surge of creative juices and how on earth I would piece this together. I decided a protractor would be necessary. But how many petals? How big should they be? Well... when I finally found the protractor, we only had one size. So that answered that question. But how big should the finished project be? How much fabric? Could I use all the fun scraps that I can't use for doll dresses? Would those colors all work? The questions just kept coming. My dad suggested to search the web for directions. Not a whole lot out there... There was one felt pillow, but it wasn't exactly what I was looking for. But it did give me another lead. Then I decided to check Joann's website. I searched and searched. Finally, I found it. At the bottom of the last page of free projects. I was so excited I almost couldn't contain myself! But as I read the directions, I was taken over by the dark cloud of 'what the heck am I getting into?' To feel what I experienced, just click the link:
http://www.joann.com/joann/catalog/projectdetail.jsp?projectFlag=true&CATID=&fullPath=home+decor+%26+fabrics&PRODID=prod342161&subCatName=home+decor+
I decided I could do it easier and more streamlined. I pulled out the protractor and a big plate (because I can't draw circles to save my life) and got to cutting. I didn't know exactly what I was going to do, but I was going to do it. I found some fun fabrics in my stash that were too small to do anything else with, cut them up, and sewed them together. As I sewed them onto the big circle (the plate size), the flower suddenly emerged. I kept going and then finally decided to just stick them all on there to see what this thing was going to look like when all was said and done. ;) Here's what I've come up with so far:

Isn't it gorgeous?! Sorry for the horrible picture... It's what I get for using my webcam. ;)