I will start with our set of figures painted on wood. These were made by American Indians and I just love them, they look so sweet and innocent. We aquired these in the course three years. Sad to say the store is no longer there.
This message was edited Dec 7, 2006 11:12 PM
A view from a different angle.
Those are beautiful, Josephine!!! We don't have our decorations up yet. Maybe this weekend.. :-)
Thank you Marylyn, actually we don't either, those pictures are from last year.
We plan to put them up this weekend too, if it is not too cold.
Josephine.
Just precious...the choir angels are my favorites...such sweet faces
I love the your manger scene Josephine.
I will try to remember to take a picture tonight. I actually got our decorations up on the weekend after Thanksgiving, but I still have not finished my big Christmas tree. I bought it Saturday afternoon and am down to the last bit of decoration. All the lights, bead garland and glass balls are up. Just have the random stuff left over. My daughter's small fake tree is done though. Hers' is upstairs in the gameroom and has a blue and silver theme. The downstairs one is red & gold.
Thank you Stacey, please remember to post, it will be fun.
Josephine.
Nice decorations Josephine! :-)
One more thing for now..
http://www.nbc5i.com/video/10486784/index.html
There are a couple of stories here ^ about accidents hanging Christmas lights, (2 men paralyzed and one was fatal). Also one about firemen putting up people's lights for them as a part time job for the season.
In any case not to be grim, but be very careful putting up your lights this year. Have someone spot you if you have to climb on a ladder. Careful of unlevel ground underneath you. Please, please don't try to do it all alone or with no one else nearby. Decorations are really a dazzeling part of this time of year, but it isn't worth getting hurt. Just take every measure to be safe so you can be around to enjoy the Season!!
Cheers!!
This message was edited Dec 8, 2006 1:10 PM
The videos on the above page do not work in any other browser than Internet Exploder, :-|
Thank you for the warning Deb, I never let my husband go out on the roof without help, I always hold the ladder for him, but I still do worry about it. It does seem that this has been a very unfortunate year for this sort of thing.
Josephine.
I wasn't able to see it, I have a Mac.
Just everyone be sensible. Now's not the time for all the doom and gloom!
Okay, here's ours. I'd love to have someone put lights on the house next year. It's too tall to do it ourselves.
That looks beautiful Stacey!!!! thank you for letting us see, your house is very nice too, Congratulations!!!!
Oops Josephine I forgot about Mac.. They were just a few stories on nbc5 news. I know you get my drift with it. :-D
Super nice Stacey! You have a lovely home!
Merry Merry!!
Thank you gals. I finished the tree last night.
Now just to take it all down in a few weeks.
LOL Stacey! and Yaaay!
Well I finally got the tree done, so here is our tree with a lot of crochet and picture ornaments.
Josephine that is one stunning tree... really stunning tree...
Thank you Mitch! good to hear from you, How are you doing?
Good now - school is out for two weeks! Got out int he garden and started working on cutting down and trimmed everything out. The pile of brush is huge that I have right now so I am going to build a pile in the field next to me with part of it for rabbit, mice, and jumping rat cover, So it has been one busy day to say the least!
Decor here -- maybe this week.
Josephine, your tree is absolutely lovely. I love the etched windows, too! :-)
On Friday the bunnies and I "made" ornaments for the tree. We have a bunch of old glass ornaments from Charles' mother, but I'm going to wait until the bunnies are a little older before putting them on the tree. So I put my nativity ornaments up high and we make paper ornaments for the lower branches. The picture is of the bunnies hard at work. :-)
We put our tree up last night, but it's not decorated yet. All of the little "ornaments" are cut out, but they need hooks stuck through them so we can hang them up. We'll probably do that tomorrow at this point.... This evening we had a Christmas party with our small group from church. It was fun, but now we're all tired. I think we're going to stick a movie on for the bunnies and Charles and I will snuggle on the couch and try not to snore loudly enough to drown out the sound. LOL
Mitch I am glad you had a chance to get all those things done, when you have your decorations up will you show them to us?
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Marylyn, those Bunnies look very happy working on their project, I bet it will look very pretty, and certainly very personalized.
Josephine.
Adorable bunnies Marylyn!
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Josephine your tree is very pretty, I love the crocheted ornaments!
Will do... some little guy keeps going on about needing a tree...
Frostweed, your tree looks fabulous! We have a 4' prelighted "permanent" tree. I won't bore anyone by showing our tree but to us it looks about like any other tree we have ever had. No presents under it because we just buy what we want when we want but doesn't mean we don't have the Christmas spirit. Just invested in a beautiful big creche scene for in front of the fireplace which is our main focus.
Ann
Josephine,
Very pretty tree. Did you make the crocheted ornaments? At one time I had several crocheted ornaments that my grandmother had made, but over time they became badly discolored. If you have any advise as to how to keep them pretty and white I would love to know.
Christmas lights picture did not turn out very well, will have to try another tonight.
That is very pretty, thank you for showing us.
Yes I made the crochet ornaments. If they get discolored you can soak them in warm water to remove the starch, then rinse and soak again in warm soapy water with a small amount of bleach in it to remove the discoloration, rinse well let dry and starch again. They sell a special starch for that purpose that dries very stiff. You can pin them down on a board to stretch them to shape and let them dry that way, or you can just stretch them with your hands and lay them flat to dry.
It seems like a lot of trouble, but they should be good for a few years.
I love them so I don't mind.
Josephine.
Here's the finished tree with all of the bunnies' ornaments on it. Nothing fancy, but we like it. :-) Last year I hung little toys on it, too, which looked fun. But Katie, the little bunny, kept "liberating" her friends. LOL So this year we're going to stick to just the ornaments.
That is really nice Marylyn, thank you for showing us, I think this is a lot of fun. Tell the Bunnies I think they did a really good job.
Josephine.
Beautiful tree, Marylyn. Getting to make the ornaments will be a memory the bunnies will treasure. We used to make gingerbread men for the tree when my two were little. No gingerbread man made it to Christmas intact. They were missing hands and feet, sometimes a whole leg or arm. The nibblers started toward the back of the tree but became more daring as the days passed.
I love your tree too, Josephine. The crocheted ornaments are my favorites. My mother crocheted a bunch of snowflakes for me some years ago after I found the patterns and discovered I just did not have the time to make them. I sort of lack the patience it takes too.
Josephine, Thank you for the tips on caring for the crocheted ornaments. Do you find the starch where stores keep other laundry products or with hobby and crafts?
Marylyn, the bunnie's ornaments are really precious, and so are the "bunnies". Ü
I usually find it in the crafts section, or the crafts store, I will find mine and tell you the brand, I can't remember right now.
Josephine.
DawninTx, I found the bottle of starch for the crochet ornaments, it is called ( Stiffy ) Fabric Stiffener by Plaid, I am sure there are others, I hope that helps.
Josephine.
I forgot to tell you that after the ornaments are clean and dry, I put them in a plastic baggie pour the stiffener in the bag, enough to soak them, seal the bag and squish until they are thoroughly soaked, the stretch them to shape and dry flat on a piece of plastic laid on a flat hard surface. The plastic keeps them from sticking to the surface they are drying on. I use my ironing board with the plastic laid on it.
This message was edited Dec 21, 2006 1:49 PM
Josephine, thank you so much for the advise. My ornaments are special to me as they were made by my grandmother, who is now 94. I look forward to cleaning them up and passing them down to my children.
Wishing you a merry and very blessed Christmas.
Dawn
Ok for starters my camera is messing up so here is a BAD photo of the tree....
The tree looks really pretty, thank you for posting it. Maybe you can get a better picture.
Dawn ~ “At one time I had several crocheted ornaments that my grandmother had made, but over time they became badly discolored. If you have any advise as to how to keep them pretty and white I would love to know.”
I only use mild solutions of OxiClean on antique textiles and white quilts (after testing it first), etc with excellent result. Sodium Percarbonate is sometimes referred to as an Oxygen bleach. Oxygen bleaches are found in products designed to remove organic stains (such as coffee, tea, wine, fruit juices, foods, sauces, grass and blood.) Products containing an oxygen bleach can be used in any place in or around the house to remove stains and odors.
Using household chlorine bleach on garments made of wool, nylon, silk, leather or any amount of spandex will stain the garment yellow which is permanent or very difficult to remove. Sodium hypochlorite yields chlorine radicals—oxidizing agents that readily react with many substances
petit, thank you for the information.
Was wondering exactly what was turning some of our clothes that horrible yellow and now I know, thanks to petit potager. Luckily it's just white socks and DDH's underwear and he couldn't care less what color they were but just that they are clean! I figured that probably was the cause but yellow is better than dirty looking gray so I am not going to change detergents.
Ann
