WELCOME TO MY CHRISTMAS HOME!

I have been very busy this week getting ready for my Christmas Party tomorrow but I took a few pictures of the Christmas House and thought I would give you a peek.

We will start in the dining kitchen. I decorate the shelf above the bench with white lights, these adorable HO HO HO's, my collection of folk art animals and men, some gorgeous red and white striped ornaments ( still looking for the candy canes) and a collection of Krinkles Christmas Cats. It looks so faery like at night.

Here is my grandmothers little deer I spoke about and I found this cute glittered paper mache house with little brush trees at HomeSense. I made the ELF letters for the tree. I love my herd of cows on the old ash sifter. I like to use vintage Christmas prints and frame them. A great source are Christmas books you can order them and many of the pictures, especially the Norman Rockwell books, are made to be removed and framed. I also use old Christmas and Post Cards.

This is my latest aquisition. I always liked these, when the candle is lit the heat makes it rotate. I have seen the angel ones but this reindeer one I just had to have. I got it on Ebay for $5.

On top of my primitvie green Linen Press I have my grandmothers folkart Canada Goose. I love these rusted trees and I have the collection of folkart men for the first time this year. They were part of my grandmother's collection I inherited from my Uncle. The wheel form on the wall looks great with Brenda from The Rusty Thimble's tuck pillows.

HomeSense carries some really amazing vintage like ornaments. I picked up two of these great glittery things this year. They look great over the doors. I get very sentimental when I put my grandmother's ornaments in the big wooden bowl every season. The stockings I made look great, I just love how they turned out. I love my odd looking Santa who has in front of him a sheep with two heads, I think it was meant to be a tail.

I have had this huge candlestick for years. My grandmother bought it from an old church in Quebec. The cupboard is from Quebec as well. Love this little Santa he reminds me of the one in the old Christmas Rudolph cartoon. I got these brush trees for a dollar and glittered them. They look great with my wooden Santa against this old basket.

Here is another photo I framed, this one was from a calendar. I filled this hanging bird container I made with red balls and a cute tree. The wooden girls are actually lamps without the works. They each got a cute hat. Here are my grandmother's paper mache stars. I am very gentle with them but some of the glitter paper still comes off every year. This is the paper mache Santas Head I usually fill with candy canes. Love the metal rocking toy, another HomeSense find.

I moved this cupboard to the back wall and fell in love with it all over again. I found these simple candle holders at Value Village and they look great with my folkart figures. I just received the monk, he is from the 15th. century and he is from Wales. The light on the Prayer Bench looks so welcoming at night with my Santa and Snowgirl dolls.

I will end todays tour with my favourite Christmas book "The Snowman" that sits with the little mouse my son made me when he was in grade 4. I will let you know on Sunday how the party went and show you the rest of the house. Have a lovely weekend!

MY CANDY CANE DILEMMA!

I have finally finished my Christmas decorating and I am getting ready for our annual Christmas Party on Saturday. I sent out my Christmas cards today so everyone will have them by December 1st. The only thing I am missing are my Candy Canes.

I just love Candy Canes. Not just for a treat but to decorate with. I put them all over the house in little cups or baskets and I have a cute paper mache Santa Head I fill up. Here is my dilemma. Where the heck are all of the red and white candy canes?

I'm sorry but I draw the line at Christmas with these hideous coloured candy canes. Come on, a candy cane is red and white. Make the coloured ones if you want but leave off the curl because they do not look like candy canes. It is like dressing Santa in a purple suit, it is just wrong.

The past couple of years the different flavoured and different coloured candys canes have flooded the stores here. I don't know about where you are but I am finding it really hard to get a nice sized red and white candy cane anywhere. They do have some tiny ones but I put the on gifts, hang them, adorn my baking and cocoa with them.

I even looked online but the only nice ones I found were $65.00 for 20. Yes you heard right I could not believe it either.

I will continue my search for the elusive traditional Candy Cane after my party, I am too busy until then. I will post some pictures tomorrow of my finally decorated home.

 Have a lovely day everyone!

OH CHRISTMAS TREE!

I finally got the last Christmas decorating done yesterday, the tree. I will post pictures tomorrow.

I have had many different Christmas trees. We use to have a real one but the thought of a living tree being cut down for a few weeks made me switch to artificial. I liked the really big ones, they looked great but took up a lot of space.

I decorated them very pretty and traditional. I also put up several smaller trees, which I still do, to hang the special ornaments like the ones our son made in school over the years.

A couple of years ago I found a smaller tree I really liked ( not quite this small). It is tall and narrow with lots of pine cones and vines. It looks pretty real. I had my husband build me a square stand that it sits it to make it secure and taller. I wanted the narrow one so I could have it in the kitchen. I just loved it there. You could see it from the livingroom but it was so cozy in the kitchen with the woodstove fire. Then my cat Luca came into our lives and the tree was just too tempting for him to climb so into the livingroom it went.

This season I had considered getting a different tree. Although I still love my tree the branches are getting a bit droopy and because I wanted to decorate more Scandinavian this year I thought maybe a different shaped tree would be nice for a change. My son got a little upset because he said he really like the old tree. I could not find anything I like anyway so my cute little tree is up again this year.

I have also made some Christmas trees of my own too. I like to make the shape out of different things. One year I did a traditional feather tree. I love these ideas. The wooden one  would look great in my studio which is very Scandinavian. The blocks are cute for the Christmas table so are the candles.

I don't think there are any rules about how to decorate your Christmas tree. I have seen trees done in just about every medium. I think they all look lovely whether over the top and themed...

ornate and elegant...

ultra modern....

I even like the edible ones.

It is all a matter of personal taste and that is what I like about Christmas trees, like snowflakes no two are alike!