The Leaves

To give credit where credit is due, I got the idea for the leaves in the office workstation makeover from Dreamy Whites. These are also fresh leaves since the original picture. No water = not a good idea. Here's to Round Two!

The Office

I'm planning to spend a lot of time here over the next month, and I don't know if I really could have done it "as is". I suppose I could. Maybe. But how depressing.

This is another one of those areas that has a complete mish mash of things that were stuffed there when we moved. Not to mention that there are a lot of mice in here. Though I haven't seen one come poking its nose around lately, there is still evidence that they exist.

Before: Depressing, dirty, disorganized, messy, discouraging, disheartening, dismal, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. (Am I making it clear how I felt about this?)

After: I can do this.

After 2: As you can see, I removed the white circle from underneath the keyboard before taking this picture. I decided it was too much white in the wrong place.

My original plan was to put something over the "lovely" pink insulation, but time being of the essence, I decided to forgo that plan and do what I could with what I had. I'm glad all the computer equipment is black, it made life much easier. While I was at it, I decided to give my computer "desktop" a makeover too.

I think I'm going to like working here.

When I was putting the Hawthorne twigs behind the computer screen my little brother was grumbling that I was feminising the office. I glared at him and said, "You call putting branches with inch long thorns feminising!" Real story: Too pleased with myself I smiled and said, "yes!" I didn't even think of the thorns and feminising thing until later.

In other news, it is snowing today. I'm not sure how I feel about that. And I have a mild cold. I do know how I feel about that. I do not like it.

Quilled Ornaments

I always feel like everyone else has all the good ideas. Especially if I spend too much time browsing blogs. They can be very inspirational, but they sometimes leave me feeling an inferiority complex. "Wow, why can't I ever think of anything that creative?" God has given me creativity and talent in some areas and I need to remember to be thankful for those gifts and utilize them, while I still appreciate the talents of others.

Most of the time I don't think of myself as too creative, but every once in a while I come up with something and really impress myself. Let me share with you something that I thought was quite brilliant on my part and brought all these thoughts on creativity about. It makes me very excited to be a channel for Divine inspiration!

Here is a Partridge pattern for a pillow and ornament out of a book called Country Christmas Crafts that we've had for a long time. Several years ago I got the idea to use the pattern but transfer it to a small stocking. It turned out really cute and I made one for all my sisters, grandmother, friend, etc.

You can just see the pillow and ornament the pattern was originally made for:

And the stocking I made for myself:


And then another Christmas I made all my sisters ornaments using a pattern for quilled snowflakes from Martha Stewart as the inspiration. Only, I couldn't find quilling paper so I made do using strips of white card stock cut in narrow strips. I also improvised since I didn't have a quilling tool; I used a Q-tip and rolled the paper tightly around the stick.




I try to make all my sisters handmade ornaments each year, and the combination of those two projects was the inspiration for this year's Christmas ornaments.

Quilled Partridge:

Which led me to something else, which I made especially for my mother who loves country things, especially woolly sheep, even though her herd of "girls" is goats.

The sheep I think turned out to be my personal favorite. Again, no quilling paper, just strips of white card stock, a Q-tip and wooden toothpick for slightly tighter curves. They aren't too hard, I really should put together a tutorial for next year.

And I think the hidden moral of this post could be that we all have creativity within ourselves, but we must focus on and nurture our natural gifts and not covet the gifts and abilities of others. And I need to take more time to be creative!

Rose Hip Swags

Every once in a while I have brilliantly creative ideas and here is one of them:

Beautiful strands of cranberries hanging in swags round the tree, adding a deep richness to your Christmas tree. I've always liked the idea, but with the price of cranberries, not to mention I don't like the idea of wasting food, it never happened.

But, I was doing something at the kitchen sink not long ago and I spotted a bowl of rose hips my little brother had gathered for me when I was trying to dose up on vitamin C. They had dried into the most beautiful jewel red color and it hit me; gather rose hips froum the mountainside and string them for the Christmas tree!

These could go very rustic country, but they dress up nicely with our ornaments for a perfect fit to our elegant country style of decor.

And I must say, thanks to help from two of my little sisters, we got them all strung. Thank you girls, don't they look pretty?