Come on in for a Visit

I'm so glad you stopped by for a visit - welcome.   

The front porch has a few Christmas touches - twig stars, shiny balls hung on twigs and placed in the lanterns,

and touches of white on the wreath and the little girl's skates.

 Come on inside out of the cold.  Would you like a cup of tea?

some cookies?

Let me show you around.  


I kept the mantel pretty simple this year - just the spindle Santas and some pine cones.  Can't get much simpler than that, but I love it.  Those spindle Santas are near and dear to our hearts - each one has a special story which you can read about here.

I did something a little different in the dining room.  I've never done a colour scheme before, but really wanted to try doing the sideboard in red and white this year.  I love how simple and fresh it looks.  (You can read more about the sideboard and see more pictures here).

I've been meaning to show you how I created the plates.  I wanted to let you in on a little secret about how easy they were to do.  They really depended more on my ability to copy designs and do some good Googling than on any actual inherent talent.  Oh, and it definitely helped my psyche to know that I could wash the Sharpie off the plates - I'm not sure why it would scrub off as usually Sharpie is permanent, but when I found out I could remove it I felt a lot freer to experiment and try designs.


The Christmas lights were from an image I found online.  The first time I drew the bulbs they were all different sizes and shapes and looked ... well ... not right.  So I made a little stencil out of cardboard and used that so the bulbs were similar to each other.

Lighting Pictures

The idea for the Christmas balls came from a Folio Society ad that we got in the mail.  I knew I couldn't draw the gorgeous designs they had on the balls so I improvised.

The snowflake picture came from an embroidery design that I found online.  I simplified it as well as you can see below.

Green Crafts

And the Christmas tree was a modification of the many scribble trees you can find online, like the one below.

Want 2 Scrap

I'm so glad you dropped by for a visit.  We're putting our tree up this weekend so pop back to have a look.   We would already have it up, but Kate isn't back from university yet and she's a Christmas-loving girl so we thought we would wait for her.

Linked to Virtual Christmas House Tour at The Inspired Room,
Holiday House Tour at Hooked on Houses,
DIY Ornaments Holiday Crafts Link Party at Centsational Girl,
Christmas Crafts at Bower Power