Thrifting Thursday Christmas

It's Christmas!

Outdoor Nativity

This past summer while garage sale-ing I found something I have been wanting for a long time. It is not exactly what I might have had in mind when I pictured an outdoor Nativity but it is cute and now that it is up for Christmas I really like it. At only $5 the price can't be beat! I found the lighted star at my local United Church Store for $3 so all in all  quite a bargain in my opinion.

Vintage candolier

I really love vintage Christmas decorations as it brings back memories of the way we used to celebrate. At this time of year I like to scour the thrift and antique stores just to see what is there. A few years back I bought these electric candles at a thrift store and this year I found a second one. The plastic flowers are original and I know they are a little cheesy but I like them anyway.

Vintage Christmas

Vintage wreath

The vintage wreath is also a thrift store find from years back.

Vintage Nativity

I have used this Nativity set for 40 years and we had one when I was a child. Mine was a little damaged and I found an original on ebay this year. They are making reproductions of this so even if you can't find it in vintage it is still possible to get one.

Vintage lighted wreath
Another vintage find for only $1!

Merry Christmas and Happy Thrifting!

Christmas trees through the years

Another trip down memory lane.  Looking at the old photos always gives me inspiration before I do my decorating.......

Real Christmas Trees

I think we thought the tree was beautiful, 

no matter shape or size.

Popcorn and cranberry strings were "the thing".

Lots of Green

Victorian Christmas trees...pink and purple.

Traditional Red and Green Christmas Tree

Vintage bubble lights, nativity and treetop angel.  

Lots of handmade ornaments.

Turquoise, silver and white Christmas Tree

I guess I will be stuck with turquoise for a little while as I have made quite a commitment to the color.

Time to get decorating!

Easter Decorating

table favor baskets for Easter

Finished my table favors for Easter dinner and thought I would share.  
Pictures of the entire table will come later.

Putting it all together ...ruffled cupcake liners and pink inserts,
 a little ribbon, colored eggs and candy.
 I found the stickers that I put on the eggs at Michaels. 
The name tags were made with pages app.
(Some of the pictures make it look Like the color is  coral
 but it was just the lighting . Everything is pink, turquoise and white)

The handles are lollipop sticks bent to shape and glued between the folds of the insert.

I must have a little too much time on my hands as I even matched the 

candies to my color scheme.

 A few photos from a previous easter celebration.

Easter Table

Easter place setting

Easter Basket

HAPPY EASTER!

Organize and Label!

Organized and labelled!

I finally got to fixing up my tv cabinet.  I know that I am in the dark ages with my cd player and photos not on disc but I still like the paper copies and I like my cd player that holds 5 cd's at once. I also still have a vcr and dvd player because of all the old movies I have for my grandkids.

Here is my old cabinet. The little sony TV finally gave out and even though I didn't care about a large screen the sellers seemed to encourage us to buy one by charging less for it than the smaller one so you think "might as well".

The problem was what to do about losing all that storage so I went on the hunt for a replacement cabinet. I wanted white and found there were not many out there. We settled on one from Ikea as it was the right size and price. The putting together took a lot of time but was worth it.

I didn't take a before picture so here is one I cropped from a Christmas photo, anyway, here it is loaded up with stuff and looking kind of messy!

Below is the "finished product" (for now anyway)

I made the labels with the "pages" application. It is so easy to do just using shapes the color and font choices are endless!  Then  just print on a large avery sticker sheet and cut out. (too bad I couldn't seem to take a picture without glare on the glass)

Loving labels!

We replaced the hardware on the cabinet with some glass knobs found at a local antique store. The turquoise boxes and albums are from the Martha Stewart office collection at Staples. The black boxes were from super Store.

I found this dish at Value Village. It was only $4 and I almost didn't buy it. So glad I did! It is perfect for setting the controls in.

I also was happy to find this little vintage lamp with the perfect color of shade.

Happy with how it turned out. If you have a printer and the pages app you will find it easy to label and organize anything. Try it!

It's a puppy party!

When I learned last Wednesday that my granddaughter Amelia had decided that what she wanted to do for her 6th birthday was to have a family party at Grandma's house I decided that I would try to make it special for her. I asked  what theme Amelia would like and found she had asked for a puppy theme. Amelia loves stuffies and especially puppies! My daughter in-law had visited a party store and I went to several stores that sell party stuff but we couldn't find anything with that theme. On-line I found lots of ideas, in fact many more than I would have time to do as I only had 3 days.

puppy party table

After checking out a puppy party on Martha Stewart, I went to my local thrift store to see if they had any stuffies. It was my lucky day! Someone must have just brought in a whole collection because there were so many there and really nice ones too! I bought all they had and took them home and machine washed them.

stuffies

and more stuffies......

 We had stuffies all over!

I then made a banner on my computer:

The cutting mat and grid ruler that my daughter gave me for 

Christmas sure came in handy! (thanks Janie)

Puppy Birthday Banner

The puppies on the banner were found at clipartfort.com and 

sweetclipart.com and  clker.com/clipart.

For the table place settings I found the dog bone mats at dollarama. 

They are meant for dog dishes but worked well for place mats.

As it was not possible for me to print on napkins I made napkin rings.

personalized party blowers

For both the blowers and the table centerpiece  I just took off the cardboard pictures 

and replaced them with my own. The puppy clip art for these came from clipartfort

 and dog clipart. I also made stickers to put on the paper cups.

personalized centerpiece

The balloon idea came from: marthastewartpuppy-themed-party-ideas 

although it was suggested to make the faces with felt pen I just copied 

the pattern and taped it on with double sided tape.

puppy balloons

Also with the treat bag pattern (on the same post) you were supposed 

to cut out the pieces and glue them on.  As I was crunched for time 

I just printed out the pictures on sticker paper and stuck them on brown bags.

puppy treat bags

I wanted to have a mini candy buffet and wanted the candies to

 be browns so it is mostly chocolate candies, nuts , caramel corn and 

some coke gummies.  The empty space is where a puppy was removed 

before we could get the picture.

I bought a bone cookie cutter and made cookies with my usual brown sugar cookie recipe

BROWN SUGAR COOKIES

preheat oven to 350 degrees

1cup butter

2 cups brown sugar

2 beaten eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

31/2 cups flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

Cream butter and sugar together

Blend eggs and vanilla and beat

into sugar mixture

Mix dry ingredients gradually

 and fold in until totally 

incorporated.

chill dough until cold. Roll out to

1/8 “ thickness between two sheets of 

plastic wrap. Cut out shapes. 

Bake on lightly greased cookie sheets

for 10-12 minutes

Makes about 5 dozen cookies

Recipe can be cut in half

Finally I made some puppy cupcakes :

puppy cupcakes

Amelia was a happy girl!



All in all it turned out great!
 (A special note of thanks to my hubby for taking all the pictures.)