Christmas decorating - seashell garland

It’s been awhile since posting. Got back from Boston last week and Thanksgiving was right in my face! It was a simple but happy Thanksgiving. No BLACK FRIDAY shopping for me! I hate crowded stores and plan to participate in cyber Monday tomorrow! I spent all weekend putting up decorations. Here’s something new I did this year. This bedroom needed some beachy attitude:

Bought cheap shells at Wal-Mart & Michaels, embellished them and hot glued hooks or ribbons on them to hang.

This is son’s room. When he was home this week for Thanksgiving, his comment on his old room was “angel-fairy went to the beach!” Hey, there are no angels or fairies on this garland. I’m crushed, I take it he was not impressed with my creative desires to fou-fou it up! Just kidding….

White Thanksgiving

I'm joining Susan at Between Naps on the Porch for Tablescape Thursday.

Before I left for Boston, I did this WHITE THANKSGIVING auto- post with pictures for Thursday. I'm in Boston, trying to fill in the blanks as time allows. So not many words, just pictures!

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Our David, the amazing walking hero

Ya'll have got to go here and see this. This is amazing. Liz titled this post "HOLY SH*T" very fitting!

Someone in the back ground says" he doesn't need those Damned canes" . David...... you are my inspiration, day after day. I love you!

White Linen Slipcovers

I posted last week that I had tons to do in a short 7 days. I did accomplish a lot, pat on the back! Since that post I got these 5 finished, only 1 left to go…

CLEANED up after tropical storm IDA. We were not in direct path but still had strong winds that left us with a huge mess....28 leaf and lawn bags of green leaves, 4 trash cans of sticks, and husband cleaning off the roof with a blower for 35 minutes.

said goodbye to the baby and brought him over to David's family, his other grandparents & aunt

got some new “cascading swags” and put them in place

got some old swags down from the attic

decided where I want swags this year

doing up the kid’s rooms to celebrate their arrival

when I get back, the decorations will go on the swags

Polished some silver and got table ready for “A WHITE THANKSGIVING” post to follow this week….I've auto posted it! MOM....see the sterling silver soup spoons that you and Dad found for me to match our silver....that was a few years ago. Here they are, in all their silver-polished glory!

BEST NEWS OF THE MONTH……sold this today for Liz & David….got the check, had to make a second trip down to the Bay to deposit it

and now I’m packing this for trip to Boston

I really kicked butt this past week!

Harvest time

It’s what’s for dinner!

Hope it tastes as good as it looks!

LOVE LETTERS, RIPPED BOOKS, OLD BEACH SCENE, and WEST ELM

What do all these things have in common? They are my inspirations for doing over son’s old bedroom. I’ve been poking around in my attic, looking at all the things that were never brought downstairs since Katrina.

I found this lovely stack of old love letters, kept by Mrs. James H. Wahl, (Helen to her friends) or Great Grammie to her family. Great Grammie was a fascinating woman, a “Flapper” in her teens in the 1920’s, white water rafting in Colorado at age 85, and going around the world on the Queen Elizabeth II at 87. She loved life and lived to be 104 years young.

This one, written by her dad is to her future husband, is so fascinating. It’s dated July 31 ‘23.

Ward Bryant Hoag responds to James H Wahl giving his blessing and Helen’s hand in marriage. His reply was so gracious and etiquettely correct as those times were.

I found this old beach scene that we inherited from Great Grammie – I love the soft muted colors!

Can’t figure out who this artist is, but on the back of the painting is this…

“Bought at Columbian Exhibition in Philadelphia about 1890 – famous artist”

Jen at Sanctuary Arts at Home always inspires me….I bought these ripped, “coverless books” from her Etsy shop.

And last, West Elms Organic cotton pin tuck duvet and pillow shams…

very inviting and dreamy….

Little by little, this simple redo is coming together. It is chock full of family treasures and memories. I’ve got to get it finished before son comes home for Thanksgiving, which includes cleaning out the closet where I’ve been hiding all my unfinished projects. Uggh! So much to do.

Many thanks and blessings to all our brave men and women as we celebrate this Veteran’s Day!

I'm joining Cindy at My Romantic Home for Show and Tell Friday! Go check it out!

MORE WHITE LINEN SLIPCOVERS

Are you sick of these yet? I am about to be. This is prototype # 1 for the 6 dinning room chairs that I’ve been working on for, hhmmm….2 years maybe?

Maybe I should change my blog to SELF CONFESSED PROCRASTINATOR!

I’m on a roll, since I’m under a huge deadline….

I always get more accomplished on deadlines….

This is a tissue linen, very whispery! But ugh, I can see the tweaks I need to make. Nothing like a close-up pic to help me see mistakes!

Light weight linen makes it so easy to do these tiny pleats. I do these by hand, I’m about to buy a RUFFLER for my new sewing machine. Should make ruffles a breeze!

The monogram…..

The mess on the dinning room table….

One just about complete, minus some tweaks, 5 more to go of these…

the state of my dinning room…. a huge mess!

My deadline is a week, I’ve got to go on a trip, coming home just before Thanksgiving, when son and big black dog roll into town for the week. And I’ve got all those Christmas decorations to throw into place. Daughter, son-in-law get to leave Walter Reed for an extended Christmas break. This fact has me so motivated! I’m so thrilled that all my children will be home for Christmas, THAT IS ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS!!!!!