My New Fireplace

I finally have a finished fireplace in my new great room. I was complaining about it here and a couple of weekends ago we finally got going and finished the front of the fireplace.
To catch others up to date, last spring we torn down a one car garage, had a two car garage built with a great room over it that connects to our kitchen and living room. We did all the finish work ourselves to save money but somehow the fireplace was never high priority on the list of things to finish. It was a working gas fireplace but the front was not finished.We bought these slate tiles way back last July with only a general idea of what the opening and hearth size would be.
My husband did a great job tiling and we did not have to cut any tiles-they fit perfectly! It's almost as if we actually knew what we were doing but trust me, we were just sort of making it up as we went along. One of the things that we just decided on at the last minute was to buy textured wallpaper to put on the rest of the face to disguise the uneven surface underneath, rather than putting up drywall which would have put the surface too far out.
We painted it to match the walls and I think that is one of my favorite parts of the fireplace. And in the end guess how many tiles we had left over-4! These 4 lonely tiles which I decided we should make into a medallion and frame. I love it! We certainly have enjoyed sitting in this room with the fire going, watching the snow fall. It makes winter much more enjoyable. I hope your winter is enjoyable wherever you may be. Happy New Year!

Enough Already With the White Christmas!

We have been having quite a few snowstorms here and this past Thursday was the fourth in less than two weeks. The result is that we have a lot of snow! But is was so beautiful yesterday that I went out and took some pictures so for those of you without a White Christmas, I'll share mine. You can kind of see how much snow there is by looking on the roof.This is the snowbank and the end of my driveway which is about ten feet high now. When my kids were small they built some great snow forts when we got big banks of snow like this.
The wood pile is under there somewhere.
I had cut some greens from the woods around my house and they did look nice at one time in the basket.
The greens are on the front porch with the big sled, which was mine as a kid, and the little red one that was my husband's when he was little. My brother in law refurbished the red one and sent it to us in Colorado, where we were stationed with the Air Force, for our son's first Christmas in 1978. I have treasured it since.
The snow is almost up to the branches on the crab apple tree.
The snow looks so pretty amongst all the little crab apples.
No need for fake flocking on trees here. It's everywhere!
There's a path through the snow from our front door.
Lots of icicles too.
So I hope you enjoyed the snow tour. Lots of people complain about it but I think it is so beautiful right now. About April I'll be complaining! But really, enough already of the White Christmas. We have plenty.

Real vs. Faux

I got an e-mail recently about the ornaments I posted. The question was not about the ornaments but about the tree. Was it real or faux? You'd think living in NH surrounded by trees that I would most certainly have a real tree but, here goes......--I have a faux tree. There I've said it!
We used to always have real trees but somewhere along the line it got really expensive and one year after Christmas I got a faux tree for very little and I've never looked back. I think it's the thrifty part of me that likes the faux trees because they really do pay for themselves after a few years. Plus I hate seeing the dried up trees after Christmas sitting in the snowbanks to be thrown out. It seems like such a waste.
Another reason I love it is because I love seeing my ornaments so I put up the tree the day after Thanksgiving. I have been especially proficient at decorating trees this year. I have put up the tree, decorated it, undecorated it, took it down, put up another tree, decorated again! After seeing my old tree in my new family room with the cathedral ceiling I decided it was too small. So down it came and shopping I went and I love the new tree. I gave my old tree to my daughter's brother in law who is a new home owner.
And the tree skirt I made this past summer looks good under there. It's too bad it has to be mostly covered up.
My Mom used to tell us kids that the little elf near the top of the tree was there to watch over us and see who was bad and good. I don't know how he could since his eyes are closed! We still believed it though!

So what are you-real or faux. And please, don't ever use that other word, (fake)!!

Christmas Corners

Here are some more of corners of my home with some treasured Christmas decorations.

This is the tea pot, sugar and creamer that matches my Mom's tea cups. My sharp eyed daughter spotted these years ago at a yard sale.
Speaking of daughters, these are my daughter's first pair of ice skates. No double runners for her-she started out on single blade skates when she was about 5 years old. She had a little lawn chair that she would push in front of her for balance but she was quite the skater. My husband built a little rink next to the garage and would go out there and put water on it for nights on end to get enough ice built up. They loved it and I loved not having to drive them to local pond for skating.
These Christmas balls were made by my Mom. She was a sewing teacher and one of the arts she taught was smocking. I have a number of her ornaments on the tree but I like seeing these on the dining table.
This year I put a tree on my kitchen island. I stole the idea from Mary at Little Red House. I tied cookie cutters onto it and draped it with an aluminum garland that was on my tree as a kid. Then plopped it in a crock. I love how it looks in the kitchen.
Now show me some of your Christmas corners.

Christmas Ornaments

Haven't been able to post much in the past week. I work at a college, the cycle goes on, end of the semester, busy, busy busy, yadda, yadda, yadda. But the tree did manage to go up. I love Christmas ornaments and it's such fun each year to decorate the tree and handle all the ornaments and remember the memories associated with them. So here are some of my ornaments and little memories to go along.

This cluster of grapes ornament is really old. I have two of them; a red one and a blue one. They were my Grandmother's and then my Mom's.
I tend to buy ornaments when I travel. The first is from the Alamo and the second I got on Martha's Vineyard. The Martha's Vineyard one especially reminds me of the delight my daughter and I took in all the brightly painted cottages. The guys really weren't much interested. But my daughter and I LOVED them.I have many ornaments from friends near and far.
The League of NH Craftsmen sells an ornament every year and this is the one for 2007. I have been collecting them for 20 years.
I have also collected the White House ornaments for a number of years. My husband used to go to a conference every year this time of year and would get one for me each year.
So I hope you enjoyed the mini tour of some of my ornaments. Now show me yours!