I wiped away the weeds & foam. / I fetched my sea-born treasures home... Ralph Waldo Emerson







Monday, December 19, 2016

All Through the House




"T'was the [week] before Christmas and all through the house..."
Hi! I'm taking a break from present wrapping to show you around my holiday decorated little house. Now, I am not one for tasteful quiet---oh so chic?---restrained and frugal holiday decors. Nope, the more the better, and big and busy is best! I love Christmas and every moment of tarting up my home in all its glittery finery. No, I don't spend-spend-spend. Instead I have many cherished handmade pieces, like my Noah's Ark and the pink ornaments wreath from my brother, my handmade angels in their antique christening gowns.






 I collect red and white or red and green quilts, lovely old linens, and faded glory old mercury ornaments from the flea. Usually I get my boxes out the weekend after Thanksgiving, and add as the days pass until every corner of this little house is filled with Christmas joy.


Eight bins, under the bed: 3 with good ornaments, 1 w/antique ornaments, 1 w/ wreaths and mercury glass, one w/faux holly and pine, bottle brush trees, and wooden angels, one w/lights and lighthouse tree topper, one to save (no need to open), with childhood ornament treasures.
But this year because of my health issues I have had to make a very small Christmas instead. It's actually not so much the decorating that's difficult, it's the taking down and putting away over just a few intense days, and this year I knew I could not do that. Plus the challenge of shopping for, cooking, and producing two big back to back holiday dinners may be hard. I realized I needed to conserve my strength. So things are different. Not bad, just---different. Quiet.


First the best news: Santa came early and brought my big gift from my family! A new living room rug. I am thrilled. It is so interesting, so beautiful, and so soft and warm. I love the already distressed effect, good to hide any Mo accidents or other spills.




I've never had a rug here that was not white/ ivory/ pale sand/ so going for the slate blue was a big leap for me. This company shows up all the time on FB and other online places, and their rugs are so beautiful. Wide range of pricing, but some, like mine 8' x 12', was under 250.oo with free and very fast  shipping. I'm thrilled, the old rug was stained and so sad looking.




I love how the blue works with my red and white Christmas style. I did have to put away my pickle-green pillows, and instead used the white with indigo coastal pillows. With all the other holiday decor I think the colors work great.


I made these red and white Father Christmas toile pillow covers about...oh 15 years ago?  I love toile and especially love that the toile's scene here is Santa Claus and a Tree and toys, very Night Before Christmas. They button on and off and are an easy  quick change from my dark blue pillows.


We decided not to do our 8' real tree either. That was very hard for me to accept, but one's health, and living pain-free is more important than this odd yet beloved custom of putting a huge real tree in one's house.


I got a tiny 2' tree at the pop-up junky Christmas store.


The ornaments are my stash of antique German glass ornies and some beloved others.



quilties, note the madder calico and double pink on this cow!
 Can you imagine cutting up this quilt top? Sinful, awful.
But I rescued it and have cherished the cow for years.





And old and tarnished silver glass glitter star topper.


The tiny village at the base is by my dad.


It is our Illinois town's Main Street, in his imagination via old photos, c. 1875. I have another very large village of Brewster MA, our family's Cape Cod home, with tiny perfect replicas of the lighthouse and sea captains' houses, and historic places. It includes a skating pond and a windmill, and a harbor with docks and fishing boats, pleasure boats, and Captain Al's  fishery. It's too big for me this year, so I'm happily using Main Street instead.


A few other familiar views, tweaked and trimmed  and festive.









I couldn't hang my collection of almost 40 hand blown ''floats'' or glass orbs. I just hung the newest, most beautiful one.



In my bedroom, besides using my red and purple quilt, an Illinois Mennonite beauty from my mom's small collection, layered with my shredded but beloved red and green beauty,


I put out a tiny Snowman quilt and added a few of the red Shaker boxes and wallpaper bandboxes in shades of red and green, as well as the usual blues. I love these snowmen!






Oddly some of the red [and one dark green!] boxes are missing, they are one collection I never seem to keep in line and all together. In fact they were ALL lost for about ten years, lol, in my MIL's basement. So sad.


And so this is as festive as it's gonna get. But I think in the end we'll have to go dig into the 8 bins after all. I can't do Christmas without our handmade stockings!


Do you have favorite heirloom or sentimental decorations that you love seeing each year?


Merry Christmas!




love

lizzy

gone to the beach...

wind squall


snow, briefly


Merry Christmas and Blessed Winter Solstice,
 Happy Winter Holidays 
to All!





9 comments:

  1. As a newcomer to your blog, I very much appreciated "touring" your home. And even though I hang my hat in Texas these days, my heart will always long for the beach ... thank you picturing it so beautifully.

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  2. I love seeing your house decor, esp at Christmas. Just because you had to keep it simpler this year, it is great! I clicked on the first photo to blow it up and noticed the rug! I LOVE it! The blue mottling reminds me of the ocean and I think it looks stunning in your home. Merry Christmas, Lizzy!

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  3. I have to keep my DEAR LIZS straight - Liz D from NY and Liz A from TX!
    Thank you for the Christmas tour. Everything is lovely and comforting. Bless you and yours. P.S. the little village is priceless.

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  4. Looks like Mo was helping you decorate! I love your new rug - it looks like water and sand to me so makes it perfect for your house. I would probably have left the green pillows, you can get away with it at Xmas. The little brush trees in the cups and candlholders on your shelves made me smile, too, they're so cute.

    I wonder what happened to the missing hatboxes? Did one migrate to your craft room, by chance? (That would happen to me.) The little snowmen on the quilt are adorable, with their blanket-stitches making them look almost fuzzy.

    Your little tree looks pretty darn good! The picture with the little pug threw me for a second - I thought it was Mo! LOL, made the tree look HUGE there for a moment! I love that you have your Dad's 'villages' and still display them!

    It's warm enough here today that the sun is melting our little snow, yay! Who drew the picture in the sand, it's interesting.

    Thanks for sharing with us!

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    Replies
    1. Hi Glad you like the rug! I just loved it online. And my funny tree.

      The missing boxes may be are inside othess, they nest. Or nested and put away somewhere. I don t use them for storage, bec I don t want to bang them up.The oval boxes are mostly Shaker kitchen boxes c. 1890? The round ones are mostly of similar age but not Shaker. The missing ones will turn up, there's at least one or two red, one green, and one chrome yellow missing.

      I hung my completed doll quilt on the wall like you always wantme to! Just for this week,lol.

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  5. I love the new rug!

    And, as always, your decorations are beautiful.

    Give Mo a kiss on the end of his nose for me.

    Hunter

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  6. Lizzy! I love everything! So pretty and I love the colors of the town, and boxes and ornaments. Sometimes we have to do a bit less, but that is okay. For that year it works. Your rug is so different and wonderful. I have never seen one like that. Enjoy! Kit

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  7. The house looks fantastic! The colors, the pillows, the rug, even the 'junky' tree is beautiful adorned with your lovely ornaments.

    How fortunate you are to have so many items close to your heart. The pink wreath, and the little town your Dad made, your Mom's quilt. Really, everything looks wonderful. Yes, your house looks different than we are used to seeing, but, like you said, different is good :) You are going to have to get the stockings out though!

    Mo is stealth in this post. He almost disappears on the new rug, and he's almost undetectable in the plastic bin, lol.

    Thanks for the tour of your house Lizzy. Oh, I was just thinking this week that my current favorite decorations are the Christmas stockings that our neighbor makes every year for the kittys in the neighborhood. She gets really creative. I have so many of them hanging around the house now. I'll see if I can get some good photos and send them to you. Raining today, so will wait till there's better light.

    Kel

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    Replies
    1. I d love to see the stockings, what a great tradition.

      Mo was only pretending to be stealth. He snuck into my workroom, found his present and peed on the bag!

      Merry Christmas!

      lizzy

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