A Fond Farewell

Hello Friends!

I want to take this opportunity to say a fond farewell to all of my blogging friends. If you’ve followed my blog you will have noticed that I haven’t been a very faithful blogger for some time now. In fact I have been struggling with whether I should continue or quit for at least a year.

As a Christian I didn’t make this decision lightly…I’ve been praying about it for some time. I know it is time to quit. There is no personal crisis happening in my life that is causing me to leave blogging, but personal reasons that I don’t wish to share.

I want to say a huge thank you to all of my faithful friends who have followed my blogs these many years. Some of you were with me right from the beginning, June 21, 2011. Having your friendship over these years has brought such joy to my life. I feel like I know many of you like a neighbor, probably better! I’ve loved being invited into your homes, getting to know your families, seeing your projects, learning what books you recommend for reading, what recipes you like to share, and all the wonderful and interesting facets of your lives. Although I don’t plan to post any longer you’ll not get rid of me easily. I will be around to visit you on occasion and drop by to leave an occasional comment. Who knows, maybe sometime in the future I may return to blogging. Never say never, right? 

In closing, I pray God’s blessings be with you for this new year and beyond, my friends.

{{Hugs}}

Merry Christmas

Wishing you all a very Blessed and Merry Christmas!

As may remember our oldest son and his family are visiting for Christmas. Since we have plenty of snow here on the ground the grands are outside every day playing in it! I snapped a few photos today that I wanted to share with you. They all speak for themselves. Oh, and a couple of final Christmas vignettes too.

God Jul!

Creative Christmas Porches

I want to start my Creative Christmas Porches tour with a big welcome from my Christmas Tree salesman. He knows that he ought to be hibernating by now but he has insisted on staying awake until the trees are all sold and his photo shoot is over!

I have chosen to start with our back summer porch as it is the one that is most often used.

My door wreath is a winter gnome.

I also added a little gnome to my jingle bell wreath.

One last look at the back porch and then on to the front one….

Do you remember the sign my husband and I made here? I created it for our front porch. In years past I have often used my snow shoes and tartan plaids to decorate my porch. I still love plaids for winter décor.

So naturally I had to add a little plaid even if it is only a scarf!

Do you remember how I said I’d give my eye teeth on this post to see a live snow owl. I’m still hoping that it will happen someday. But until then I’ll just have to be happy with this wee one.

Thank you all for visiting my Creative Christmas post. Thank you to Jann at Have a Daily Cup of Mrs. Olsen for inviting me to participate! This is the last installment to the series, but you can still link to any of the Creative Christmas Linky party sites listed below until Dec. 24th. If you have missed any of the parties now is your chance to catch up. 

Day 1-Art & Sand, Day2-Let’s Add Sprinkles, Day3-My Thrift Store Addiction, Day 4-Have a Daily Cup of Mrs. Olsen

Now on to today’s linky party where you are invited to share your Creative Christmas ideas.          

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Creating Christmas Day Four

Have a Daily Cup of Mrs. Olsen

Today our Creating Crafts theme is over at Jann’s  blog Have a Daily Cup of Mrs. Olsen   . Her theme for today is Christmas crafts and cooking. I haven’t started my Christmas baking at all yet so I’m looking forward to see what Jann has for us! This is a link party too. You can link up at Jann’s blog  Have a Daily Cup of Mrs. Olsen .

My latest Christmas craft is a stocking hanger for the grandchildren’s stockings while they are here for the holidays.

You can see that I used four porcelain knobs that I picked up from a garage sale for hanging the stockings, but you can also use hooks if you prefer. I apologise for the rotten photos. It seems my camera is on the blink again!

I had to throw in a couple of cute photos just sent to me by my DIL!

Oh my goodness, doesn’t Ganon look like he is right out of a Charles Dickens novel?

This is my middle son and his family at the Christmas tree farm. That’s all for today friends. I will be back tomorrow with a Creating Christmas porch for you. If you missed any of the previous days you can view them still and until Dec. 24th. You don’t want to miss any of the Creating Christmas parties!

Day 1-Art and Sand, Day 2-Let’s Add Sprinkles, Day 3-My Thrift Store Addiction, Day4-Have a Daily Cup of Mrs. Olsen

Creating Christmas Party Tablescapes

My Thrift Store Addiction

Good Morning Ladies! Today’s Creative Christmas link party is being held over at My Thrift Store Addiction. Cecilia’s has put together such cheery tablescape and decor!

Don’t forget that this is a link party for you to participate in as well. If you have a tablescape you would like to share the link will be up at Cecilia’s  and all of the past Creating Christmas participates until December 24th.

Tomorrow we will be at Jann’s blog Have a Daily Cup of Mrs. Olsen with Christmas Crafting and Cooking. I know you want to get to the party, so off you go to Cecilia’s!

Give-Away Winner

Drum roll please….My give-away winner is Linda at The Crafty Gardner . Congrats to Linda!

Todays Creating Christmas Link Party is taking place at Katie’s blog  Let’s Add Sprinkles. The theme for this second day is Christmas trees. I haven’t put up my Christmas tree yet so I’m going to be paying close attention to Katie’s tree decorating ideas!

This Creative Christmas is a party for you to link up to also. Just go to the blog that is featured on each day and join. The party is open until Dec.24th. So keep checking back to see what new creative ideas have been added and keep adding yours if you’d like.

I’m out of town all day today, but when I get home I am heading right to  Let’s Add Sprinkles  to check out the link party and see Katie’s Christmas trees.

Have a Holly Jolly Day!

 

Creating Christmas Link Party Begins

Good Morning Friends. Today is the day that the Creating Christmas Link Party begins! As I mentioned last week my blogging buddy, Jann, at Have a Daily Cup of Mrs. Olsen is sponsoring our creative link party.

Art and Sand

We will begin our Christmas party with Carol over at Art and Sands with Christmas vignettes. Now if you’ve ever visited Carol’s blog you know that she has a true gift for display. I saw her sneak preview last week so I can’t wait to pop over  to view all of her Christmas vignettes today! Join me here.

I haven’t done a lot of decorating yet since I’m waiting for when the grandchildren arrive next week to do most of it. But I have done a couple of holiday vignettes for my kitchen. Take a quick look at mine then hurry over to see Carol’s Christmas vignettes!

Tonight is the drawing for my Christmas give-away. Check it out and register for tonight’s drawing here.  Now I’m off to Carol’s.

Happy Monday!

Downton Abbey Movie and A Giveaway

I’m back , ladies, to tell you about a Downton Abbey Movie and a give-away.

Is anyone else out there missing Downton Abbey right about now besides me? With the new year fast approaching I suddenly realised that this is going to be the first new year in six years that I can not look forward to a new season of Downton Abbey.

Oh my gosh, what’s a woman to do?

It sure didn’t help that last Sunday on PBS they had to remind me of how much I was going to miss it by airing a program titled, “I Miss Downton Abbey”. I enjoyed the show. There were several behind the scene out takes that I had not seen on the other Downton Abbey specials. The real icing on the cake was when Allen Leech (Tom Branson) hinted that there just might be the possibility of a Downton Abbey movie in the horizon. Can you believe it? Have you heard this already?

I quickly investigated and found that this is indeed the case. You can read the details for yourself here.  So who knows, possibly in 2018 we may all be catching up on all the happening at the Abbey. I hope so!

Now for my give-away. I have three items. A cute gnome pillow cover, a gnome decorative tea towel and a Christmas book. You can enter my drawing by leaving a comment, and if you haven’t already subscribed to my mailing list, I would really love it if you would do that too! You do not have to be a blogger to enter, but it is only open to those people living in Canada or the US due to the high shipping rates. Sorry… 

Here is a closer view of the pillow cover. The drawing will be on Monday, Dec.12th. So hurry to enter, my friends!

Rustic Christmas Porch Sign

I told you all yesterday how excited I was for this Christmas season. If you missed that post, check here. My mind has been overflowing with all sorts of holiday crafts and décor ideas. I’m certain it’s not just me, in reading your post I can see that the holiday craft bug has bitten most of us by now. For myself, I realized that the time had come to stop dreaming and thinking about what I want to do and get off my fanny to actually do something!

I convinced my husband to help me out-quick! Together we worked to make a rustic Christmas porch sign. I picked the wood I wanted used, did all the measuring eyeballing, and Tim did the simple cutting and nailing. The most time consuming part of this project is the lettering. I almost always choose my font from picmonkey. They offer a wide verity of fonts and it’s also an easy site to navigate. I know that many crafters like to print their fonts but I simply copy them from my laptop. Beware though that you do not press hard on your laptop screen. I learned this the hard way ladies!

If you are wondering why I’m in such at big hurry to get a rustic Christmas porch sign made, it’s because my blogging buddy Jann at Have A Daily Cup of Mrs. Olsen has invited me to participate in a Creating Christmas link party. So reserve that date! I do realize that it is over two weeks away and there is plenty of time. But in two weeks it could be way to cold for me to want to go out and work on any projects in our unheated garage.

The theme for my porch will be rustic, of course. Maybe you remember my porch décor from Christmas’s past. In 2011 my theme was “Let It Snow”. If you would like you can revisit it here. Then in 2012 I was all about making good use of my plaid thermos’s. Take a peek if you’d like to view it here as well. I think that it’s fun to go back to see what you created in years past. Especially in my case, I could end up making the same thing over again!

I’m off to experiment with a Vanilla Chai Tea Latte recipe I’ve found on Pinterest. I am converting it to dairy and sugar free. If it’s any good I’ll be back to share it with you soon.

Here’s What I Know

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Hello everyone! I know it’s been a while since I last posted, and I have to be honest with all of you, it’s a little hard to know what to say. I thought I would just write about what’s been on my mind lately, just to say here’s what I know. So without any further ado let me begin my nonsensical blather!

Here’s what I know: I know that I am crazy, silly, super excited about Christmas this year.

I have been waiting to decorate since the first of November!

I’ve spent hours dreaming up all sorts of ideas for making new ornaments, wreaths, Christmas vignettes and about anything else that pertains to the Christmas holiday.

Here’s what I know: My oldest son from Alberta is coming for Christmas with his three children again and my youngest son is flying in from Alaska!

Now you know why I’m crazy, silly, super excited.

Here’s what I know: We have had snow here in Northern Ontario for over a week and a half, so it is pretty much a guarantee that our Christmas will be a white one.

Here’s what else I know: I have a Christmas gift give-away planned. I will be posting about it very soon so be sure that you check back in the next few days to discover what it is. 

No, it’s not a $1000. gift certificate. Nor is it a $100. gift certificate. But it is something really cute and I think you’ll like it!

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And lastly, I know I that I would give my eye teeth to see a real and live Snow Owl. Maybe even my wisdom teeth to see any kind of a real owl.

I warned you this would be nonsensical stuff!

Have any of you ever seen a Snow Owl before?

Because I think that they are one of the most beautiful birds that God has ever placed on this earth. I even bought one to place on my Christmas wreath this year.

Sadly ladies, that is about all I know(for now). I hope you won’t hold it against me! Leave a comment to let me know that you remember me….