Organized People Will Never Know the Joy of Finding Money in Their Coat Pocket

Being forgetful has its up side, take your winter coat out, check pockets for lost gloves and find a $5 bill you put in last spring, what a kick! For me, it is look for the dough bowl, and find a bag of forgotten whisk brooms and mashers. Just in time to Christmas them up, these are really prim and pretty.

Clarinda Open House or the Nightmare Before Christmas?

I've done it again, decided I can do a show all by myself and how much work can it be? Well, there are hours to go before I sleep, is all I have to say. I worked at the house this weekend and got a few displays up. As with all things that can go awry, my only chance to photograph was on the gloomiest day of the year. It's 10 am in a house with one million 9 foot tall windows and the light was feeble at best. This is only a tiny bit of what I have, the Christmas needs unpacking still, husband says my inventory is out of control, so I hope you all stop by and help me out with making that a bit smaller! The big post office cubby should be filled up by the time I'm done, and I still have the ornaments to hang, wreaths to put out, entryway and living room to decorate.

We had a nice Thanksgiving in Clarinda, my good friend Lisa invited us to be with her family and oh my, what a dinner! Anna said "There are so many things to choose from, I don't know where to start!" DEEEEELicious! Company was good too, an all around nice day.

Christmas Tree Hunting

It was a gloomy day here, but very fun out at the Christmas tree farm. Handley's is outside of Solon, a little town near Iowa City, and it reminds me so much of visiting my dad's sawmill in California when I was little. Of course, Dad's trees were a bit bigger than these, but the sound of the saws, smell of the pine and sawdust, brought it all back. We picked out a good one, now just need to find time to decorate!

The little bridge over the creek was perfect for a game of Pooh sticks, which most people look at me in horror "you are playing WHAT sticks?" Winnie the Pooh, people...You throw your stick on one side of the bridge and see who's stick gets to the other side first!

Clarinda Antique Sale Dec. 2 and 3, Friday and Saturday

This is just a bit of what I have for the show in Clarinda, I'll have lots more photos posted on Sunday evening, come back and check!

Inspired at Sisters Garden

We took a drive to Kalona and I actually took my camera. Here are just a few reasons a stop at Sister's Garden always makes me happy, they have the most wonderful displays, and I love the whimsy--isn't the teapot door hanger the best?

The Holly and the Ivy

Here is my dark red and green collection up for sale today if all goes well...

Christmas Crock

For Teresa, here I am forgetting to measure, but this is a size smaller than the others you have, probably an inch shorter and smaller in diameter.

I Am Out of My Mind

I am having my Christmas open house in Clarinda in TWO weeks, I have never let things slip this late ever before and may have lost all sanity by the time it arrives. I have tons of stuff that I've been packing away for the show, but getting it all priced and displayed is going to be a challenge. I don't even have my flyers made up yet. If I pull this off, it will be a miracle... In the meantime, there is still ebay! Here are auctions for tonight, unless they take me off in a straight jacket beforehand

....

A Few More Browns

Keeping things cozy with these pretty brown calicos and milk paints, I feel like I'm just having fun playing house. It was my favorite game as a child, still is! Back then, we would go out in the barn and stack up hay bales to make couches and chairs and pull the big wood wire spools in for tables. With not a Barbie dream house to be had, we spent long hours making our own Barbie houses, putting down plush towels for carpets, wrapping old shoe boxes in fabric for couches, and spools of thread made all sorts of interesting decor items. My girls are right now in their Barbie heaven, they have all these tiny little dishes and foods that they spend hours arranging and rearranging. Being fans of Scooby Doo, their Barbie tea parties are often crashed by an evil professor...

Christmas at the Cabin

My new love of cozy cabin browns has gone right over into Christmas. It is a good thing my tastes are eclectic, because I love glitter and bright shiny things at Christmastime just as much as I love this simple prim look. I'll have some of this along with glittery angels and bowls of old Shiny Brites in my house this year.

Back to Clarinda

We drove to Clarinda this weekend to put a car in storage; we also took an old post office cupboard out of the garage and up to the house for my Christmas open house. It's been gathering dust for years, and took forever to clean, there are 100 cubbies in it! It is also so tall, I had to have a ladder to get to the top cubbies. I'll have photos after Thanksgiving when I will be setting up the show. We stopped in Valley Junction in Des Moines and visited my favorite shops, the blues are in Something Old Something Else in the old train depot--Shirlee has wonderful finds, she loves blue as much as I do and she practically gives things away, her prices are so low. On the other end of the price spectrum is Elinor's Wood'n Wares, I usually can't afford much, but oh, does she carry the best of the best, as you can see from the photos.

Halloween Over, Let There be Christmas!

We had so many trick or treaters last night, I ran out of candy after 40 minutes, started handing out quarters and cans of pop, ran out of that in 10 minutes and had to close up shop, I swear they bused the kids in. This is my girls and the neighbors, who really decorated their yard (I didn't even carve the pumpkin!)