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

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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!)

Christmas in the Air

I have more Christmas auctions to start this evening, still plugging away at getting everything else listed. I wish I had something more interesting to say, but admit to being very boring these days!

Where To Begin?

As you can see, I have one million pieces to list, and this doesn't even make a dent in all the things that need to be spiffed up. I found these lovely bowls with dark patinas, so they will stay without paint, I really had good luck finding goods that just needed a little scrub, and more wonderful things that just need their milk paint. I am enjoying doing Christmas now, I never get tired of the red and green!