My vintage-y Christmas Home Tour 2013

I'm usually dragging my feet at Thanksgiving to get out the boxes. Once I start, though, I get into decorating so much that I want to do a bunch of crafty projects in the two week time frame that I have left before Christmas. 

Does this happen to anyone else?

This year I made one pom pom. 

The one on the mantel.

I also rewrapped the little brown paper bag covered gifts in Santa's Tonka. 

That's it, folks, and if I hope to get out the Christmas cards before Christmas, my dreams of having a finished pom pom wreath might have to wait till January. 

I'm linking up with The Nester for the It doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful Christmas Home Tour link up. 

My Christmas decor is made up from years of thrifting and antiquing. 

Sorry, I wanted to make some of these pictures larger to show details and they kind of spill out of the space. 

Here is my Vintage-y Christmas Tour 2013!

Santa's Tonka Express

A favorite Christmas angel

Bird cage lighted forest

Our family room

The five minute Christmas Tree

Primitive hutch

BE Merry!

Mr. Horse is from the barn at my childhood home--dressed up for Christmas

I made the book page wreath last year and it stayed up all year! The white leaves on the branches are duct tape leaves I learned from The Nester last year!

Vintage and new Swedish Christmas cards

Santa Hangout includes a vintage Swedish Jultomten 

Merry Merry Christmas to all of you! Thanks for stopping by!

Blessings, 

Anne

Dare to Create Space for Yourself {Day 18}

I  really thought we were going to move. I thought we'd be out of our current house long before now. Last year was spent sorting, cleaning, getting rid of bunches of stuff on Craig's List, at Goodwill and just throwing stuff out. 

I had us moved, so I haven't been at all interested in decorating this house lately. 

I love to pick out paint colors, rearrange furniture, hang things on the walls in pleasing displays. I have a mixture of decorating styles, but mostly my decor has been "early attic", meaning I had lots of things and furniture handed down to me.

I could call it:

Country farmhouse
Vintage
Romantic 
Pottery Barn wannabe
{these are not professional terms :)}

I love junking. Antiquing, too, but the prices are much higher than junking. :)

I've pulled wreaths out of dumpsters, and chairs off the curb. I like to re-purpose. I would say I am artistic and crafty.

But, after thirteen years in the same home, I've gotten pretty tired of looking at the same walls.


The last week or two though I've been thinking, I'm here, so why not make the best of it for now? Why not create a space for me out of some unused space in our house?

My mind went to our periwinkle guest bedroom that never has any guests.

I've thought more seriously about turning it into a prayer/DIY/writing/creating space for just myself. I love that idea. 

Here are the before pics of my guest bedroom:

I think I was in a "I want this to be a shabby chic bedroom with all white furniture, so periwinkle will look great on the walls" faze.

So much for that.

Now, I badly want neutral. Something similar in style to The Nester and City Farmhouse. I love their decorating styles. Lighter, brighter, neutral.

My next step is to create a Pinterest Board called something like My Creative Space and start pinning away.

I am getting kind of excited about this.

Periwinkle will become a light tan or a barely there blue. Periwinkle will be no more.

Next will be searching the house (or Craig's List or Goodwill) for furniture that will promote rest, relaxation and creativity. For me.

Even if it is just a corner of a room, having a space we can call our own even if just for thinking is a great idea. Do you agree?

~Anne

P.S. I'll keep you posted on the progress of my creative space-to-be.
P.P.S. If you have any ideas for me, I'd love to hear your input!

How about you? Do you have a place where you go to create, write or just meditate? I'd love to hear about it in the comments!

Click on my button to see a list of all 31 Days posts! Thanks for stopping!

eyes wide open: to a renewed spirit {day 31}

During the past 31 days, I've met some new bloggers. That has been really cool. Let me tell you, there are some great writers out there! 

This morning, I clicked into one link up at The Nester that I hadn't before. I have to say that God used Christina at The Frugal Homemaker to breathe new life into my motivation to clean, rearrange and decorate my home. At least for today! Thank you, Christina!

I used to be a person who loved to rearrange my furniture. Rearrange my accessories. I used to decorate my porch for each season. Sometime in the past few years, though, I think I lost some oomph to do many of those things. Oh, I've kept buying the Do It Yourself, Cottage Living and other decor magazines hoping to find that perfect idea that won't cost any money or energy, but will turn my house into Better Homes and Gardens perfect. But, I haven't had the mental or emotional energy to put any wind behind my sails. Too many other things in my life have been sapping that energy right out of me.

Today, after checking out The Frugal Homemaker, I got a little wind back in my decorating sails. She showed pics of how her kitchen looked after just weeding out all the stuff on her fridge and decluttering her counter tops! I said to myself, hey, I could do that. Then, I looked in my living room adjacent to the kitchen and it needed vacuuming. Being careful with my healing back, I thought, hey, I can just vaccuum. I put on Michael Buble station on Pandora and started to get to it. 

One thing led to another and I ended up moving a chair and side table to the opposite side of the room, putting the blue exercise ball in the basement where it belongs, throwing away several old Bible study folders, and making a new fangled arrangement for the side table. 

The only way to explain this burst of creative energy is that the Spirit of God blew some fresh wind in my sails. And, He used another blogger to do that. 

Now, because my room is clean and a bit rearranged, it's made me feel renewed and energized. I'm going to start tackling some of the other rooms this week. 

Thanks for keeping up with me this month! I'll keep posting, just probably at a bit slower pace. :)

see day 1 for a list of all 31 posts