A week to go

A little nook of mice

Although I haven't been posting that regularly, I have been busy and nearly done with the decorating. Today I finished the angel tree. It is my only traditional tree - gold, bronze and cream stars, angels and ribbon. I couldn't believe it, I tested the 500 fairy lights, put them on first then did the decorating and now half of them are not working. It's not worth changing them now and luckily the ones that are lit are fairly well spread. A beautiful tree. I will put up some photos tomorrow hopefully.

Yesterday I had a message that a busload of ladies are coming over on one of my open nights. That is very exciting. They mentioned seeing the article in Next magazine a few years ago on my Christmas decorating. The article in the local newspaper last week was great too. Even the shop assistants have been asking me about the Gingerbread Christmas Open Home. Someone questioned if I was "The Christmas Tree Lady". It made me think of 'bag lady' but I guess I could be called worse!

A bargain and a squirrel

The new tree is fabulous. I picked it up last night and couldn't believe my luck of such a bargain. It is very tall (ceiling height) and bushy and narrow - perfect for a small space. To be honest, when I got it home, I wasn't sure where I would actually put it. Hmmm. I realised it probably wasn't the most essential purchase of the week. My love of furniture is steadily winning out with the floor space year by year. Determination paid off with the help of my teenage son moving the sofas around with me directing (I've got a torn shoulder tendon). I've put it in the main living area beside my American Oak hutch dresser.


I had an unplanned but very enjoyable morning in Christchurch today. I bought three new rhododendrons to fill a few spaces in my garden. They are gorgeous yellows and apricots : Golden Torch, Naselle and Nancy Evans. I will have to tie the teenager down to do some digging in return for using my Trade Me account and buying a $300 phone while I was away...
The highlight was a fun shop at The Christmas Hut. Ahh, I LOVE this shop! Check out their website. http://www.thechristmashut.co.nz/ 
I have to go with a mental list otherwise I get sidetracked by all the beautiful new decorations. I got some stunning picks for the Santa's Workshop tree. They have a great range of the Jim Shore collections - I found a perfect snowman for my snowman tree. That's always a challenge as I limit the decorations to blue and white and many have red on them.

And my last find there was a furry squirrel to go in the new tree - perfect for a woodland theme. It is so cute. Can't wait to get the tree decorated tomorrow...

The farmyard tree

Tim (8) was up his usual early self yesterday morning and agitating that I had started the farmyard tree without him. There was a selfish reason for this - I am really fussy about putting the lights in evenly in my christmas trees and I also wanted to make some country styled bows this year. I am happy with the way these look. I ripped some gingham cotton into strips and then used gold paper twine to tie bows. They are finished with a wire berry.

So at 8am he was defending his territory from his 5 and 10 year old brothers and putting up the animals. Nobody was feeling particularly Christmasy at that time of the day/week/month but unfortunately Tim has a lot of my organising trait in him and once he had his mind set that was his project, there was no stopping him! I don't have many decorations on this tree but they are all beautiful. Not the most common type of decorations to find so I keep an eye out when I travel. There are miniature cones and wired apples too. My inspired idea for what I could add to it is miniature ears of corn made from popping corn. That will possibly be my next project. 

I think the tree is about two feet high and I've put it up on the alcove in front of my kitchen sink. Two down....six to go!

Here we go....

Well, this is the start of a road to supposed self discovery through blogging. If you find yourself reading this, it could be an interesting journey following the day to day goings on of my life. Some would say too many fingers in too many pies - I would take that quite literally with five children who seem to constantly need feeding and my pantry that is restocked on a daily basis!

So, as of at this moment I have the babies in bed and I am contemplating finishing one of three things: the christmas cards I was working on today at Artfull Crafts scrapping day; the christmas angel doll that I've been making to match my living room or decorate a tree....I know, you would think it is way too early to be thinking any sort of Christmas project but I plan to open my home for the public next month so time is of the essence. I think the tree will win out. I've done my favourite one already this week - the theme of the blog - my gingerbread tree.

Next on the agenda is the farmyard tree. It's a miniature tree and I got most the decorations at Harrods a few years ago. Love them! Tim (8) is dead keen to do it with me so will put a photo up when we are done.