Our Loss

Today, December 31, my mother passed away.





 She celebrated her 81st birthday this past summer and her and dad's 61st Wedding Anniversary this past October. Devoted wife, mother of eight, and wonderful mother-in-law. Grandmother of 19 grandchildren and their spouses, and great-grandmother of 17. Loving, creative, and intelligent, she had a very strong faith. She loved family weddings, birthdays and celebrations and was extremely proud of her large family. We love you Mom.

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Our Loss

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Tablescape Thurs. - New Year's Brunch

Thanks to Susan @ Between Naps On The Porch for again hosting this fabulous event. Be sure to check out her blog and all the other participants for great inspiration and eye candy.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. We had some of the children and their families here and it was a wonderful time. We are truly blessed. I'm finally getting over a cold that showed up Saturday morning, so I will try to make the rounds and see what all of you have been up to.

My table today is set up for a New Year's Day brunch. I've used things that you have all seen before and just arranged them with different accessories. The centerpiece is an apple box filled with fall foliage, berries, apples and holds my little Italian Chef that was a gift from a friend.


























Chef Plate - HD Designs
Dinner Plate - Pfaltzgraph Village
Tortoise Charger - Pier One
Amber Stems - Pier One
Linens - Designer Fabric that I made into tablecloth and matching napkins.

What a blessing you all have been to me this last year. I have loved getting to know you and to call you friend. I sincerely hope you all have all your wildest dreams come true and a very Happy New Year.

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Tablescape Thurs. - New Year's Brunch

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Cozy projects for a cold winter day

In the quiet moments post Christmas, between the guests and loads of laundry, I have been doing some stitching.
I finished knitting a super thick and chunky, warm and cozy scarf. Today I started a coordinating crocheted hat, Peruvian ski style with ear flaps. Yes, ear flaps. Not high fashion, but definitely warm and cozy.  Our winters can be very cold and snowy. We spend a lot of time (often at 6 a.m.) at hockey arenas and at the toboggan hill, so warm hats and scarves come in very handy. The colours I used are Oatmeal (natural beige with strands of chocolate and black) and True Black, both Wool-Ease Thick & Quick from Lion Brand. The hat will have an Oatmeal edging and tassels to tie the two pieces together. I love the chunky texture and flecks of colour in both. I'll show the finished hat very soon, but please forgive me if I'm not wearing the hat in the picture. Depends how dorky it looks.

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Cozy projects for a cold winter day

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Love this hallway gallery

This hallway gallery really appeals to me. I love how the frames are snuggled so closely together. Having the frames all the same colour with similar mats, along with the muted colours of the prints makes it very cohesive. The different frame styles and sizes make the grouping quite interesting. The hardwood with all that beautiful white trimwork has caught my eye today too.



image:canadianhouseandhome.com

In our upstairs hallway though, I think all that glass would be sporting quite a few fingerprints. Not to mention getting knocked about by stray hockey pucks and mini sticks. What, they aren't supposed to play hockey in the house?!!! As for this hall, found here, a girl can always dream!

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Love this hallway gallery

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~Merry Christmas~

Wishing you all a wonderful Christmas with your families and friends. Stay warm, travel safely and most importantly, gather memories with those you love.

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May You Have A Blessed Christmas

I don't know about all of you but I still have a couple of presents to buy, wrapping to do and a tone of baking to work into the next couple of days. Seems like I am really behind. However, as I take a couple of days off I wanted to be sure to wish each of you a VERY BLESSED CHRISTMAS with all of your family and friends. I count you all amongst my greatest blessings this past year. I will pop in as I can and look forward to catching up with everyone after Christmas. God Bless.

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May You Have A Blessed Christmas

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Tablescape Thurs. - Merry Christmas

Today we all get to visit the amazing Susan @ Between Naps On The Porch and see the wonderful tablescape that she has created and a list of all the other participants. You really don't want to miss it.

Today I am showing my Christmas Dinner Tablescape. I've kept the colors to a very soft green, a deep burgundy red and a lot of gold.


The floral centerpiece is placed in a gold sleigh that I found at GW and the flowers are all a soft green to compliment the china. Gold ribbon loops and gold ornaments give the arrangement a little bit of bling.


I love my Santa. He is so much fun and I love his pretty robe and his really curly beard with his rosy cheeks.




A lace tablerunner, some extra large gold ornaments and a lot of stemmed tealights complete the centerpiece.




As evening approaches, the candles give the table a lovely glow.






Each place is set with cutwork and embroidered tissue linen placemats and napkins. A gold charger under the china. The dinner and bread plates are Grace China Formal Garden made in Japan and discontinued in 1939. I found this wonderful china at GW. It has a beautiful gold and green trimmed rim with gorgeous bouquets of flowers between green lace swags. The salad place is Philippe Richard Brentwood.


The goblets with the gold trim I also found at GW and the tall stemmed wine glasses were a wedding gift. I don't know the pattern of either one.


One final look at the entire table.


Thank you so much for stopping by. I sincerely wish each of you a Very Blessed Christmas.

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Tablescape Thurs. - Merry Christmas

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Deck the Halls & Doors of Welcome

Today I am joining Susan @ Thoughts From Over The Rainbow for Deck The Halls and Karen @ Some Days Are Diamonds for Doors of Welcome. Please be sure to visit both of these wonderful ladies and see their beautiful pictures and a list of all the other participants.

We did the very minimal decorating this year, so I really don't have a lot to share. We decided to not put the huge sleigh and reindeer in the yard, but we did do a few wreaths, lights and the snowman.














Thanks so much for stopping by, and I really look forward to visiting you all and seeing all of your beautiful decorations.

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Deck the Halls & Doors of Welcome

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Our Christmas Home Tour 2009

Welcome to our Christmas Home Tour. We live in southern Ontario, Canada and with the recent arrival of snow and cold cold weather, Christmas is definitely in the air, both inside and out. If you've stopped by from some of my favourite bloggy linky parties, I hope you enjoy the tour! There are lots of pictures.
 Quoting one of my favourite bloggers, Melissa from The Inspired Room,
 "And no perfection allowed, as you will see. Real life. At my house, we are decorating for ourselves, not to show the world how perfect our home is (because it isn’t) or how magazine cover worthy every corner is (because CLEARLY it isn’t)." Melissa, The Inspired Room
We went with a simpler theme outdoors this year, white lights, white muslin bows and greenery.




A newly quilted flannel wall hanging above our fireplace in the family room.

Santa's on the t.v. cabinet in the family room too.

Also in the family room is our main family tree, with all our collected, school made, and handcrafted ornaments. This is the tree we use for presents.

Ten years later we still do not have a fireplace mantel  in our family room. The fireplace was installed off centre and I am stuggling with an affordable design. I quickly put up these hooks to hold our stockings that I stitched. Hopefully, our fireplace wall will be a project in 2010.



On the back of each stocking:

Lots of cross-stitched ornaments and home made bows.

My guys love HOCKEY! We have lots of ornaments to celebrate this, including some favourites like...Vancouver Canucks (from Funky Junk Interiors Donna's province on the west coast.)

Closer to home, Toronto Maple Leafs.

Some special ornaments from our trip to Disney:

Our natural cowboy Christmas tree in the living room, and mantel shelf shown here.



In the kitchen is our advent calendar I sewed from a kit a few years ago.

A mini tree on the breakfast counter with wooden lights and muslin strips for bows.

On to our dining room...

I tied some extra strands of red wood beads on the chairs.


Some mercury glass pieces, crystal, silver balls and lots of white.

On our sideboard/buffet some red wood beads and candycanes.



On to our bedroom where I used a small tree and some garland on the bed, with details posted here.




Merry Christmas to all! I hope you enjoyed your tour as much as I enjoy the Christmas home tours, trees and ideas at these great blog parties:
Funky Junk Interiors by fellow Canadian, Donna



The Nester's Christmas Tour of Homes



Rhoda's Southern Hospitality Home for the Holidays
 


The Inspired Room's Holiday Linky Friday








Edited to add:Thanks for all the kind comments! I'm trying to get around to everyone but I've received several questions about the white rag garland. Nester, Nester people. She is the genius from whom I borrowed the raggamuffin garland idea. Nester even has a tutorial with tons of photos on her blog. Check it out. And when you stop laughing at her humourous ways of delivering the instructions, get ripping and tie, tie, tie. I cheated and wanted mine done in two hours so I used a rotary cutter and mat from my quilting supplies to cut a lot of the fabric, saved time but not quite the same as Nester's. Mine has a few stray edges, but is missing some of that torn loveliness. Ribbon and trim too, add ribbon girls. I may still try and go back and squeeze some ribbon and trim in.

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Our Christmas Home Tour 2009

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