Meet our new secretary!

Antique secretary that is. 

Let me give you a little background.  Our home is 9 years old and we have a built-in entertainment center/cabinet in our living room.  You can see our built-in in this previous post.  When our home was built, these wide flat screen televisions were not the standard yet.  So...our entertainment center will not fit the television that Hubby now wants/needs/deserves.  He suggested that we modify the built-in to accommodate the new television - but that means giving up precious space for photos and accessories.

In steps the secretary.  This is how the corner in our living room used to look.  Basically, we bought the giant ficus tree when we first moved in to fill that large space.

This is how the corner looks now.

I just love the height of this piece. And I love the tall legs and open area at the bottom.

I realize there's a lot in there to dust, but have you cleaned the dusty leaves of an artificial ficus tree lately?

Consignment Store Finds

Since my Christmas shopping is finally complete, I was able to run a fun errand at lunch yesterday so I visited one of my favorite consignment stores.  I found three great ironstone platters!

I wish the picture could convey how HEAVY this platter is.  I just love the detail!  I noticed that my rooster would fit just perfectly so he has a special little perch now.

Then I found a set of these:

Sorry - couldn't get that detail to come out clear in the photo.  I haven't decided on a home for these two just yet.

Pleasant surprise

Don't you hate it when one of your favorite stores or catalogs disappoints?  You are so eager to visit only to discover there is nothing worth buying and the usually fantastic displays are underwhelming.  Well, the exact opposite happened to me on Sunday when I visited Stein Mart in search of a few last minute Christmas gifts.  I lingered in the home section and found some awesome French-inspired pillows!  I wish I would have had my camera on hand to show you all the different styles.  There were some great ones with red & black - hard as I tried I couldn't come up with a spot for them.  I did, however, find a spot for this one:

Oh, and I did buy some Christmas gifts too!

A side of ruffles please

This is how the bed in our guest bedroom looked earlier this evening.

The dust ruffle was quilted and the lines were straight.

This is how the bed looks now.

I love the ruffles and the change it makes.  But let's not talk about how hard it was to iron 6 layers of ruffles!

Blog Upgrades

You may have noticed the new buttons on my sidebar - silver German glass glitter tags - too cute.  I got these from The Background Fairy.  Karen's blog is awesome - she offers free buttons, headers and backgrounds.  She even includes blogger tutorials on her site.  Go check it out and add something new to your blog!

Simple Gifts Made Special

I really enjoy gift-giving.  At Christmastime, I give small gifts to my hair stylist and my nail tech.  We deliver gifts to neighbors and friends.  Tonight I made some homemade Holiday snack mix and dressed up the containers with these great vintage Christmas prints.

Here is a picture of the mix.  It's made with dry roasted peanuts, milk chocolate M&Ms and chocolate-covered peanuts.  Yum!

I hope you have all had a wonderful weekend!

Christmas Mantel Revisited

Okay - you're right - I can do better.  I've added a few things to my Christmas mantel.  Now, I refuse to take down major pieces of wall art to bring in Holiday decorations and I don't want any new holes in the wall either, but I did manage to add something custom and homemade.

I had these two empty frames and I added jute ribbon to hang the angel wings and star ornaments that I picked up at Pier 1.

I thought the three sets of angel wings could represent our three children and the the two stars could represent me and Hubby.  Nice addition don't you think?

I need a Tinker House!

I stumbled upon this gorgeous blog today that I have never had the pleasure of visiting before - Hubby will be thrilled to know that I also discovered I need something - who knew?  Have a seat, grab some cocoa and take in this beauty.  Yes, Tinker House - don't we all need a place to tinker?  Here is a little bit about how Tinker House was built. I just love it!  Donna's newest post is swoon worthy as well so I have added a link for her blog on my sidebar.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Although I'm in denial that it's actually already December, we put up our Christmas tree and stockings today.  We always buy a real Christmas tree.

As much as I love decorating I somehow missed the gene for Holiday decorating.  I pretty much do the bare minimum.  It may also have something to do with the fact that I hate to move.  Something about packing up my normal accessories to bring out the Holiday ones reminds me of moving...and it's just no fun.  I love to see other people's Holiday decorations and I admire those who make packages look like works of art.  NOTE:  My presents under the tree have no bows - not even the cheap store-bought ones.

Since my mantel isn't very inspirational, I'm sending you here to check out fabulous mantels on Layla's linky party.  Enjoy!

Have a seat

Chairs seem to be the primary item I'm painting these days.  Here are pictures of my latest creations.  You may recall the coordinating match to this one that I shared in this post.

And here is a matching pair.  I loved the horizontal slats and thought they should be a different color.



If you have the perfect spot for one of these you can purchase them at When Pigs Fly in Denton's Golden Triangle Mall!