...the old 'baking' excuse!

This past weekend was "The Crews' " annual Cookie Baking!

Four Days of just hanging (with the excuse of baking) with three of the best friends a girl could possibly ask for!    What better present could you ever give to YOURSELF in the MIDDLE of the crazy HOLIDAY season than that?  ...and the cherry on top of it all?  The MANY 'taste-testers' that went out of their way to stop in and wish us MERRY CHRISTMAS with the excuse of getting COOKIES (some traveled close to 200 miles from the neighboring state of Ohio!!)

 ...and while I was away... 

 TWEED had a few friends in for a little party!  

Has anybody figured out how TWEED got his name?  I think  there may be a 'giveaway' for the first correct answer ;-) ! 

 One of my 'stocking-stuffers' to each of The Crew this year was a personalized Dominoe necklace that I've been working on for a while.  A 'memory~collage' of sorts on the front, and the dots on the back refer to their Power Name # ~ Soul # ~ Life Path # vibrations (Taken from Glynis McCants book on NUMEROLOGY).  I think that they turned out kinda cool, and it was a lot of fun.  I included a sheet that gave a description of each of the 'vibrations' - a 'Fortune Cookie' of sorts 8-).

I've been sporting my 'PINTEREST' inspired, MADE IN USA, 'Ode to the Broken Ornament' earrings...  loving them this Holiday Season!  

Now that Christmas is just one week away, the ETSY shop is closed & the Ebay auctions have all ended (no 'real' time left for shipping, so we've called it QUITS for this season!), baking is DONE, 'some' of the shopping is finished... time to ENJOY - HOPE YOU ARE DOING THE SAME!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE!!

... to StevesHouse we go.

As the 'foster' parent' of stuff, I tend to sometimes get attached.  I give it a good home while I have it, learn what I can about it's background, search it's soul, and it often leaves my care in better condition than it arrived.  Every once in a while I even get to learn the fate of my beloved 'stuff'.  True, this isn't always a good thing ~ but in the case of an adored ceramic tile, it is The.Most.Wonderful! report .

MARCH 2012 - svelteSTUFFj ETSY

  *Now, keep in mind, this tile was NO random sale pick-up.  When I first started working as an Interior Designer with a group of Arch/Engineers 25 years ago, one of my first jobs was to clean out & update their sample library.  I had found this tile in the depths - outdated and discontinued - to be tossed - or to be taken home, by ME, just waiting for that Perfect future project... I finally decided it was time to let it go free - so glad I did!

 

 

A couple of weeks ago we received a note from the girl who had purchased this tile from our ETSY shop.

 

Listing: www.etsy.com/listing/96488019/retro-6-square-japan-ceramic-tile-flower

Hi
I have finally completed (well, almost) the new home for this beautiful tile I purchased from you ...
And I must admit I am also shamelessly promoting this new endeavor I am embarking upon. I have started to sell my mosaics and I would like to invite you to visit my "show and tell" Facebook page (StevesHouse StevesHouse) where some of my completed wares are displayed. I am hoping to be able to post this piece in the next couple of days....  It explains my plans, my mission, as it were, and the reason for the name. I think it is for a good cause and I am hoping many other people agree. I am also planning on being able to open my etsy shop (StevesHousebyPaula) in a short while where many of my wares will be available for sale.

So thank you for the beautiful inspiration of this tile and if you have some free time, I hope you will visit StevesHouse by Paula

 

 

Paula does beautiful work!  If you have a spare moment in this busy Holiday Season, stop by and check out her work ~ and her Great cause.  Hope you are all having a GREAT WEEKEND 8-)

...Q-tip ABUSE!!

 I had been having a WONDERFUL week...

WED. NIGHT we went to see The T.S.O. ~ If that doesn't put you in the Holiday Spirit ~ I don't know what will!!

THURSDAY, things went downhill in a hurry!  I made a quick stop by my fav. thrift on my way home from work...  The 'usuals' were doing their sorting of donations, just the other side of the dishware shelves. You know the 'usuals' - those sweet little old 'blue-haired, Q-tips' that a good gust of wind could blow away...  As I shopped, I overheard this conversation "Oh, these are Eddie Bauer, and they are BRAND NEW!, but they are SOOO Dated..., you know, out of style, do you think we should even bother to put them out?  People just. don't. wear. these things anymore!"  At this point, I HAD to peak through the shelves to see what they were discussing... solid colored TURTLENECKS!!!  UGH.  I looked down, it had been snowing when I got dressed, I was wearing my Lucky skinny jeans, tall black leather boots, a J.Jill bulky high neck sweater with a black TURTLENECK!!!!  I chat with these Q-tips fairly often, so I poked my head into the sorting area and told them:

 "Be nice about who you are calling 'out of style'!"

And their reply?

"Oh honey, that just means that you are mature enough to be secure in your personal style (wink)"
Talk about insult to injury - first the thrift Q-tips tell me I'm out of style, then they tell me I'm old - that just about killed any Holiday Buzz I had going!

Thank goodness the thrift did yield a couple of VERA for my pain and suffering...

VERA 2012 #20 (.25¢)

VERA 2012 #21 (.25¢)

 Now, back to DECORATING and all-things-HOLIDAY!

There is a sad little tree, that has been sitting on our back porch, waiting to have the misc. poop cleaned off of it, since we dug it out of the depths of a carriage house of an estate sale way back in OCTOBER!!  Guess the time is right? Hmmm... I think it has potential - TWEED looks quite content 8-).

...finally.

On the second day of December,

 the decorating F.I.N.A.L.L.Y. began!

Not a 'LOT' was accomplished, but slowly, it has begun! Our main 'double-wide' doorway between the livingroom and the computer room is now 'decked'... (with my precious breakables - high and out of harms way!!)

 As is one of the kitchen windows, with kitschy plastics (so as not to worry about breakage!!).

While I decorated, J 'played' with HIS stocking stuffers!!
  During our kitchen renovation, several years ago, we uncovered an old, unused chimney ~ that we decided to leave exposed... complete with u.g.l.y. old hole in side.  To date we have just had your basic 'winter scene' cover.  In J's stocking, My Parents' gave J some old metal signs that my Dad had cleaned out of his shop.  One of them was 'red' and just-the-right-size to screw over the ugly hole...  Soooooo that was J's project-o-the-day. Measuring, going in search of the correct size and type screws for the holes already in it, insulating, drilling, patching, cleaning ~ and I thought it was going to be so easy!

 But WELL worth it! Our kitchen colors are Red/White/Black - kinda perfect - huh?!

~AND~

We didn't teach Tweed any four-letter words today, since NO ornaments were broken!!

Twas a lovely start to decorating 8-)

,,,hangin' w/ the Haeger & the VERA

On the first day of Decemeber...

When everyone else is decorating for the holidays, what is svelteSTUFF doing?

From left to right: Stocking stuffer Haeger Vase (2012 #5), Birthday Haeger Green Agate Console Bowl (2012 #7) and Stocking stuffer Haeger floral bowl lime green (2012 #6)

 'Playing' with her latest Haeger and VERA acquisitions...

of course!

 I recently had a question from a reader regarding the age of one of her VERA scarves with a metal ladybug button/tag.   I have spent the last couple of evenings pouring through my reference materials and the internet...  I am stumped.  I have been able to find no other reference to these metal tags, though I can verify that they DO EXIST, as I have a couple of these in my personal collection.  Sorry Laurie B.!  Here are a
couple of photos of my latest VERASHEERS to compensate for my lack of an answer...

VERA2012#19 ~ BIRTHDAY

VERA 2012 #18 ~ STOCKING STUFFER

 OH! Before I forget....
The piece of Haeger that I picked up back in the middle of November, and I would only show you the 'back-side'....

HAEGER 2012#4

SOON, SOON, SOON.

Tweed promises.

HOLIDAY DECORATION!

...one of 'those' days.

isn't it ironic...

450th post on my 45th.
THANK GOODNESS that shotglass is poised & ready!
(it's gonna be a tough one!!)

...wrap-up on 'THE' stockings!

Tweed, with his infamous love of 50's 'bling', has reminded me that I have yet to post on A.L.L. of the goodied that I got on BLACK FRIDAY!!

No, we didn't go anywhere near the malls, or retail in general!!  It was our annual stocking exchange. Just Mom, Dad, J & I.  The restrictions on our stockings are 'second-hand' or 'home-made', and none of my siblings have any kind of appreciation for Mom, Dad and mine's love of 'saling' ~ so this is just 'our' special exchange (J goes along with it good-naturedly).

M/D don't get out to many sales any more, but 'somehow' Mom still manages to come through on My stocking!!  Sooooo much goodness, I'm only going to show the SWEATER CLIPS today!
SIXTEEN!!!!!!

DON'T YOU JUST LOVE THE COOL WAY THAT SHE BOXES THEM UP?!

SWEATER CLIPS 2012 #21 - #26
Sweet Rhinestone at the top.
Pendant in the middle is a NYC souvenir with the Statue of Liberty.

SWEATER CLIPS 2012 #27 - 30

There was another little bag with a note on the outside 'NEED HELP'.  Mom would find sweater clips that were less~than~perfect and pick them up, thinking I could use the parts to repair others.  How right she was!  From those 'parts', and other 'parts' I've picked up along the way I was able to complete these FIVE clips by replacing chains, adding beads, etc...

SWEATER CLIPS 2012 #31- 35 

For all you other sweater clip afficionados out there (ha, ha) - I have others of these in my collection, but have had no luck in researching.... WHY THE THIRD CLIP IN THE CENTER???


While visiting Mom & Dad, I was also given an early Birthday present... the PIÈCE DE RÉSISTANCE....

ISN'T IT         THE.MOST.GORGEOUS?!!



SWEATER CLIP 2012 #36 from Mom & Dad