The ghost of pre-Christmas recently past
Huh?
what does THAT mean?
And although my fanciful Christmas tree
was kinda tall for the window table,
I thought I could learn to live with it.
That is until it was lit!
That's when it really bugged me!
The tree lights were too bright!
I tried to tone them down with pink glass paint
but they still glared like lasers.ðą ðĨ
On top of which,
when the lights were turned on,
all the tree ornaments visually disappeared. ðĪ
It wasn't as if it was
the end of the world
but when little things keep bothering me,
I usually respond to them thusly:
a) I'll pretend to ignore them but I'm still really aggravated
b) I'll divert my attention towards something else so I don't have to deal with it.
c) my deliberate avoidance can no longer sustain itself
so I surrender then I fix it!
The following photos were
during the early 'A' and 'B' stages
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The parcels on the chair are currently awaiting Christmas tags. |
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The 3 pack of Christmas wrap was made by Fatima of beauxminis |
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I was still in my 'A&B' stages of avoidance so with the left side of the Living room done, it was time to revisit the fireplace |
I decided to take everything off the mantle
and make a garland,
hoping that it would take my mind off the tabletop Christmas tree.
Janine of Minworks
has an EXCELLENT method
used for arranging the shelves in her Swedish Kitchen
which you can read about here.
Rather than affixing items directly onto the structure,
Janine cuts a duplicate of the surface to be decorated,
from a sheet of thin acetate,
and glues or waxes china, books, linens et al,
to the plastic liner and then slides her completed arrangements into place.
When she's ready to change things around,
she just lifts it up and out in its entirety.
So I decided to do the same!
ð
Since my fireplace is secured to the wall
with Museum Wax, it was easily removed
which made decorating the mantle a piece of cake.
I glued a long length of wired garland
onto a clear acetate base,
which I draped down at either end of the fireplace.
I glued layers of lycopodium into the garland until most of the garland base was obscured.
Initially,
I'd wanted to keep it "simple" so it wouldn't compete with my Christmas tree.
The first things I added were"mandarin oranges".
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After they were textured, I plucked them off and rolled and squished them between my fingers to shape.
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I pressed a pen nib into their centers for the stem indentations. ![]() Then I glued the oranges onto the garland and carefully painted over the bald spots of each orange with a thin mix of grated orange chalk, water and Glossy Accents dimensional glue, which gives the styrofoam fruit a more natural finish. Orange slice nail appliques were also glued to the garland. I tied a couple of pink silk bows and glued them to both corners of the swag along with a few sprigs of paper-punched holly leaves, red berries, and some split cardamom seed "walnut"shells. |
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I had a couple of large felted bluebirds so I nestled them into the greenery too! |
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I enjoy birds both REAL and in mini so after installing the bluebirds, I started looking through my stash, and found this English robin Christmas card which was perfect! |
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I continued adding MORE BIRDS of all shapes and sizes - |
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Until I had this |
YES, yes
It's VERY FUSSY!
but I liked it.
AND SO
After executing steps A and B of my
avoidance/distraction strategy
I felt I'd FINALLY reached
STAGE 'C'
therefore,
I would remove the existing tabletop tree and make an entirely new one
HENCE
the mini tree tutorial
as outlined in my previous post.
SO-
with 4 new trees
this is the tree I went with;
smaller, less busy,
and without electric lights.
THEN
I bit the bullet and swapped out the
the non-working table lamp
for one that did work,
which meant painting the replacement lamp
to match the old one;
then hooking up the wires to the power
which THANKFULLY I'd had the foresight to diagram both on paper and in photos.
ahhhh
so Much better!
now back to the decorating
A few months ago, I'd purchased
a large green picnic hamper from
I filled the basket with gifts
and slid it under the table everything nice and tidy! |
![]() Of course it wasn't long before I revisited the Bird Garland and decide to install lights! |
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I'd wanted clear but I had blue, so blue it was. |
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So this is what it currently looks like |
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I know the photo above is dark but I LOVE the cosiness it evokes! In the photo below the dowager's cat has commandeered the entire sofa! |
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Next to the sofa is a poured cup of tea and a partially obscured wedding photo of the Dowager's grandparents. Hanging directly behind it, is my Treasured Painting by Catherine (Ninette and co.) |
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I'd made poinsettias a number of years ago and had packed them away and then forgot about them. After I'd rediscovered them, I placed a white one at the foot of the tall case clock to the right of the sofa. |
At the far left of the sofa is an old yet serviceable vacuum which the Dowager has just unplugged. |
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I happened to find a length of brown cloth covered wire which looks like old electrical cord, which I glued to the underside of the vacuum handle. I made an old fashioned plug from a round bead painted black. |
Just out of sight,
a kitten is happily engaged in shredding
the underside of the Dowagers old leather sofa-
meow!
ðŧðŧðŧ
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IN CONCLUSION: This entire post has been all about the extra stuff that got done in an attempt to avoid doing ONE SPECIFIC THING. Good grief Charlie Brown! |
and yet this room now looks
more RIGHT to me.
And if the first tree hadn't been an "issue"
then perhaps the bird garland might not have happened at all-
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ANYHOOSIE! The holiday decorating for 2022 is complete and the Dowager can return to her chair by the fire where she can either pick up her knitting OR continue reading the book she's just started- Charles Dickens A CHRISTMAS CAROL and in the immortal words of Tiny Tim...
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As a reminder: I'm still having problems with the comment section. If you try to leave one before the sidebar finally appears, or before the whirly-thing in the tab stops twirling, then your comment won't register. This can take up to 60 seconds before the program stops loading and finally kicks in- Talk about frustrating!ð
oh well,... it IS what it is. ðĪŠ