A DOWER HOUSE Christmas 2022

The ghost of pre-Christmas recently past

Huh?

what does THAT mean?

This was my original Christmas decorating
for the Living room of The Dower House.

I had a bottle brush tree on the side table which I wired with LED's and put a few gifts on the mantle with a  couple of stockings for the grandchildren. 
Other than that, everything else remained much the same.

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.😱 💥

On top of which,

 when the lights were turned on, 

 all the tree ornaments visually disappeared. 👤

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

To divert myself and take the focus off the bottle brush Christmas tree, 

I decided to "Festivus" the rest of the room. 

🦌🦌🦌

Back in late November,

in order to provide more privacy for the Dowager,

I'd frosted the front door window panes with

Matt nail varnish, 

 dabbing the product onto both sides of the

acrylic"glass" for texture.  

I liked the effect.

I hung a large wreath outside the front door

which silhouettes nicely against the frosted panes.

I also remembered that I had some mini Christmas cards tucked away
so I tacked those sent to The Dowager
  onto the wall next to the door,
and placed a couple of wrapped Christmas parcels
on the secretary. 

The parcels on the chair 
 are currently awaiting Christmas tags.

The 3 pack of Christmas wrap
was made by Fatima of beauxminis 

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!

 🎄

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".

I made my oranges from a stem of styrofoam berries
 found in my stash. 

Using a wire brush, I pounced over the berries until they were sufficiently dimpled. 
It's easier to do this whilst they're still attached to the stem. 

After they were textured, 
I plucked them off and rolled and squished them
between my fingers to shape.

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. 
 

I had a couple of large felted bluebirds
so I nestled them into the greenery too!

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!   

 I continued adding MORE BIRDS of all shapes and sizes  -

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

 LUDMILLAS Creations  on Etsy

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! 

I'd wanted clear but I had blue, 
so blue it was.

The lights run behind the garland so they're
nearly invisible on top
but more pronounced on either side of the swag. 
To be frank
 I'm bugged by this too,
and so yes,
 I'm BACK TO STAGE 'A' again
 but at such a late date
I'm not going to bother fixing🤯 it -
 (makes me wonder though, if I have"a condition")
😳

I rested a few small pieces of blue and white china inside
the garland to tie it in with the blue lights
and called it DONE! 
 

So this is what it currently looks like

I'd made mini plum puddings over a year ago,
 and I'd made lots!  
I selected one for the Dowager's tea table which
I'd thought at the time,
looked like a plum pudding
until
I actually saw a real one and realized that mine was too dark and looked like a blob,
so I repainted it lighter. 
But then it was too shiny, so I had to dull it down.
But then you couldn't see the candied fruit 
so I had to repaint them on.
But then the fruit looked too flat
so I had to make them glossy...
Then I reached the point where I had to say 
ENOUGH Already! 
 Plum Pudding
AS IS!

This cream and sugar were made by
GORDON BLACKSTOCK
and came with the tiny silver sugar tongs. 
The silver tray is by Canadian silversmith Don Henry.

Here's my big hand again
surrendering the fruitcake to the Dowager

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! 

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.) 

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.

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!

😻😻😻

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-

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...

"GOD BLESS US-
Every  One"

elizabeth

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!😕 

oh well,... it IS what it is. 🤪