a bit of christmas

I thought I would share some of my Christmas decor.  I am always looking for the perfect mantelscape and have lots of ideas in my head but it never seems to turn out as I imagined.  Instead of greenery and red or white feathers and silver it is black and red with my angels.  I collect Jim Shore angels and usually hang them on the tree where no one can see them.  This year I decided to highlight them and show them off.  In the end I love how it turned out.

I wanted to give some of the angels height and originally I wanted to cut down some cedar 4x4 posts but when I saw the price I decided that wasn't going to work for me.  Instead I headed to the thrift store and bought two candlesticks and two small saucers all for a total of $2.50.  I unscrewed the middle from one candlestick, painted all the parts black, and set the plates on the candlesticks.  What a cheap solution and it fits better with all the other pieces.

The top of my fridge:

The kitchen windowsill:

  The nutcrackers:

The Story of our Nutcrackers 
This summer we visited Leavenworth, WA for two days and the kids (my daughter especially) had to visit the nutcracker museum.  My husband and I are not really enamored with nutcrackers but took the kids.  I did not know there were so many different kinds of nutcrackers.  We (the parents) still do not like all the shiny, glittery, fuzzy nutcrackers but appreciate the handcrafted ones.  The little guy in the top picture is in lieu of the ornaments I usually buy for my husband and I each year.  We bought him at the Christmas Market in Vancouver, BC.  He is small but totally cute and hand made in Germany.  The bigger guy I bought at Michaels.  He is made in China and is not the same quality.  He is my compromise with the kids.  They soooo wanted a nutcracker.  Every store we went into they would ask for one.  I couldn't find one that was not over the top, for us parents, until I saw this one.  He has a pretzel in one hand and a beer in the other.  The perfect "German" nutcracker.

table and chairs

In October I painted our table and chair set.  The table we had bought at the thrift store and it has needed to be refinished for many years.  The kids are now at a point where it doesn't get destroyed every time they craft on it.  The chairs were from my husbands parents when we got married.  They had them for many years and both my MIL and I had slip covered the seats a couple of times.  My husband and I cleaned them with TSP and sanded the table down until it was smooth.  The table top has about 5 coats of paint and the chairs and table base 3 coats.  I tried to spray paint the chairs but after three cans of spray paint on two chairs I decided that brushing them would be easier and less work.  I used Benjamin Moore satin finish oil paint in Cloud White.  This is my favorite color for all my trim and misc cabinets.  I love it! Here is a picture of a chair before:

  This chair was one of the better chairs.  A couple of years ago I had recovered two chairs in this brown vinyl.  It cleaned up easy!  I bought different fabric in the spring (or maybe last winter) and had the foam in my daughters closet all summer while our house was on the market.  Here is a couple of pictures of the completed chairs and the set:

Since the dishes were white and the table was white we needed to add a little of something.  The kids and I headed to Homesense and bought placemats.  The have only actually been used a couple of times as they keep getting dirty and I forget to wash them when I do the laundry.  They did look pretty the first day.

The white really brightens up the kitchen, especially on these dark winter afternoons.