Show and Tell

It's wednesday and that means time to show off....YEAH!!! I am in th emiddle of a couple projects that I can't wait to show off so I thought I would link you to some of my older posts that I did before I had a place to share my show offs!!!

http://justalittlehouse.blogspot.com/2009/08/busy-busy-busy.html

http://justalittlehouse.blogspot.com/2009/06/ive-been-painting.html

http://justalittlehouse.blogspot.com/2009/02/i-finished-it.html

As I was going through old posts I realiezed I have been blogging for over a year now - wow. That seems long to me!! It was fun to go back through and see all the things we did! I will have to do that more often!!!

Show & Tell

I do love this idea and have been anxiously awaiting this week's Show and Tell to show off what I did with the nativity and O Holy Night I purchased from I Show Off.

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This board is leftover from some bookshelves my dad and I made over thanksgiving. I painted it balck and then sanded it down. I learned a cool technique to crackle so I tried that with the white center. I think it turned out pretty nice! When it was all dry I put on the vinyl and then put a clear coat over all of it!
to do the crackle effect: just use regular old elmer's glue!! i dont know what the actual crackle stuff you buy looks like when it is done but this worked well enough for me so I have done it a couple of times now!! i forgot to take pics during the process - sorry!
step 1 - paint your base color - the color you want to show thru the crackle - Let Dry
step 2 - apply elmer's glue to cover the whole area you want to crackle. not thick but not too thin just a nice coating
step 3 - let it dry but not completely. it will be just a smidge tacky
step 4 - put the top color on top of the glue. do it in one direction. don't keep applying to make it thicker. you are going to want to cover in one stroke going in the same direction and then do the next stroke. the more you go over it and the thicker you make the paint on top the less it will crackle.
dont hesitate to email me with questions - you will be suprised how easy it is and how fast it works! you should see it start in a couple minutes!


I love these nativities and knew I wanted to do something with them so...I bought them! She was nice enough to size them down a little for me so I could put them on this star as an ornament. I traced the star onto a piece of wood and cut it out with my jigsaw. It required a little sanding and then I painted!

on the back I wrote the different names that were prophecied in Isaiah 9:6.

I have a red one on my tree and Ijust love how they turned out - cute!!!

I am looking forward to cruising around all the other show n tell's!!!

Snow......Glorious Snow.......

the Grand Total at our House was 20 inches after snowing from 5pm Friday through about 8pm on Saturday

I love the way the snow looks on the wreaths...so pretty!

of course it would look even prettier if I didn't take a picture of the broken window that is duct taped!!


Stephen and Ben headed out at 830 and we didn't hear from them for at least 3 hours!!

the snow started falling harder again about lunchtime

after lunch daddy had shoveled the driveway and walkway and built some nice walls for the boys to climb on. thomas finally headed outside after lunch...

the snow was a little hard for Thomas to walk in....

Thomas and Shiloh had fun in the snow although I htink Shiloh had more fun than Thomas!

Big Brother walked outside and immediately fell over too!

This is the first mound of snow created by our neighbors clearing their drives and the snow plow. The mound has since doubled in size and will provide hours, days and weeks of snow play for the boys!


The boys wait for the snow plow to come through and create this huge pile of snow for them! This year our neighbor had a little bobcat out here shoveling his drive and dumped all the snow in this pile for the boys!!

As FUN a sthe snow is - I am about to go crazy from all the clothes and towels laying all over the kitchen so they can dry in between plays! I am soooo grateful that everyone but Thomas can dress themselves!! Oh how it is the small things in life that make me happy!!

It is beautiful outside with all the snow covering evrything.....Thank you, God - you Rock!!!

Decorating for Christmas

I do soooo LOVE Christmas! I love everything about it - except the shopping! But - I especially love decorating for Christmas. I love getting ALL the boxes out from under the house and opening each one to see what is inside. I love the moment of remembering those items from last year and the little smile that I get from those memories. I love opening a box that is full of all the clearance items from the year before I bought to use this year and trying to remember what I was gonna do with that??? I must admit that a few items got put back into a box this year because I had absolutely no idea what I was thinking when I bought them and couldn't figure out what to do with them this year!!!
I was so excited when I found this tour of homes hosted by The Nester so I could peek into how you decorate and get some ideas for next year!! But - I missed the cutoff to join in her party and through her Ifound these other Holiday Home Tours to join and visit! Hooked on Holiday House Tours and Home for the Holidays .It is gonna be so much fun for me to look thru all those homes.

I hope you enjoy the tour.......

This is our new card tree. We love this idea and will be doing it from now on! I can't wait to see what it will look like the day before Christmas! It has already doubled since I took this picture!



This ledge just recently got put up in the tv room and has yet to be decorated - except for the window - so it was fun to put all our christmas frames on it and give it some life - finally!! I have painted the frames each year and we try to put our christmas morning pic in them but there are a couple that we missed so it is just the card pic from that year!


The three wisemen are ornaments that my hubby hates putting on the tree becasue they are so heavy! I think they found a nice home!


this was fun to decorate with ribbon and bright little ball ornaments


kitchen table centerpiece




our house is just a little house and we do no thave any mantels so the stockings hang in the front hallway. I did this last year and I tried to put them on a bookshelf this year but Stephen requested I put them here like I did last year - so I did!



Our tree.....when we first got married we went to the farm and cut down our tree and brought it home and it was such fun a nd smelled so good. After child #4 came along it was no longer fun it was just plain torture with a lot of yelling and crying involved from mommy and small, cold children so we bought a fake tree! It is nice to be bale to put the tree up on black friday and leave it up till i feel like taking it down! But we decided this year to get a real tree next year since the boys are older and we do miss the smell of the real tree!

My hubby works retail so putting up the tree the day after Thanksgiving doesn't usually happen as he is busy with all the Black Friday madness. So the tree ususally gets put up during that weekend at some point! It is a family event and all must be present before we can start! Mommy is in charge of the ornaments and the boys get fussed at quite a bit to "be gentle" with the ornaments throughout the process but it is pure family fun we all love! It is so much fun to remember the ornaments from year to year and see the ones the kids made from year to year and to open a new one from Grandma each year. The boys take turns each year putting on the star. It was Thomas' turn this year and he was just so stinkin' proud of himself - it was way too cute! I love sitting next to the tree and just enjoying the lights and the ornaments!




I took these pics below because I thought it would be enjoyable to show off the giant clumps of ornaments and the big holes in the tree that have no ornaments! This drives my hubby crazy and when he tried to be all sneaky and move some of them around the kids actually noticed and got upset with him!! So we now have a very badly decorated tree but it adds to the charm and beauty of it and the lights are still pretty!
i wrote on the pic but you can't read it...



Alex started a little tradition of his own with his brothers a couple years ago - He hides baby Jesus in the tree and on Christmas morning the little ones have to find him. They love this and can't wait to find the baby Jesus christmas morning!


front door wreath I just bought at JoAnn's for 75% off and quickly came home and took down the berry one we have had for a few years now! I would really like to have a big P to put on it but I can't find the bigger wood letters around my small town so it will remain bare till I travel to other parts of the world in search of better craft stores!!! I love the rusted bells. I found some rusted stars at Ben Franklin the stoher day that I think I will add to this one of these days!


I love putting up ALOT of christmas lights outside and I especially love driving home after being gone all day and it is dark and all the lights are on - that is my absolute favorite part!!! It is worth all the work for that moment!! I would keep the lights up all year if I could!




not enough lights yet...we are thinking we should put some around the windows too!


I must admit that I do tend to skip right over Thanksgiving and move straight from Halloween(which I could easily skip as well) and go straight into Christmas! I tried to put up Fall decor this year and keep it up till Thanksgiving but I just couldn't hold out - I caved - like 2 days before Thanksgiving!! I'll try again next year!


This is our Advent Log. My dad drilled some holes into a 2x4 for me to put the candles and I decorated it with garland and holly and berries that each have symbolism this season! Each night we do an advent reading and the boys take turns lighting the candles. The white ones are the sundays of advent and the last one will be lit christmas morning before we do presents! This is the first year doing the log. Last year was our first year doing advent and we used a wreath. I saw the log at a friend of ours mom's house and loved it and wanted to do that instead of a wreath. I could never bring myself to use the purple and pink candles that are traditional advent candles - red and white work just as good for us!! They still have the same meaning just not the right color - Oh well! You should see these all lit up - it is gorgeous!
We also celebrate christmas morning with a donut cake for Jesus' Birthday.

Thomas' turn - notice the concentration - this is hard work


My Santa's are one of my favorite things to put out! Quite a few years ago my mom started buying me one of these Santa's every year and I LOVE them! She hasn't gotten me a new one in a few years because they no longer go to SC on vacation! So they are scattered all over the downstairs and even on the bookshelves in the hallway upstairs!

Show and Tell

I am soooo excited! I found a blog that does show and tell once a week - wooohooo!!! Now - I can show off some of my creations and possibly get some feedback on some of my stuff!! It will also be nice to show off all my fun painting stuff I like to do!!!

This is my first time doing show & tell and I am excited to show off some of my christmas things I made to sell at a local coffee shop! They aren't flying off the shelves like I had hoped but it was fun making them so I guess it is okay! Whatever doesn't sell I will just give as Late christmas gifts!!!

These actually sold pretty well!



I saw this idea on a blog at halloween and she gave directions on how to number the blocks(i never would have figured that out on my own) so I gave it a go and I think they turned out cute and fun!!

not christmasy but i did paint it for the shop so I put it on here!

a christmas gift for my sister.....

another countdown to christmas......

I can't wait till next week to show off what I did with these fantastic nativities I found from one of the past show and tell's!!

I have a LOVE of all things polka dot but red with white polka dots is my absolute favorite! So - when I saw this chicken at Ross the other day I just HAD to have it!! The fact that it was only $5 made it a little easier to justify the purchase of a red polka dotted chicken!!!

This is where the chicken will roost!

Since I took a picture of that side of the cabinets I figured I may as well take a pic of the other side. These are all my colored vases I have been collecting for a couple years now at antigue shops, thrift stores and flea markets!!! I had to stop because I ran out of room to put them!! My hubby put sdome white lights up behind them and they look so pretty!

It's Christmas Card Time

and I am soooo not ready for it! We sat down to figure out what we did this past year and it was the same old stuff that we do every other year!! The only person who did exciting stuff was Alex and I don't want to write a whole christmas letter about what HE did all year!! Do family and friends really want to hear the same old same old year after year??? I don't even know where to start and it is already Dec.10th........aaarrrrgggghhhhh!!! What to do? What to do?