My Itty Bitty White book page

Itty Bitty White book page
Originally uploaded by Valita's View

Ok here is the front page to my White Itty Bitty Book I am doing for a swap with Danielle Miller over at vintagedragonfly.com
It is 2 3/4" x 3". Now to make 26 of them.

2008

I can not belive I have not posted since December 13rth. It has been a rough few weeks. I had part of my family over for Christmas Eve night and day. My house is not that large but I wanted us together for the night. When I say us I mean the "us" of my family that is not married. My oldest brother and his wife and huge house, but we, the "us mentioned above" have never been asked over ot spend the night on Christmas Eve night. Her entier family has done it but none of us. It actually works out great since we are used to getting up in the morning eating breakfast and then opening our gifts, this year it was changed up a bit since My brother, Damon has a girlfriend now and she has a young believing son who all spent the night at my house. This year we all got up opened gifts and then ate breakfast, but it worked out since my other brother and his family didn't open gifts until around 4pm or so. Now how they managed to keep their 8 and 4 year old back away from the gifts except for santa gifts is beyond me, but my SIL just didn't feel like dealing with opening gifts until way after dinner and the kitchen was cleaned or so. I mean what a way to ruin a holiday for a kid by not allowing them to open gifts until very late in the day. So when I say it all worked out it did since the "us mentioned above" like opening our gifts early in the morning.

Christmas Eve night my home was full it included my mom, sister, brother his girlfriend and her young son, my couins , her husband, and their two childern, plus 2 cats and 2 large dogs and my small Walker. (The only way I coul dget my family over for the night was for them to bring their dogs with them and it actually worked. Theonly thing broken was a very old ornament that used to belong to my Grandmother and it was done by an adult and child rough housing as my family says. I saved the pieces to make glass glitter and hopefully create a special ornament with the glitter.

The tree is all put away and only a few stragling pieces of decorations are left out to be put away. i could not belive it when I counted over 53 Hallmark Wizard of Oz ornaments and some of those boxes have more than one ornament in them, 27 Ashton Drake Wiz Ornaments and another 2 or 3 dozen of various random wiz ornaments, plus about 5 dozen glass, acrylic and glitter ornaments that were on my tree! No wonder it took me so long to put it up. How did I ever think I didn't have enough Wizard of oz ornaments to fill a tree until now is beyond me.

I didn't do anything special to celebrate 2008. I am in a bit of a funk and feeling a bit lonely these days. Ever have one of those days where you just want someone to love you and hold you while you cry in their arms, well that is how I feell only that no one is ever in my life to do that and it sucks to be honest. I want a man in my life and it just never happens for me and this year it has hit me hard that I am alone yet again. I want this feeling to go away, but I am not sure how to shake it just now. I am very happy for my freinds that are married and even happier for those that are having babies this year, but I am sad because it isn't me. How many times do I have to ask God when is it ever going to be my time and at this point will I still be able to have a child at my age? So if I am not posting for a bit it is because I am bit down these days.

More Pictures of my Holiday Home

I figured out this morning how to add more photos to a post. So below are a few more pics of area in my great room. I have a new very square home, which I love but it doesn't have a lot of nooks and crannies to decorate and right now I still have my make do apartment furniture until I can find pieces I love to buy to redo the room.

Some of the pieces were back from a time where I thought I wanted snowmen all around, but I have since changed my mind. I still have a few favorites that are out so they are below. I love the ornament snowmen because they are handmade and were given to me as a gift and the workmanship is over the top.

I have only little area devoted to shabby chic goodness. I have my Silver Bella ornament house out which I love and the star ornament from Amanda out as well as the class kit I bought from Jenny Heid which I think makes a great backdrop for this little table top. The Silver glitter church was a find I made while shopping for a Silver Bell outfit with Heather at a GoodWill store. I love it and hope to make more over the years or buy more. The Shiny bright ornaments were my grandmother's that my Aunt gave to me a year or so ago along with th emini shiny brights hanging from my olive topiary tree on my counter bar area.

The ceramic Santa's are salt and pepper shakers and they are sitting on my coffee table. This is all part of my mish mash apartment stuff and back then I was going with burgundy for a color but now I like the glitter red plus as a kid I grew up with an all red ornament, lights and garland tree along with a red star on top. I think maybe that is why I was drawn back to red this year, it brings back good childhood memories. Now if I can ever find a ruby red lighted star all will be perfect. I wish I could find a glass one or if I can ever find someone who could make me one I would so love it.

Don't forget to check out my post below this one for more pics Of my Holiday Home. Karla thanks for hosting. I promise I will look at everyone's posts over the weekend.

My Holiday Home

I am joining in on Karla's Holiday Home Party.

This is the very first year I am trying to make my home really special at Christmas and decorate the way I want to decorate. For years I lived in an apartment and when I had a room mate it was always a mix of mine and theirs which wasn't so bad, and then when I lived alone for years I never bothered with a tree. From some reason I always had a new kitten or I was sick. I have spent many a Christmas Holiday in the ER at Christmas time. One year I went Christmas night. Thankfully I have not had an asthma attack years! I think my new home with little carpet has helped. So with that I want to share some pics of my home. I don't have many decorations out like some of you who have been decorating and collecting for years, but I feel like I have started nicely this year with my decoration collection.

I also think I have finally decided on a color since I couldn't decide or commit to a theme or color before. I am going with red and glittery and a more traditional Christmas look with some modern and vintage pieces thrown in to make it my own.

Picture # 1 is Of some very cool Tree Cones I bought at TJ Maxx this year. My mom talked me into getting them and I am so glad she did. The are reg and glittery and thankfully Mr. Walker, my dog, has not touched them at all.

Picture # 2 is of my fireplace mantel. I swear I have the smallest mantel edge ever. I added the swag with the red glittery flowers on it. I added red candles and added glitter to a few until I ran out of red German glass glitter. I will be ordering more this weekend to finish up.

Picture # 3 is of my curtains. I haven't bought real drapes yet. I made all of these and they are all just panels. The gold sheers will actually go with the real drapes when I buy or make them. The grape burgundy colored sheers were once just swags in my old apartment. I threw them up to add some interest in the room and to see if that is the color I want for the real fabric drapes with lining one day. The red sheers are something I made to go on my canopy bed which I sold this summer. When I made the sheers to hang from my bed I added rod pockets in case I ever wanted to hang them and sure enough I found a use for them this year. I added the swags on the curtains just because. I found the red glitter flower swags at Joann's this year when they were on sale for 60% off and cost me like $3.89 each. I bought all they had not knowing if I needed them all or not and I guess I did need them. I love the look!

Lastly is my new faux Wizard of Oz Christmas Tree.
My coordinating color is ruby red so I added red glitter ball ornaments and the clear bubble type ( you know like the bubble Glenda arrives in on)

The top lights are not as bright as the lower ones since I ran of out of mini lights and bought some of the new GE energy saver ones for the bottom section. I am so night a good light placer. I will work on that next year. I bought some costume red glitter fabric on sale at Joann's for 75% off and threw it under the tree for a tree skirt.

And of course my newly painted walls. I painted just so I could put my decorations up this year in a colored room. I went with Beachwalk by Behr and I love the color. It is like a Tuscan gold color and doesn't look like the beach at all.

Christmas Traditions

I know I am late posting for Jill's Christmas Traditions party but I guess it's never to late to post about Christmas Traditions. I have been thinking on this for a while and at first I thought Oh my gosh my family doesn't have any. What I grew up with no longer exits and I think what we had as a family died when my father passed away in 1985. Kinda sad I know, and seems very strange to know I have friends that i have known longer than my Dad or that I have now lived more of my life without him than I did with him. Silly how writing that is making me tear up and I am not know for being a cryer. It was really hard for my family to get into Christmas traditions after he passed away. But slowly we have developed some of our own as single adults. You see I have 3 siblings and only one of use is married, my oldest brother Glen and he is also the only one with children so for many years we had to find a way to make Christmas special without much family around to spend it with. I am not sure when we stopped going to Louisiana for Christmas but somewhere along the way as my cousins all got married and started having families of their own we stopped going or we told my mom we didn't want to go anymore.

So for many years it has been just the 4 of us on Christmas day with a friend or two joining us on occasion. The one tradition my second oldest brother, sister and I started was playing Monopoly on Christmas mostly in the evening after dinner. I hated playing it as a kid it just took so dang long for it to ever end but some how I know we will all sit down and play a game and to top it off someone always gets a new version of the game every year for us to play on this day. Now that I think about it I must have started this because I think I bought the first new game for my brother many years ago and he made us all play it together and then the next year he wanted another version and thus the tradition began. I know it has been over 9 years just not sure how much longer it has been. One year I got the Wizard of Oz Monopoly game, yes they had one and I still have it and we only have played it once. We have between the 4 of us Star Wars, NFL, Dallas Cowboys, Coke, Disney, Aggieopoly, the Golden addition, 2 electronics versions, and another Star Wars and I am sure there are some I am missing. Funny thing one year my Niece got the Disney Princess Jr version and we all played and she won fair and square. I remember one year getting a call on Christmas evening from my brother and sister telling me I had to drive back over because we had not played yet. I am hoping we can play early this year since I now live a good 30 minute drive from them, but in the end I know we will play we just may have a few more players this year.

Stockings. yes we still do stocking at our house. In fact they went away for a year but after much grumbling we brought them back. Some feelings were hurt one year but after much discussion and realizing we all could fill each others stockings and not just my Mom they are back to stay. We do them with just the 4 of us now, but this year we will include my brother Damon's girlfriend and her son. I just told my mom we were doing them and that as it. We have all started buying for them. It can never be anything big. Damon is always the hardest to buy a stocking stuffer for so I usually get him candy now that he is living on his own again I have a few more ideas. Our stockings for years were just the old fashion and red and white ones that we had as a kid. One was large and the other three were small and when we decided it was time to do a stocking for my Mom she bought some velvet ones like in the picture and we had our names embroidered on them. She also thought ahead and bought some blank extra ones for those friends that we me invite through the years. I do not have a big mantel like my mom does but we do them at my house this year. This year we will just have to fill them up on Christmas Eve. We will have a believer in the house this year.

With that I am hoping to start a new tradition this year. Every since I heard that my Aunt and Uncle and their family did this I have been wanting to do this to. Every year they all go to a family members home and spend Christmas Eve night all together. They change houses each year so they do not always have to do Christmas at my Aunt and Uncle's home. There are many of them and they just sleep all over where ever they can, so this year my Mom, sister, my brother Damon, his girlfriend Michelle and her son Nathan along with the sister dogs Star and Pooky will all be spending the night at my home this year on Christmas Eve. My home is only 1750 sq without a basement so we will be sleeping everywhere. I wish my oldest brother and his family would join in on the fun but since they have never invited us over to spend the night ever, we will go over to their home for dinner and to exchange gifts with them. I love the idea of all waking up together on Christmas morning so what if we all live in the same area we can all still wake up together.