It was a dark and stormy night. The rain was beating down on the metal roof at the Blanchard house. But inside, the scene was cozy, as the fires blazed. Dinner was enjoyed by all, and as the rain pelted on and on, everyone settled into an evening of "chillaxing".

Splat cuddled in Mommy's sweater on top of a dresser

 

Cosette lurked in an empty desk

 

Brutus Chilled next to the computer desk on a folding chair

 

While Phillepe lounged in an easy chair with his "binkey". (blanket)

 

While Mommy cooked pumpkins on woodstove. Yummy!

Unto Us Is Born This Day.......

 

The following are the lyrics to one of my favorite songs of the season by Chris Rice. The song is now first on my playlist, if you want to hear it. There are some of my other faves on there too, like Once in Royal David's city, Silent Night by Julie Andrews, etc. If you're interested.

Welcome to Our World

Tears are falling, hearts are breaking
How we need to hear from God
You've been promised, we've been waiting,
Welcome, Holy Child; welcome Holy Child.

Hope that you don't mind our manger
How I wish we would have known
The long awaited Holy Stranger
Make yourself at home, please make yourself at home.

Bring Your peace into our violence,
Bid our hungry souls be fed
Word now breaking Heaven's silence
Welcome to our world, welcome to our world.

Fragile fingers sent to heal us,
Tender brow prepared for thorns
Tiny heart whose blood will save us,
Unto us is born; unto us is born.

So wrap our injured flesh around you
Breathe our air and walk our sod
Rob our sin and make us Holy,
Perfect Son of God,perfect Son of God -
Welcome to our world...............

Farmhouse Christmas

My husband and I had this conversation the other day as we passed a brightly decorated home with lights all over the trees, shrubs, house - virtually every surface that could be lit was lit with a zillion tiny white lights.

"That's tacky", Kevin said.
"I dunno; if I was into lighting up things, I'd do it that way."
"It's boring," he insisted.
"Boring? That is the furthest thing from boring on this whole stretch of road!"
"It's all one color," he continued.
"Oh...... you like the color lights,"
He gave me a look that said "Is there any other lights besides the color ones?"
But instead he said: "You know, when I was a kid" (I get these 'when I was a kid' speeches from him once in a while. He is 13 years older than me. I also get the 'up NORTH we....' fill in the blank.)
"When I was a kid, all we had were the colored ones.......and if we lit things up at our house, I'd use every color I could buy and make it interesting."
"But THAT is tacky!" I said. "When I was growing up, we did all one color or the other. Mixing colors up in a big jumble is what is tacky."
"Oh."
"Besides, it doesn't matter, does it? We don't put lights all over our house and yard anyway, so why are we even having this conversation?"
"Right - were NOT putting lights on the house..........."

I got to thinking about it, though. I think sometimes I take Christmas way too serious. Could part of the fun of Christmas be being just a little tacky? So I might not put inflated snowmen and Santas all over my yard and put lights on every square inch of my house. MY version of Christmas "Tacky" is singing along to "Faliz Navidad" on the radio, or "Rockin' around the Christmas Tree," or all of those miserable holiday songs on they play; or when I put a jingle bell collar on my kitties, or when I broke down last year and bought a set of - are you ready for this? - a strand of lights with real shotgun shell covers. Yeah; I did. For my husband, because I knew he would love that.

ANYWAY: I guess I said all that as a prologue to the actual subject of this post: Christmas Decorating began this weekend at the Blanchard Farmhouse! We have to wait another week or so for the tree, as our baby is a rather hyper baby, and will more than likely tear into the tree with a single purpose: shred everything on it and use it for a jungle gym. (I am, of course, referring to our newest addition to the household, or kitten, Phileppe.)

We do decorate in a very old-fashioned "country" way; with no lights on the house or shrubbery; only the tree. I go to nature for my decorations: greenery, berries, twigs, pine cones, grapevine, moss, etc. Than I add other textures and elements to my decor: velvet ribbons and bows; trinkets, objects, groupings, linens, china, sliver pieces, etc.

So I hung my wreath; which I love. Pine cones, dried flowers; berries



Later in the month, I will make a real one from evergreen clippings, and make my garland at the same time. I love using real evergreen garland all over the house. I often mix in magnolia and boxwood. (I'll post pics of how I do it when I do.)

Then I got really inspired. I found this website/blog called Sugar Pie Farmhouse. I. LOVE.THIS.SITE. Anything having to do with "farmhouse", "farm wife", or "farm girls", I am going to love, and this is a doosey. She had a post this week with her pics of her Christmas decor and I loved the red and white theme! I am loving Red as an accent color these days. So this picture really cranked my tractor:



And I decided to do my own version. First, I decided to make my pine cones snowy. And since we never get any SNOW around here, (like some people who live in an unnamed city up in the Shenandoah Valley, that are all smug about their snow this weekend, who shall remain nameless....... you know who you are........:) )I had to get creative:







I did this project out at the wood pile, in case you didn't notice. Once the pine cones were all snowy, I rummaged in the pantry for two enamelware pans I had bought at the thrift store for less than $5. Mouhahahahaha



Then I rummaged around in my loft attic room where I thought I remembered I stashed a bunch of red ball ornaments I got for 1/2 price last year, for about $2.50. Mouahahahahahaha



I added a little fresh cedar clippings and ta da! my own version of the Sugar Pie Farmhouse arrangement. Me likey.




Then I had a lot of fun with some glass glitter and some leftover stuff from our wedding; which I will post about later.
Now I am all pumped about getting a tree.... maybe we will cut one fresh this year instead of resorting to Home Depot? We'll see. Any way about it, it is going to be interesting with our cat rearranging it every day for us........

Deck them halls, Y'all! Whoo hoo!

This is my Grown-Up Christmas List

I am a simple person; I really am. I don't generally keep a list of things I want. I have most of what I ever wanted right at my fingertips anyway. Family members ask me what I want and I don't usually have an answer.
But this Christmas I find I have a few things I'd like Santa to stuff in my vintage stocking.

 

A farm girl's dream. I love these.

 

This woman ...... she is amazing. She inspires me. If I could trade lives with anyone, it would be her. She lives on a ranch - an actual working cattle ranch in Oklahoma, she cooks all this great food, she home schools, takes the most amazing photos that will take your breath away; she is absolutely hilarious... She started a blog in her PJs and now she is a author and everyone in the world must visit her blog/website on a daily basis.

 

And this. So I don't have to prop my pitiful little beat up camera on my truck, or a tree stump, or a rock when I take my pitiful little photos.

I could add other items to the list from my long term save-up-to-buy list; like a laptop, a new camera, a Stuuben saddle, a new horse trailer, and about a thousand various antiques, but I won't.

Besides, I probably won't get these things from Santa this year anyway, no matter what kind of a good girl I am. Because Santa paid off this for me this year, and Santa is out of resources.



Thank you, Santa! I'll talk to you again next year!

Christmas Re-fashions

Every building on our farm was, is, or is in some state of, being full of old stuff - mostly old appliances, jars, etc. I have pulled a few vintage kitchen things out of the barns; as well some other cool stuff - but that is for another post another day.
One of my finds in the second story loft of one of our barns amidst the boxes and fruit baskets of old blue canning jars, I found a plastic bag, containing this faded, worn pink chenille bedspread:



And this old crazy quilt top:




And an old flour sack. An actual old-timey flour sack! All three pieces are torn, have holes, etc. But as a lover of textiles, who cannot bear to see them tossed, I washed them, and stashed them, while I pondered what I could do with them. As usual, when December rolls around, I start making various little Christmas objects - little ornaments for the tree, little embroidered thingys for here and there. As I mentioned a few posts back, Kevin and I didn't have any Christmas stockings, so I improved a few sock thingys out of an old table linen I had in my enormous stash.

Inspired, I whipped out my four sack and pink chenille bedspread and went to cutting. I still haven't decided what do do with the quilt top - I'll think about that later. I bought a few trims off Etsy (I highly recommend Etsy for purchasing trims, lace, buttons, ribbon, etc. It is sooooo inexpensive, and the selection is better than my fabric store....)I am NUTS over the cherry red mini pom-pom trim.



First I made a little bitty one; I was thinking of a "baby's first Christmas" kind of theme. So I embroidered a "B" on it.





Then I made a bigger one, and used my red pom pom fringe! My favorite.





And the pink Chenille I did with a piece of a damaged crochet doily, and a length of pale pink vintage ribbon, also found amongst the stuff I've found here. So this one is entirely made from vintage scraps of misc. stuff!

 

 

This I made from a leftover scrap of te flour sack. I free-embroidered the whole thing with my own design. I will add a handle for it; and then it can be filled with blossoms and hung on a obliging door knob seeking adornment. In fact, I will probably sell this on Etsy later.

 

In case you are wondering: I sewed these entirely by hand; no machine. I made my own pattern from newspaper, too.

It's kind of too late to sell these on Etsy for this Christmas; but I will probably sew up some more and sell them next year. But, if you are reading this and you really realllllly want one; I might part with one this Christmas. Maybe.

An Etsy Shop For Your Consideration

Attention, seamstresses and lovers of vintage stuff! My bloggy friend and Mary Jane's Farmgirl Friend Jodi has opened an Etsy Shop: Classica Gifts and Decor!

She is still uploading items there so make sure to check back often. Right now she has a whole bunch of really cute vintage children's clothing patterns. If only I knew how to sew...... and I do not. Yet.

Check out Jodi's blog while you're at it: Journey of a Daughter of El Shaddai.

Virtual high five to Jodi!

Kitchen Update - Recently

I am not calling this the official "After" post, as it is not completely done yet, so to me, that is not really and "after" after; if you know what I mean.......
Yeeeeah. So anyway, After a summer of crops and hay fields and building buildings and gardening and training horses, and all of those other things we do, Kevin and my brother Eli attacked the kitchen the week before Thanksgiving. Kevin had promised - promised - that it would be done by Thanksgiving, but I knew better. That was ok. It's the thought that counts.



This is the log wall we exposed. We decided on a cathedral ceiling in order to keep the entire wall exposed. Lexy and I scrubbed all the paint and whitewash off the logs; and later I will satin the logs with a walnut wash to bring out their brilliance.





I painted the walls in a color called "yellow ribbon" that I had bought thinking it would match a color I was using upstairs; but it was too yellow. So I just said, "Well, I guess the kitchen is going to be kind of yellow!"
Which is fine; as my vintage 1920's - 50's decor is all reds, blues, turquoise, etc. etc.





We also decided to rip out the last remaining carpet in the porch, the foam padding underneath, the plywood.... and we found the original porch floor beneath; which we are debating whether to paint and leave, or install hardwood floors identical to what will be in the kitchen.





I chose to not post the pictures of the extreme mess I referred to in a recent post about housekeeping. Too embarrassing. But rest assured, the mess was no simple, everyday, dainty sweep- and- dust- a -little- bit kind of mess. This was shop vac mess, and we "shop vaced" twice ad it still looked like nothing had been done - but anyway.

All we have left to do is complete the electric 100-volt to 200-volt switchover, touch up walls and logs, stain cabinets, paint trim, and my favorite - a new floor. Which I am planning on being wood - wide, knotty pine planks - aged, stained, and varnished, of course.

The idea is to not have the kitchen look like a new, modern one - but age everything so it looks old, like the house is; while getting updates it needs.
It will truly be a farmhouse kitchen when we're done with it.