Simple and frugal Chistmas decorating !

Decorating with seasonal fruit and greenery from outside is a classic way to decorate and also very frugal. Trifle bowls make wonderful centerpieces to add fruit, greenery, berries or just some extra Christmas decorations that did not fit on the tree this year.

 

Save old coffee cans and use them plain like I have here or you can paint them what ever color you like. They look great with greenery and you can locate all sorts of twigs or berry branches outside or just buy cinnamon sticks at your local craft store to tie into bundles with ribbon or raffia.

 

Happy decorating

Love, Kimberley

Harvest Time & Simple Fall Decorating

   We went to a great local farm and played in a corn maze with our daughter and picked pumpkins to decorate with last weekend. We enjoyed a hayride and a lot of fresh air. Decorating with plants and veggies of the season is a very frugal way to pull in the beauty of the outdoors to the inside so your home can come alive with the change of seasons. Bundles of corn, pumpkins and gourds all are easy to decorate with. Throw them in a basket and place them around your home. You can cut some beautiful branches of the vibrantly colored leaves that are bursting with color and place in what ever containers you have and place around your home as well. Happy Harvest and happy Fall everyone.    

 

 

I love the way the sun shines through all the corn that is ready to harvest.

 

Which one do we choose ??

Greens ready to be cooked up with some bacon and placed on the table.

 

 

Thank God for Farmers, I love seeing the farmers hard at work this time of year here in the North East. How blessed we are in this country.

 

My daughter really loved the green pumpkins so we went with that and I am really glad we did. I love the way it looks.

 

I have an antique preserve crock so I gathered dried lavender I had stored that was harvested from our yard, cinnamon sticks, a few gourds and a fake flower and threw it all in this basket and there ya go, a center piece, along with my green pumpkin.

 

Colorful leaves placed in another antique crock I have, free color. Love it !

Happy Decorating

Love, Kimberley

 

Pumpkins and vines................

   I was inspired by the October addition of Better Homes and Garden and it got my juices flowing to decorate for Fall. So a trip to the Farmers market for pumpkins and gourds and a trip to the attic to pull out decorations I have used for years and it is now officially Fall at my house.

Luckily I have collected cobalt blue hand blown glass for years. So recreating the look from the cover of the Better Homes and Garden magazine was pretty simple. If you do not have any blue glass I have seen pieces that are fairly inexpensive at retail stores or you can buy a bottle of wine with glass in a hue you love and save it like I did, pictured on the left.  So, you get a nice bottle of wine for dinner and a bottle to decorate with.

Mix dried flowers and fresh flowers or greenery with your faux flowers to liven them up and to spice your look up a bit.

Of course I included some Milk Glass pieces. Everything pops and looks so homey in Milk Glass.

I mixed dried lavender from my yard with silk flowers that I already had and pulled a few more greenery pieces from an old wreath . Always try to re-use or re-purpose things you already have before going out to buy new items.  Remember to add to your stash of decorating items through out the year by hitting flea markets, yard sales and estate sales. You can use these items over and over in different ways. Sometimes just the right nick knack can bring the theme you are going for all together.  

Happy Fall everyone
Love, Kimberley



Lost sunglasses

   A few seashells from the local thrift store, hot glue, some old paint (to paint over the old tacky 1970's style embroidery) and a old wooden worn out towel hanger. Ladies and gentlemen we now have ourselves a place for my daughter to hang her sunglasses. Wahooo !

 

Lots of love, Kimberley 

Dried Lavender

 

   Lavender is one of my favorite plants to have around both outdoors and indoors. It is a hardy plant and smells wonderful and most importantly dries beautifully. Lavender plants will tolerate many growing conditions, but it thrives in warm, well-drained soil and full sun. Like many plants grown for their essential oils, a lean soil will encourage a higher concentration of oils. An alkaline and especially chalky soil will enhance lavenders fragrance.  Realistically you can expect to have Lavender plants that will do well when the weather cooperates and to experience the occasional loss of a plant or two after a severe winter or a wet, humid summer. I usually cut it from my plants in the yard and have it all around the house through the year and before the snow comes I make sure to get as much as possible and place it in vases and baskets around the house. It dries so pretty and has a great smell. This is a very economical way to keep flowers and fragrance around the house even in the winter months when flowers are very high priced in the stores. The Lavender will dry and keep some color in your home all winter long.

 

Lots of love, Kimberley

 

Antiques cheese graters make great ways to display flowers like I did here. I have it hung upside down.

 

More lavender in a basket on the door knob of our guest bathroom.

 

More lavender in a hanging wall basket in my dining room.

Wall Pocket Lavabo Bowl

   This is a Vintage, Fenton Crystal ,Hobnail Milk White Glass, 2pc Wall Pocket Lavabo Bowl Planter. Normally I have seen them range from $50 to $100 at Antique malls and online. I found this at a yard sale for 1 dollar. I almost squealed with delight but my husband hushed me. He said "Kimberley don't cheer just take the deal and run." I have been wanting one of these for some time but kept hoping I would find a better deal and I sure did. Patience pays off. I filled it with "free" flowers from my yard so all I have invested in this is a Dollar. It pays to shop yard sales. There is a section of the newspaper that advertises local yard sales and of course people place signs on the road, next time why don't you stop. One mans trash is another mans treasure.

Love, Kimberley

Photo shoot with my daughter

   My daughter wanted to take on the challenge of taking some pictures for her old Mama to change my blog up a bit and make the pictures more, well, the crazy me I am. I am a very emotional person and smile a lot but when I don't, I really don't and I have good days and bad days but I try to be content every day. I wanted her to try and capture that in some of the pictures she took. I think she did. Thanks my sweet girl for the fun afternoon, I think you were successful in capturing your Mama. As I am approaching 40 I feel more comfortable in my own skin now then I ever have and yes I come with some bumps and bruises. Yes I have crows feet, big teeth, rather large feet and a huge scar on the side of my head and one eyebrow is paralyzed and grey hair sprouting out everywhere but I am happy being me. I am still here and will soon be  celebrating the last year of my thirties. Yep 39, wow, where did the time go ??

"Time keeps moving and pretty soon honey you realize it's marching right  across your face."

 

 (Taken from Steele Magnolias -Dolly Parton). 

 

Love yourself and love the skin you are in, after all what choice do you have?

Lots of love, Kimberley





 

 

 

 

 

 



I live in a ZOO

 

  Why do I have two cats, two rabbits, two fish and a dog you ask? The answer is my sweet daughter, who loves animals very much. Animals are a "big" responsibility for our family and especially Mom (me). If you are a mom then you know what I mean. I do assign as many responsibilities as possible for the animals to my daughter because I believe it teaches her to be responsible for someone other then herself. It most importantly teaches her compassion, she has to care for them when they are sick and feed them when they are hungry and witness their distress if she forgets. It changes the center of her thinking from not just thinking of herself when she has to care for something living and breathing that depends on her. We all as a family learn a lot just from watching the interaction of all these animals with each other. Its a three ring circus in the mornings and evenings when the animals all start playing and chasing each other to get their wiggles out. As I have gotten older I have come to realize that although the commitment is big and you have to think about pee and poo all the time because of walking the dog, emptying the rabbit cage, cleaning the fish tank and cleaning littler pans for the cats that its worth it. It is worth it when I go to kiss my daughter good night and three heads pop up from under her sheets or from behind her pillow or from under the bed. Three little faces that are my daughters companions. When I look outdoors and see her cuddling her rabbits and swinging on the swing with them I sigh and realize all the extra hassle is worth it. And between you and me I like cuddling with the animals as much as she does and me and Smokey the cat, we have our own language.

 

Lots of love, Kimberley

 

 

Bandit

Archie
 

Maggie and Milly

Dolly and Dixie

Smokey