HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Lots of the home-arts blogs in my Google Reader carried posts this week reflecting on their “most popular posts” for 2011. Now understanding that they put a lot of effort into building traffic for their blogs and I… well, I don’t really do that on this blog… I decided to go ahead and do a Most Popular round-up anyway. Because even if I don’t get thousands of visitors like they do, I do get dozens, and I sincerely appreciate each and every one of them :) So here are the five posts that my dozens of visitors (*smooch*) clicked on most in 2011! (Be sure to click the post titles to see the full post!)

#5 – Quick, Cute Centerpieces

#4 – Aqua Round-Up

#3 – Sweet & Simple Easter Dinner

#2 – Vintage Pillowcase Toss Pillow

And the NUMBER ONE most popular post… as clicked by DOZENS of fab, friendly readers:  My Favorite Cupboard: Heart of the Home!!

Even if I don’t have the scads of blog traffic that others have, it’s nice to know that folks do stop by. So – THANK YOU for checking out my projects and sharing my adventures in 2011! Here’s to much more inspiration and fellowship in 2012!

More soon,

Sure hope you had a lovely Christmas – we were blessed this year to have my husband home from the hospital (18 days, for an appendectomy and many resulting complications!) so we kept things simple; I even felt like I was able to slow down and actually enjoy things rather than rushing around at the last minute to make things impossibly perfect. And you know what happened? It was perfect all on its own!

One of my favorite parts of our little family Christmas is making our lunch on Christmas Day. This year I decided I was going to dress up the table a little bit (highly unusual in this neck of the woods), but I didn’t think things through soon enough to purchase a centerpiece. So I decided to just make one from materials I had on hand. Here’s what I came up with, after picking a stray piece of left-over garland from the craft box and a few ornaments off the tree, plus my lavender candlesticks and tapers, all on-hand:

I’m linking this little project to Frugal Friday over at The Shabby Nest. Please click through to see all the wonderful projects and ideas on Wendy’s wonderful blog!

More soon!

We had a very quiet but lovely Easter Sunday – just the three of us celebrating – which included a visit from the Easter Bunny (he brought Scripture-themed t-shirts and a “God Is Love” necklace, plus Peanut Butter Eggs, for our daughter) and a very yummy dinner served on a pretty table. Yes, I actually broke out a tablecloth – this is unique because our dining room table usually has computers sitting on it so normally we just shove them out of the way!

It was hard to get a good overall picture, but it sure looked pretty in person. Since there are only three of us and the table normally sits against a wall, I put the centerpiece to the back of the table.

The “Crazy Daizies” really looked bright and cheery in my white ironstone pitcher. The white runner is actually a pillow sham (thrift-store find).

The plate, dish and relish spoon are for the butter and jelly that accompanied the dinner rolls. The jelly dish is a vintage piece of Depression Glass; I believe the pattern is called Swirl.

I haven’t done too much in my table settings with lots of accessories yet; I tend to keep things simple so we have plenty of room to pass the dishes. We are of course using my beautiful everyday stainless flatware, “Chandelier” by Oneida.

I liked how the sun was coming in through the dining room window for most of these pictures.

Here are the plates at each setting – just 2 layers. The gold-rimmed plates (from Pier 1 many years ago) were for bread…

… and of course the Corning Centura “Tulip” plates were for the main meal.

Here is the detail on the dinner plates – so pretty! I recently got a set of sixteen of these (8 dinner and 8 salad) at the Goodwill, in pristine condition, for $2.99!!

Our meal consisted of “grilled favorites” (bacon-wrapped sirloin filets for my daughter and I, and a rib-eye for hubby), cheesy scalloped potatoes, a giant crab-stuffed portabello mushroom (split three ways – it was HUGE), and dinner rolls. And, after our tummies had settled, dessert was served: strawberries and ice cream served on homemade shortcake – yum!!

Hope your Easter celebration was delightful!

More soon!

Another bit of “yard drama” I’ve been meaning to share (in addition to the loss of half my lilac bush – arg!) … after doing some brush-clearing in an area of our yard that used to be a vegetable garden, I discovered a small, struggling redbud tree.

Back at our old house we had a really pretty one that I carefully pruned each year so it developed a truly beautiful rounded canopy. Sadly, the crews that demolished our house after the flood in 2008 almost immediately snapped this poor tree in half with the backhoe. It was heart-breaking. So I was quite ecstatic to uncover this little specimen in our new backyard – yes, we’ve lived here almost 3 years and I’ve never seen it before – that’s how “covered” it was by all the overgrowth in the former vegetable garden! Hard to get a picture of the full tree, but here’s a close-up of a few of the buds finally in bloom.

Also, we haven’t mowed yet for the first time so there are violets everywhere amongst the bright green grass. Here’s the view heading up the hill from the vegetable garden – it looks like a little “meadow” of violets!

A close-up of some of the violets…

And, it looks like this shrub is back in full force this  year – it didn’t bloom nearly as much in 2010, and needs to be trimmed a bit, but it’s one of the few things that’s bloomed under our recently-overcast skies. My mother-in-law called this Quince.

Close-up of quince blooms…

More soon!

The weather has been really frustrating around here for the past 10 days… upper 40′s to mid 50′s and rainy, which actually means cold and damp. That means our fruit trees are going to bloom really late this year, but I was getting desperate for a little Spring cheer in the house. So I snagged an idea from Wendy over at The Shabby Nest, and brought some budded branches inside. It only took a few hours before the warm house coaxed these branches from our pear tree to open and provide a very pretty “show” in front of the dining room window. I have really enjoyed this vase full of blooms all week!

A couple days after bringing those branches in, I noticed that a good portion of my one lone lilac bush had been broken off at the base, either by animals or high winds. This really “hurt my heart” (as my daughter used to say) because lilacs are among my absolute favorite Spring flowers and we only have the one shrub. Not about to admit defeat, I clipped off some greenery and the one piece that seemed to have some buds on it, and brought that inside to force as well.

This sprig hasn’t bloomed yet after several days, but I am giving it plenty of time – the buds had just appeared when the branch got broken.

And, here  is the neat vintage green-and-gold vase I’m using. I’m not sure of the maker, it belonged to my grandmother and simply says “Made in USA” on the bottom.

Meanwhile, neither the pear or apple tree, nor the remainder of the lilac bush, appear any closer to blooming outside than they did ten days ago. Hopefully we’ll have some warm sunny days really soon!

More soon!