Catching Up

Hi everyone, Happy New Year! I know I’m a little late with my New Year wishes. I've had a lazy and laid back holiday. It’s been great. The kids all came home for Christmas. It was great having a little guy here. He got much more excited than the big guys. And I have to say, it warmed my heart to hear him call me Nana. :)

Let me play catch up for a minute. I never showed you our Thanksgiving feast. 

And I want to make sure they’re in my blog before we get too far into the new year!

We had dinner inside again this year because it was too cold and windy.

You can see years past here, here and here.

My sister found these planters that looked like bark. I brought some potted mums which we cut up and put them in oasis. Then we mixed in some other cut flowers and greens from the yard.   

I think they turned out beautiful.

 

The manly men and their manly tools cut some large logs into discs about 3 inches thick. 

They made a great base for the candles and hurricane globes.

Remember the little place card holders I made? Okay, so I had help. 

They went together with the planters so well.

And last was the abundance of desserts! Oh my, it was all so good.

But it’s time to say good by to all those sweets.

New Years Eve was quiet around here. And now that #3 son is back at college and the house is once again quiet I need to start working on a few things.

I won’t call them resolutions. Too much pressure. But definitely I have things I want to accomplish.

Those are just some of the things that come to mind at the moment.

• sew curtains for the kitchen
• post my kitchen reveal (I did not forget)
• paint the upstairs bathroom
• restock my etsy shop
• redo my cane chairs
• paint some furniture
• redo #3’s bedroom
• tend to my garden (have I told you about the stinkhorns I have? ICK!)
• paint the front door and all interior doors
• shop for a new chair for the living room
• lose weight (see above dessert table)

How about you? What’s on your list?

Hope you are having a great start to your new year.

Happy Thanksgiving!

So much to be thankful for this year.

Family, friends, health, jobs and home.

And I’m thankful for all of you! For coming by and leaving me such sweet comments.

It puts a smile on my face every time.

Wishing everyone a safe and happy holiday weekend.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Thanksgiving Tables and Place Cards

I cannot believe how fast Thanksgiving snuck up on me.

I confess. I did not even get any of my fall decorations out. 

I might as well just zip on into the Christmas stuff. But not until we get back home.

Right now I’m working on place cards for Thanksgiving.

And if you need a last minute idea, then this is for you.

We just cut down a little sapling from the backyard. A thick branch would work too. 

Then we chopped it up into little chucks with the chop saw. And by we, I mean he.

And then HE used the Dremel tool to make little slits. 

All he had was a metal cutting disc but I’d recommend one for wood. 

It took a bit of effort which isn't really safe.

I printed out the cards on some olive green card stock. I downloaded a brush set from Shadowhouse Creations that had a variety of tree silhouettes. Easy peasy. Except for a little printer glitch. There is always a glitch it seems.

Those of you that have been around here for awhile might remember me mentioning our big Thanksgiving feast that we have at my sister’s house in Jacksonville.

We’re down to 24 this year.

We like to eat outside under her big old oak trees. But Thanksgiving 2011 was too windy.

We had to move it indoors and the table overflowed with kids in the kitchen!

I think we were over 30 last year.

 

Here is what it looked like outside for Thanksgiving 2010.

And then back in 2009 we were able to set up outside as well.

Place cards can be really simple to do. They have to be when you make so many!

I hope we can be back under the oaks this year.

I’ll let you know if the weather holds out!

What are your Thanksgiving plans this year?

Will it be big and loud or small and quiet?

And come back later this week. Skyland Drive has something to share with you all!

Think Black Friday or Cyber Monday.

:)

Thanksgiving Feast 2011

So, how was everyone’s Thanksgiving? Was it turkey overload for you?

My sister made a 24lb turkey and my nephew smoked a 16lb bird.

Plus we had a 10lb ham. Can you believe we only had enough leftovers for lunch the next day.

What little was left after that went into a pot of chili.

We did not get to eat outside like we had hoped. The wind was blowing too much to enjoy the dinner. So we went to plan B and stretched the dining room table into the sitting room.

 

And this didn’t hold everyone! We had 7 kids at another table by the kitchen.

I made up these place cards using photoshop elements. Then punched some hole in the ends and wrapped some ribbon around the napkin and out through the holes.

My mom suggested we all use the place cards around our wine glasses so we could keep them all straight. She is so smart! It was a great idea. They even slipped nicely around the beer bottles.

We used some silver creamer and sugar bowls to make the mini arrangement.

I brought some pots of mums and we just clipped the flowers off and stuck them in some oasis.

They came out so cute.

That’s my Halloween pumpkin on the cabinet that I never carved.

So we put it to use to hold another potted mum.

We all had a great time. Lots of food, lots of wine, lots of laughs.

This last shot was taken by my daughter-in-law to be. Yep, #1 son is now engaged!

She is a photographer as well. So they have a lot in common.

The poor thing was bombarded with so many people this past weekend.

It was an introduction to the family like no other.

We're so happy to have her and her 6yr old son join our family.

Oh and I almost forgot.

I will be doing a giveaway this week so be sure to stop back by!

Shifting Gears

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I want to thank everyone for all of their sweet comments on my last post Giving Thanks. Thanks to those who joined in on the blog hop too. I've been trying to catch up on some blogs but there is just no way. You guys were busy while I was gone.

We had a great time with the family at my sister's house. We were busy little bees preparing food for 25 this time around. Two 14 pound turkeys and a 10 pound ham later, we decided we must go with bigger birds next year. Less pies, more bird. We had way, way too many pies.

I had camera problems so I didn't get a lot of great shots. We were able to eat outside since it was a warm day. My sister put together this arrangement the night before. We had to run to Publix to get some pans for the birds, we decided last minute that they needed separate pans, and I decided to pick up some more flowers. I thought she did a great job with it. She had this moss wreath that she bought on sale last year and I liked it flat on the table. I stuck a silver bowl in the wreath with some twigs around it. Then she put the arrangement in another silver bowl that fit right inside it. She added some leaves from the yard and some curly willow to fill it out. Isn't it gorgeous?

Here is what I ended up doing with all those tiny pine cones. I printed out the place cards on some card stock. Cut them out, rounded the corners and glued them on to some plum colored card stock. I had a leaf punch so I added some of the leaves. I folded the leaves and only glued one side down. They were stuck in the cones as a stand but we got some wind and they kept blowing over so they ended up side by side.

We also potted up some plum colored pansies in some silver bowls and added them to the ends with some leaf garland and small turkey votive candles

.

Now it's time to start thinking about Christmas. It's coming fast whether I'm ready or not. And just so you know, it did cool off yesterday on our drive home. We got down in the 30's last night. Not sure how long that will last.

see you later,

Where Has The Time Gone?

Boy it sure is zipping on by isn't it? I'll be off the grid for awhile while. I'll be cooking and preparing for the big feast over at my sister's house. I hope to share some pictures when I get back. I'm going to try to schedule a post for while I'm away. Fingers crossed that it works. I will be joining the Mortal Muses. They are having a thankful blog hop starting Nov. 25 and will be open all weekend. There is a button on my side bar if you'd like to join along. It's always nice to stop and give thanks. You know for like wine, pie, chocolate, the important stuff.

I would like to throw a little thanks out right now. I am in the Top 10 over at the DIY club. Yea me! They seemed to like my little round table revamp. I'm up against a lot of great projects but I have my fingers crossed. If you have a minute you could stop by and maybe share a little love. I'd appreciate that.

I'd also like to thank Beckie from Infarrantly Creative. My new bathroom that used to be a closet was her fav pick over at The CSI Project. You should go over there an see all the amazing bathroom redos. Lots of talent. It's amazing. Beckie herself is one talented and creative lady. And she happens to be having one sweet giveaway right now. It might be one of these.

Okay, it is. Oh how I'd love to wrap that puppy up and stick it under the tree for myself. You can stop by Infarrantly Creative yourself and enter. Tell Beckie hi for me.

Before I go I want to show you that I got the framed coffee sack hung up. Almost had to make a run to the ER after hubby slid down the stairs. See how the steps curve at the top? That is such a pain. No pun intended. But all is well and it got up. I had thought about hanging it on the opposite wall. That would have required the really tall ladder and I wasn't going to push it. No time for the ER this week.

 Hope everyone has a safe and Happy Thanksgiving!

 See you later,

One With Nature

How's your weekend going? I was outside amongst the trees today. It was a bit jungle like with all those thorny vines. I hate those things.

I was collecting these. I need them for the big Thanksgiving feast. No, not for a new recipe. Though, that would be very organic of me. Talk about fiber.

I gave them a nice soaking and they closed up tighter then a clam. Hopefully they will fluff back up tomorrow when the sun comes out. I just wanted to drown any little creepy crawlers that might be hiding. 

I'll show you what I am using them for. Just not today. The days are getting so short and I need to remember to take pictures early so I have light. 

see you later,

Feasting Like The Pilgrims

It's November and we are well on our way towards Thanksgiving. I thought I'd share with you our Thanksgiving from last year. Our family celebrated at my sister's house. I have shown you her house before. It sits on the St. Johns river in Jacksonville. We decided to try to have our feast outside. You know, like the pilgrims. Fingers were crossed for the weather and were absolutely blessed with a glorious day.

We are a large bunch. A large and crazy bunch. I have lost count but you can try to count the chairs. We put two very long tables together out on the patio. Draped them both in white cloths and then I cut two burlap runners for the middle of the table. We fringed the ends.

The center pieces were 3 rectangular galvanized planters that were filled with potted mums, croton leaves and wheat. It was cheaper to just buy potted plants then to buy cut flowers. I think I paid .99 for each small mum and 1.99 for the large ones. The small pots fit right in there. The large mums were cut and put in jars of water and then inserted in the planters. The leaves were free and the wheat I had. The leaves really help fill them out and give them added color. It really isn't that hard to put together a large decorative table with a small budget. Just look to nature to lend a hand.

The silverware was wrapped in the napkin very casually and tied with a jute ribbon with a silk leaf tucked behind. We used some plaid ribbon when we ran out of jute. The kids wrote all the names on the tags, trimmed the tags with some skinny self adhesive ribbon and tied them all up for us. They had to earn their food.

My sister found this garland at Home Goods. It's all sorts of nuts, twigs and small pine cones. They are a little hard to see in this shot but I wanted to show them. See those bamboo folding chairs? One of my sisters found them at an estate sale for a ridiculous price of like $5.

The we sat under this huge old oak tree. The food was under the tent so that nothing fell on it. The dishes were stacked there with the food so you just load up your dish under the tent. It was a lot easier then trying to pass the food around the table. That would have taken forever. The drinks were set on the smaller tables you see off to the side.

The dessert table was inside. Dessert is just craziness. Everyone brings something different so there was quite the variety. To decorate this table we had two large cake stands and each one had a tall glass hurricane on it with small pumpkins, leaves and pine cones around it. We just tied some pretty plaid ribbon on the tops. We had so many mums we put some in the center. The pitcher is filled with some spiced cider punch which was very good.

my lousy picture above but I wanted to show the whole table

Thanks Justin for getting these shots to me with only three hours of sleep. Such a good kid. If you are in the Atlanta area and need any photographic services then you can contact him at JustinHadleyPhotograhy.com.

I also forgot to put my answers to our Halloween costumes. I'm sure you all are on the edge of yours seats wondering. Erin from LikeGrandmas was the first to answer correctly with Deviled Eggs and Pigs in a Blanket. Yes, we were the appetizers for the party :)

Joining up with the CSI project to share Thanksgiving ideas.

Also with Susan @ Between Naps on the Porch

Linda @ Coastal Charm

see you later,