CLICK HERE FOR FREE BLOGGER TEMPLATES, LINK BUTTONS AND MORE! »

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

How to Decorate for Christmas on a Budget

I am Dreaming of a Green Christmas....

Face it. Year after year people, intelligent, responsible, creative and mature people, go into loads of debt over Christmas. Special foods, gifts, and decorating take their toll when, in January, the bills start rolling in.
But there are ways around that. Decorating a home with beautiful holiday decor does not have to be expensive. Beauty is a combination of aesthetics and the stirring of people's memories and emotions. Stores intentionally scent the air with cinnamon and spices to make people feel good and recall their past memories. You can do the same thing in your Holiday Home!

Candles Are Inexpensive

Simplicity is elegant. That is why Coco Channel sold so many versions of her "little black dress". A simple pillar candle can be beautiful if it is setting in a bowl of cranberries, or peppermint candies. Some candle ideas are:
1. Fill a mason jar with cranberries, or starlight mints (or even cinnamon candies) and set a votive on top. Make a grouping with several jars of varying sizes.
2. Use a basket to fill with red and green apples. Put a pillar candle on a holder in the middle of the basket. You may need to raise it up some with an overturned jar. If your basket is big enough, use three candles of varying heights.
3. Use a large pillar candle centered in some greenery in the middle of a table.
4. Set pillar candles of various sizes on saucers and surround with potpourri. Arrange across a table or mantle.
5. Put a votive in a antique tea cup and sit it on a saucer atop several vintage holiday books.

Use What You Have

You probably have alot of things around the house that would be happy to get some attention as Christmas decorations. Think about your own memories and what they include.
1. A rag doll or teddy bear seated atop a stack of your favorite holiday books (even cookbooks!)
2. A basket or bowl filled with metal holiday cookie cutters and decorated with a festive bow.
3. Have a toy wagon or sled? put it by the front door filled with wrapped gifts (or even wrapped empty boxes). Add a few wooden or vintage toys and stuffed animals if you like.


4. Use your Christmas cards! Display them in groups, varying the height with books..or display them in a big wooden bowl or basket.
5.Hang ornaments or even cookies on ribbon in the windows
6. Download a Christmas screen saver on your computer
7. Bowls of in shell nuts are great, either with just nuts or with oranges in the bowl as well.
8. Fill a glass or crystal punch bowl with Christmas balls that you don't need for the tree or that have lost their hangers.


Bring the Outside In

Most people have evergreen trees of some sort available to them. Even the twigs and small branches of hardwood trees can look festive with a little care.
1. Gather pine cones and arrange them in a basket or even a Christmas gift bag. For a casual look by the fireplace set the bag on it's side and allow the pine cones to spill out. You can spray paint them bronze, or gold, or you can glue glitter on them for a frosty look, or spray them with fake snow.
2.Cut boughs of evergreen and wire it together to make long swags to go up the banister or around the door. This takes a little practice but the results are beautiful.
3.Make an evergreen wreath in the same way.
4. Mass evergreen boughs on a fireplace mantle, atop kitchen cabinets or on china cabinets and armoires. Run the small twinkling lights through them if you like.
5. Spray paint twigs and small branches gold and gather them in bundles tied with ribbon.


Thrift Shops and Garage Sales

Thrift shops are an absolute treasure chest when it comes to holiday decor. Some people get new things every year and cast off their old. Sometimes the old ornaments and decorations just need a little sprucing up like the poor little tree on Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown!
1. You can paint old glass ornaments. Clean ornament and use a little fine sandpaper to get the loose paint off if necessary. Spray paint with your color of choice.
2. You can also roll in glue and cover with glitter
3. Spray with fake snow to flock it.
4. Glue ribbon around it.
6. Decoupage Christmas wrap on it
Old fake greenery can be transformed with some fake snow, some ribbon and a hot glue gun. Just spray the snow on the greenery and hot glue bows to it.
Old magazines and books may have just the pictures or ads that you are looking for for decoupage projects or for laminating and turning into ornaments.

Create A Festive Topiary

Random Ideas

1. Cut an orange in thin rounds and dry in oven. Hang slices on the tree or windows or place in bowls.
2. Don't forget scent. Use scented candles in evergreen, orange, or spice scents.
3. Tie or attach bows to chairs, tables, light fixtures and door knobs.
4. Create garlands by stringing popcorn and/or cranberries.
5. Hang several pairs of mittens up on a "clothesline" across the window
6. String buttons on a homespun yarn or twine.
7. One year I made an advent quilt by making a wall hanging with 24 stockings appliqued on it and left open at the top. Each day the children got to have what was in the stockings.
8. Use candy canes in bowls, in vases..where ever.
9. Make a gingerbread house!
10. Let the kids make garlands from pasta shapes. Spray paint them first if you wish.


Use Your Imagination

There are so many things you can do. Use your imagination to create a gorgeous holiday home that welcomes your family and friends.
And that really is the key to a beautiful home. Remember it is not the things that are in it or how they are arranged but the warmth and welcome that emanates from it when you step inside!





http://maryeaudet.hubpages.com/hub/How-to-Decorate-for-Christmas




The Christmas Story

The Christmas Story



As told by Matthew

The Nativity

    This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.

    But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins."

    All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: "The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel"--which means, "God with us."

    When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.

Wise Men

    After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him."

    When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. When he had called together all the people's chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Christ was to be born. "In Bethlehem in Judea," they replied, "for this is what the prophet has written: "'But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will be the shepherd of my people Israel.'" Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, "Go and make a careful search for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him."

    After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed.

gifts

    On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.

    When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. "Get up," he said, "take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him."

Fleeing to Egypt

    So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: "Out of Egypt I called my son."

    When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: "A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more."

    After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, "Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child's life are dead."

    So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee, and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets: "He will be called a Nazarene."


Dividing bar


        --Matthew 1:18 - 2:23 New International Version

http://holydays.tripod.com/christmas.htm

sugarpiefarmhouse ...

http://www.sugarpiefarmhouse.com/christmas-at-the-farmhouse

If you would like to see some nice vintage picture and great reads.. Check this out..
God Bless

Thanksgiving Pictures... Enjoy

A few pies sitting on the cook stove had a lemon pie and chocolate in fridge..
Pumpkin our baby dark brown 13 weeks old and Dew buff color is 10 years old he is eating a pig ear he took away from Pumpkin..

Pumpkin gets a whole of paper towels as Ray was cleaning the window for me.. I guess she thought she should help.

some of the food laid out... I'm doing something at the hosier...

Ray standing in front of cook stove..

Daughter In-law in white sweater granddaughter in white tights and our friends daughter in the purple.. The girls decided they wanted to have there nails done after we had dinner..

Here is another Picture of us.. In case you have never seen me I'm in lady with the light hair...

Oh she can't make up her mind on what color she wants..

Still doing nails with a few guests in background looking on...

A friend made me this and sent it up with son and daughter In-law for Thanksgiving..

Another quest bought these flowers up to us...
Pumpkin had her picture taken with Santa on Sunday we went to Wal-mart and said or why not ... Lets have her picture taken... I think it was Santa first time picture with a puppy...I would of dressed her up if I new she would of had her picture taken..

Hope you enjoyed the pictures God Bless


Rise Above

When you're content to settle for something  you  end up being average.
To say that Jesus doesn't like mediocrity is an understatement. Jesus said, "I know all the things you do, that  you are netiher hot or cold. I wish you were one or the other!But since you are like lukewarm water, I will spit you out of my mouth!"(Rev.3:15-16). Why does Jesus react so strongly! Because when we're mediocre is to go halfway. It's being average when you have the potential to be great. Ask any coach or parent. There's nothing more frustrating than watching someone with potential do nothing.
Jesus offers a life beyond anything we can imagine, yet often we hang on to our mediocre existence like a beggar grasping a loaf of bread when a feast awaits. Jesus won't force Himself on you, but He wants you to turn from your indifference, rise above your mediocrity, and be sold out of Him.
"I advise you to buy gold from me-
gold that has been purified by fire.
Then you will be rich."
REVELATION 3:18

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Not A Religion

Religions are man's attempt to find God,but Christ was God's method to reach mankind.
Many people mistakenly believe that Christianity is a religion with a long list of "do's" and don'ts"(mostly don'ts). Such an opinion is wrong on two counts. First of all, Christianity is not a religion;that connotes a highly structured organization and hierarchy. At its heart,Christianity is just a relationship (between you and God with Christ providing the connection).Secondly,there are no "rules"that you are required to follow to earn God's love, and there is no list of "don'ts" that would disqualify you from it.
Don't let the "no rules" throw you. Certain behavior is wrong (lying, stealing,and immorality).And some types of behavior while not if not handled in moderation (working,eating, and golf).
Some people are lost without boundaries, so you may find this question helpful:"Do you believe God is pleased with what you are doing?"
Don't act thoughtlessly,
but try to understand what the Lord wants you to do.
EPHESIANS 5:17

Monday, November 28, 2011

I'm Here

Hi family and friends.. I'm still here just been really busy with the holidays.. When I think its time to slow down I'm on a trot again... God Bless..

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Stick With It...

To win the race you need a goal. To win the human race you need Jesus.
Everything that's worthwhile in life requires perseverance. Why? Because worth while projects and worthwhile goals are never follower.There's nothing more worthwhile, but sometimes there's nothing more difficult. Everything in this world seems to run contrary to how you are called to live. yet even as you perseveres, you must realize that you can't run and finish this marathon race called the christian life alone you need Jesus, Who not only saved you, but Who also helps you right now in your struggle against discouragement and sin. Do you want to live your life like a champion? Do you want to win the race? Keep your eyes on Jesus. Your faith depends on it.
And let us run with endurance the race that
God has set before us.
We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus,
On whom our faith depends from start to finish.
HEBREWS 12:1-2

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Turkey / Cranberries

Ray and I went up town to take care of some business and we stopped at Hannford they had turkeys on sale . 49 a pound so we got a 22 pound one and then we got some cranberries.. I like to have them on hand they were on sale for $1.99 a pound I paid $2.50 I think a couple of weeks ago and these are local... Yahoo that is even better.. They are from Rickers Farm.. Not far from here they have a couple of cranberry bogs..

Monday, November 14, 2011

A Family Resemblance

Be a person whose life is marked by truth,integrity, and Passion.
Many people share a family resemblance with their parents. It might be curly hair or  a toothy grin. Maybe it is the way you walk or a distinctive laugh. when people see a resemblance of this type , they know what family you belong to.
If you want people to know that you belong to God, your "family resemblance"should be godliness. That trait might look like this in your life:
.Knowing the truth-whichcomes from studying God's Word;
Acting with integrity-which comes from doing God's Word;and
.Living with passion-which comes from sharing God's word.
If you have these characteristics in your life, people will easily see the family resemblance between you and your heavenly Father.
But all will be well for those who are godly .
Tell them,"You will receive a wonderful reward!"
ISAIAH 3:10

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Picture of Pumpkin the puppy

Too my friends and family... here is pumpkin and her toys... she wants for nothing..I can for some reason only post one picture so I'll do that and find out why???
God Bless

























Up dates and More

I'm so far behind in everything sorry my friends... I owe letters to Amanda and Abby have not forgotten about you just alot going on here.. My time has been with health issues or our new puppy pumpkin.. pumkin is 10 weeks old and a hand ful.... I will post lots of pictures of her so look for more pictures....

We got her two weeks ago it's been hard potty training her and with our dog and cat... Our dog dew just bite into here a few hours ago flew her in the air and she came down crying and dew was on her again.. I was like three feet away sweeping the floors.. So I had to get dew off from her and checked her all over she was crying and shaking something awful.... Every day in the last few weeks its been the dog or cat goes after her.. She likes to jump and nip at them she wants to play... But they don't want to play... We got our dog and cat when they were babies and they are well trained....

The dog follows commands and he never was a puppy like her.. he never played with toys and never chewed on anything... The cat we got the same time no problem with him.. So I'll close this out and post pictures of her.....

May you all have a blessed day.. raining hard here in Maine....

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Have A Good Heart

Unlike a tree,you have the ability to choose the fruit your life produces.
Jesus said that you can tell what is in a person's heart by listening to what that person says. He used the work "heart " to mean a person's true character and feeling. If someone frequently gossips, lies, and speaks negatively about others, you have a pretty good impression of his character. Likewise , you can easily guess the character of a person whose words are encouraging, kind, and truthful.
People can't see your heart,but they can see (and hear) what your heart produces. It's like the fruit on a tree. You know what kind of tree you're looking at by the fruit it produces. Jesus said, "Make a tree good, and its fruit will be good. Make a tree bad, and its fruit will be be bad"(Matt. 12:33). Make it our goal to produce good fruit by the power of the Holy Spirit.
"A good person produces good words from a good hear,
and an evil person produces evil words from an evil heart."
MATTHEW 12:35

Friday, November 4, 2011

Glorify God

Glory is something you give,not take, and the One who deserves it the most is God.
Why did God create u in the first place? Was it to populate and mange the earth God Made? Did God create us so we could interact with each other and show love for one another? How about witnessing? Maybe God put us on this earth so we could tell others about Him? All of those are excellent reasons,but there's an even bigger reason why we're here.'God wants us to glorify Him.
The meaning of glory is "gift,"literally a gift of honor and praise. In everything we do God wants us to glorify Him. According to the Westminster Confession of Faith, our "chief and highest end is to glorify God, and to fully enjoy Him forever."That's what happens when you honor God and give Him the praise. You enjoy Him forever.
Whatever you eat or drink or whatever you don, you must do all the glory if God.
1 CORINTHIANS 10:31

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Make Someone Happy

Personal happiness is most easily gained by bringing happiness to others.
Happiness may be temporary,but we all want it, and that's okay, as long as we don't depend on the emotion of happiness like an extreme athlete depends on adrenaline.
Here's another thing we need to realize about happiness:It's harder to come by when we place it in things Whether we depend on cars, a home, a raise, an outfit, or a meal for happiness,our happiness meter is going to jump  all over the place as these things come and go.
A better way to gain happiness is to do things for others. Make others happy,and the happiest person will be you. Make others happy all the time, and your happiness will turn to joy.
For I hope to visit you soon and to talk with you face to face. Then our joy will be complete.
2 JOHN  12