a (belated) holiday post

It was a white Christmas at the Cottage of Stone... we got a ton of snow! We were quite happy to have gotten all those wreathes hung before the snow hit. (And Steven did the lights on a semi-warm afternoon.)

I had a great time this year making my own gift tags out of sacks I had lying around. The Victoria's Secret bags made especially pretty tags.

When the tree was lit up at night, the living room was bathed in beautiful pink light.

Steven's mother joined us for Christmas. Even though the dining room is still in chaos, I tried to make it festive. I did the table in cream, silver and hot pink. So much food!!!!

Even little pup Tess joined in the fun in her pink Santa dress.

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday!

Dining room pictures coming soon.

handmade Easter egg decorations with my boys

We had a fun family craft night in our kitchen last night. We baked cookies and decorated eggs. Do you remember making them as a kid? I think I blew the guts out of 4 eggs in the time it took them to do 1. If only that were a real skill to incorporate into my resume...

Anyway... for those who haven't done this before, it is super easy and a fun thing to do with the kiddos. Just poke a small hole into the top and bottom of a raw egg. (I used a straight pin, and just kept poking new holes to make the opening a bit bigger. Once you have your holes, blow the contents of the egg into a cup. Once you have all the stuff out, rinse your egg a bit under the tap. Else you are likely to smell some rotten eggs! Dry your egg off and you are set to decorate. We used acrylic paints, but I have seen people glue on jewels, sprinkle glitter, etc. We were going for the speckled egg effect. The children did their own speckles - some with greater success than others... but I will try to save them from getting crunched since it would be neat to add to our tree each year.

Oh, our tree... I don't have a fancy schmancy egg tree like the Pottery Barn catalog. I just hacked a limb off the dead plum tree. (Steven is going to chop it up this week if it would just stop raining.) I put the limb into a mason jar that I had frosted awhile back. I thought it looked darling. I will definitely try to do an Easter tablesetting for our Easter lunch. ;)

sweet little things to hang on a door knob...

I made a trip to Michael's this morning to pick up some art supplies and managed to come home with a few little happy things!

This sweet little speckled egg ornament was 40%. The pink, lavender and blue go so well with my freshly painted door, and...

it matches my pretty speckled egg wreath I got at JoAnn! Hopefully not too matchy, though.

This garland was also 40% off. I suppose one could unroll it and use it as intended, but I think it is pretty still coiled up like a little wreath. This is hanging on the door to my master bathroom.

This little jingle bell I have had for the past few Christmas seasons. I liked it's little tinkle so well, that I painted it pink awhile back and left it out for good. I decided black and white would make it pop a bit more against the dark wood. (It is nice to have a little alert for when my boys go in and out!)