Goodbye to 2018

 Goodbye to the year 2018.  

It is the last day of the year and today, like many of you, 
I am reflecting upon the whirlwind of these passing 365 days.

 Reeve remains one of the biggest highlights!

She is my first granddaughter and 

I have waited a long time to be someone's grammy.  

This Santa photo was too precious not to share!

 A big highlight was traveling to Idaho and Wyoming 

with our family to celebrate my husband's 60th.

 It was a trip I will always treasure in my memory books.

We all adore Mr.Maison Decor and having all that time with him was awesome!

 Professionally, being included in the bestseller

 Nora Murphy's Country House Style was another big moment.  

 Our home is captured in the book by Nora's team.

  I was so honored and pleased with the results.

 Many beautiful photos of my home were taken.  

I have a forever keepsake of our time, spent living and fixing up this home, 

which Nora calls the "Country House in the City".

For the first year of Reeve's life after her mom went back to work, 

I watched her three days a week.  

We share a love of fun jewelry, shiny sparkly things, dogs, and hats.

 After that first year, I came to realize I was no superwoman, and needed to drop back to two days. 

Reeve now spends two days at her daycare center, and it has been a needed adjustment. 

I have met more than a few grandmothers who have shared their daycare journeys with me.  

We share the desire to help our children with their children and love that the bonds grow stronger

with our darling grands, even though it is difficult  "at our age".  We do our best, as it does take a village to raise children, I really believe.

 The middle of the year brought me into the world of miniatures 

when I found a dollhouse at a consignment shop. 

 It has brought a great source of creative pleasure working

 and decorating this French style dollhouse.

 My father and mother in law both celebrated their 89th birthdays this year, 

and my mom marked her 86th! 

All living independently and doing well, its a true blessing of life.

Our lake cabin was the site of another photo shoot  by Matthew Mead.

This time it was all dressed up for Christmas, and it looked 

so charming it almost made the cover of the Wagner Finish magazine.

But in the end, they picked something else, but I love the cover try it had.

So Scandinavian and fresh looking in white and red with greens.

 At the end of this year, the parties have ended, 

and the clean up of Christmas is now upon us all...

Wishing all my friends and family and beloved blog readers a joyous new year ahead!

I thank you all for following along, and indulging my tiny moments in miniature world in

addition to the things that I have normally shared.  

Peace to all!

The Merriment of Christmas Crackers

Christmas is closing in quickly, and this year I am taking a bit

of a different strategy. Less about gifts and more about the 

fun that Christmas can bring when you get together with your family and friends.

For our family, we have always had such fun with the simplest of 

things, the Christmas Cracker.  I am stacking lots of the festive

crackers in my silver punch bowl so party goers can help themselves!

Inside the cracker is a paper party hat in the shape

of a crown along with a toy or a joke.  The laughs start

as soon as the crowns are donned, and in our family, our

heads tend to run large, so many times we have a split crown 

that needs a little tape to keep it together.  

It is one of my favorite things we do at Christmas.

If you have never tried them, you can find them in many colors

and patterns at HomeGoods or Marshalls.  

With two parties at our home this week, I have to run out and buy

some more today.  And get a few stocking stuffers.

Hope your holiday season is bright and happy and 

you find yourself without the dreaded flu or cold.  Its 

been running around here and I am keeping my fingers crossed

we will all be healthy for Christmas.

Baby Reeve will be coming and I can imagine us having to 

give her little paper crown a tuck so it fits.

Happy Christmas to all!

Hand painted French Bedroom set for the Dollhouse

 A pretty handpainted white French style bedroom set arrived after I searched 

high and low for something that had the style I was after~

it had to be French looking, it had to be pretty, and if it had 

 a touch of whimsy or fancy or gilded...then I am all in!  

 Lets go into the Master bedroom! 

Up the staircase and past the fancy 

Very Versailles mini-dollhouse in the hallway....

Starting to get a peek at the new bedroom set! 

Its white with green trim and painted flowers and pink toile bedding!

 A large mirrored armoire with door takes center stage as soon as you enter.

 The doors open to reveal a closet pole in the center, 

and shelves on the left and right

sides for pocketbooks and shoes, or folded sweaters.

This pretty bed is embellished with painted flowers and gilded touches.

It was a reasonable price I suspect because it had the most hideous bedspread

on it with equally ugly pillows that someone had glued to the headboard. The

seller cautioned that she was fearful to remove them for fear of damaging the bed.

I took the chance and they pulled off quite easily.  I took an iron and a paper towel

to remove more bits of glue, which worked quite well.  Next I made a toile bed

coverlet out of a green and pink toile placemat I had made many years ago, and laid 

it across the bed.  I added a bit of green pom pom trim after cutting off the poms

around the pink satin pillow it came with, and then glued two poms on the end of 

the pink lace bolster, also included in the set.  The ugly burgundy floral coverlet and

pillows will never been seen again, and the entire bed looked glorious once those simple

adjustments were made.  I almost couldn't believe my good fortune on getting

 this 3 piece bedroom set at such a great price! It pays to hunt and hunt.

 A sweet night table sits next to the bed with a pink French phone, 

a teeny Eiffel Tower statue, and a bottle of perfume. I still need to do the moldings

in this room, and many others, but the decorating part is sooo much fun, I cannot resist.

 The vibe of the house is coming together, as I slowly select the right pieces for it.  

That is what is so much fun about doing a dollhouse project.  One can create a world

with a certain style by being selective and picking marvelous things from vendors around

the world in line shops, or by making some things oneself.  I guess I am more in the modifying

of existing pieces to achieve the look I am after.  

French. Whimsical. Pretty. Fancy. Personal. 

That is my qualifier when looking for things for my dollhouse.

 Winter has come to the Mini Maison, and it snowed the other night.  

Luckily the rooftop terrace had been decorated for Christmas, 

with red ribbons on the green filled urns, as 

well as an iron gazebo put over the birdbath for a fancy touch.

Oh my, someone left the garden door open! All the cold air

will be swooshing through the Maison!  One new thing on

its way, is a French window for the big wall space to the right

of the doors.  It will peek into the potting room and I can't

way to start "construction" on the house to get it in place!

And of course Christmas decorating is in full swing too,

I hope you are enjoying your holiday season!

A Feather Tree in a silver bowl and Ancestry pursuits

A Feather tree is one of the most charming Christmas decorations.  

It is considered one of the first artificial Christmas trees.  Made originally

in Germany from dyed goose feathers, it found its way to the USA, brought

over by German immigrants that settled in Pennsylvania and Texas.

Love this old feather tree with the tiny gate around it!

My feather tree is a vintage feather tree that Martha Stewart

 produced for her Kmart line.

I picked it up years after the fact on eBay.  

I would love to find an antique Feather Tree one day.

Speaking of immigrants, I have been tracking down my husbands side of his family roots.

Ever since we started binge watching the STARZ series, Outlander, which we LOVE,

we have become interested in finding out if hubs is indeed Scottish as well as Swedish.

The Outlander hero, Jamie Fraser, is from Scotland.

You will want to be Scottish if you watch this show, or you will want your 

partner to be, haha!! Jamie is the sweetest, bravest, sexiest Scot in all the land!

Mr. Maison Decor's father always told him he descended

from Scottish bloodlines, and his mother's lineage is pure Swedish.  

We decided to do the Ancestry DNA test as well as put together his family tree.

So far I am not finding any indication there is a Scottish connection.

 It remains to be seen, but I have enjoyed putting the pieces together to see where the family

lines are leading us on this discover of his roots. This family photo shows my husband (on the right)

next to his mother, and his older brother, both dressed up for Thanksgiving dinner. 

 Their uncle carves the turkey, and the table is set to the nines, complete with place cards.

The old documents are numerous and at ones finger tips when you join

one of these online search groups.  Much of it is free as well, until you head

across the country's borders, then there is a charge.  Above, William Chalmers is found on 

a record, and that is his great grandfather.  He always believed his great-grandfather 

shared the same name, Charles Herbert, that his grandfather and father, 

brother and nephew share, as the name has been passed down for generations. 

 So we are already learning things very quickly,

and we hope we find some Scottish roots on his dad's side!  

I know many of you have explored your family trees

and its quite interesting, isn't it? 

His mother's side is proving to be very pure Swedish, and

I guess you can tell by this old photo of (front to back) his mom,

his grandmother and uncle.  My pretty mother in law still lives

in that very same house, where my husband grew up, 

and its right next doors to our house. 

But now, back to Christmas....

The winner of the Lynch Creek Farm wreath giveaway is Penny Carlson!

Congrats Penny!!

 I know you will enjoy your beautiful Lynch Creek Farm wreath!