Easter's On It's Way!

Hello Blogger Friends!
Yesterday I cleared every room of the cottage and packed away all of the Valentine decorations - and it took all day! I rearranged some furniture in the living room. I vacuumed and dusted well. Now the cottage is ready for spring and Easter decorating! I can't wait to show you all of my pretty things! I am creating some beautiful Easter ornaments for a big Easter tree. I decorated that tree for Christmas, Winter, Valentine's Day, and now it is time for Easter. Don't you know it will be a pastel vision!?
Just to tickle your tastebuds for what is to come, I found a few pictures of Easter lovelies I made last year to share with you today.
This is a sweet Easter basket I made last year filled will all sorts of sweet Easter treats! I'll have to get busy making more of those!

Here is the sweet centerpiece that was on my dining room table last year. I love this time of year because of the soft, sweet colors. Isn't it wonderful!?

Here is a bunny and some carrots I painted and decorated by hand. I can't wait to get them out of their boxes and display them again soon! I am so excited!

I hope you are being inspired to decorate and create for spring and Easter! I can't wait to see what you are up to!

I hope you have a blessed weekend!
Many Blessings to You!
Love Tammy

Valentine's Day 2012

Hello Blogger Friends!

I wanted to share some Valentine's Day decorations and celebrations with you!
First I wanted to share Valentine's breakfast with you. James and I didn't really get to celebrate Valentine's Day because we are taking some classes at our local vo-tech and we had class on Tuesday night, so I promised him we would have a Valentine's breakfast (because my man loves him some breakfast) on Saturday morning. We love to work in the kitchen together so we whipped up a delicious gourmet meal. The first course was PINK chocolate chip pancakes with fresh strawberries and cream. Doesn't it look delicious! I added some sweet heart sprinkles for a little Valentine touch!

Then we had a fantastic vegetable and egg scramble with spicy veggie sausage on the side. It was delicious. I poured some cranberry juice in our wine glasses and we lit some pretty pink candles. It is overcast and cool here this morning so it was very romantic. We had a wonderful Valentine's breakfast. I think I will make it a tradition for every year to come!

I am so excited to show you some of the beautiful crafts I have made for Valentine's Day, starting with this darling banner. I used chipboard, scrapbook paper, and crepe paper to make this one.

The banner coordinates with the box in the middle of the table in the picture below. I also covered the box with paper and decorated it. It was an ugly Christmas gift box that was given to me for Christmas. Now it is a delightful Valentine treasure!

I have been very busy making these beautiful Valentine ornaments for my Valentine tree (the one that was a Christmas tree and then a Winter tree). I absolutely adore these ornaments.

True Love

Wishful Thinking

Please Be Mine

Cupid's Arrow

Love Divine

Tender Love

Sweet Valentine

Made with Love

I put all of my sweet ornaments on my Valentine tree and it is such a sight to see. I love it so much and I am thrilled every time I walk in to my kitchen and see it standing there, displaying so many of the beautiful creations I made with my own two hands. It is a true testament of love.

Here are some more decorations displayed in the Valentine cottage right now. This is a china hutch in the dining room. Doesn't it look like a little gift shop?

Isn't this display the cutest? I used one of my winter trees and added glass heart ornaments and some red eyelash trim. It is too cute!

I made a Valentine candy bar on this dresser and filled each jar with my favorite sweet Valentine treats. Then I decorated each jar. Have you had the cherry M&M's they brought out for Valentine's day? They are awesome!!! I love the sweet doll standing in the center of the table designed by Heather Myers. She's my Queen of Hearts and I am so happy to have her in my home.

My Valentine fireplace display is so beautiful this year!

I purchased this banner from an online gift store and when I got it I was not happy with how it looked . . . so, I got out the glitter and embellishments and away I went!

I am much happier with the BE MINE banner now! I added lace trim, more glitter, and a bead dangle to each piece. I also changed from a pink ribbon to that great red tinsel trim to hang it up.

This shelf is in my bathroom. I made the LOVE sign on the wall and I recovered the LOVE sign sitting on the shelf with prettier scrapbook paper and embellishments. It was pink and brown before.

Here are some candy jars I made for my favorite Valentine treats. It's amazing to think these jars had olives and pickles in them. After a good washing in the dishwasher and air drying for a few days they are ready to decorate and add your favorite sweets!

I keep these two jars of sweets in my crafting room because I spend a lot of time in there !

I had a birthday a few weeks ago and now I am 38. My mom made me a great red velvet cake for my birthday. It was so beautiful and absolutely delicious. I had a fun pary at my home. I got a Cricut Expressions 2 machine and a Tim Holtz Vagabond die cut machine. I know I am going to love having them as soon as I get used to using them. "Thank you" to those of you that already sent me happy birthday wishes! I greatly appreciate your sweet words and your thoughtfulness.

I hope you have been inspired in some way here today. Thank you for visiting my spot. I hope you will come back again! I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Many Blessings to You!

Love Tammy

Snow Queen Tea

Hello Blogger Friends!

Life has been so crazy and I have been really busy and very neglectful of my blog. I hate it how quickly the time goes by. I can't seem to keep up! I wanted to share some pictures of a tea party I had in January to celebrate winter. It had a "Snow Queen" theme. I decorated the house for "winter" to get ready for the tea and I just used white and ivory. The cottage was just beautiful and very serene. I made this beautiful pillow with lots of lace and sweet ivory buttons. Here is my winter tree that is still up from Christmas. I have decided I am going to leave it up all year long and decorate it for each season. I used white and silver decorations only and added a lot of pretty snowflakes of all different shapes, sizes, and textures. It really glowed in the evening when I plugged in the white twinkle lights.

Here is the place setting for the tea party. I used silver chargers that had snowflakes on them, crystal dinner plates, and white salad plates with snowflakes on them to dress up my settings. I made a place card and a winter tussie mussie cone favor for each guest. You can see a close up of that later!

Here is my place card. Each one has an image of a lady that I made in to a Snow Queen by adding a silver crown and paper banner to. I had so much fun making these things! They turned out so pretty!!!

Here is another place card for my friend Dena that attended my tea party. I love her tutu!

All of the food at the tea had a winter theme. I made these beautiful snowflake sugar cookies and decorated them with "snow" sprinkles and sugar snowflakes.

Here is the party favor that everyone got. I made the cone from glittery white scrapbook paper and then decorated it. I added a Snow Queen tiara and wand that I added snowflakes and other embellishments on to. I also tucked a bad of yogurt-covered raisins in the cone for a sweet but healthy treat for later. I tied the cellophane bags with sweet silver ribbons.

Here is the dining room all dressed up for my Snow Queen tea party. It is just waiting for the guests to arrive to enjoy our time of fellowship and wonderful winter treats.

The snowflake cupcakes were a big hit! When they were finished and I put them on the tray I couldn't believe I had actually made them from scratch myself because they were so beautiful. I could have sworn they had come from a fancy bakery. My mom got my a great icing tool for Christmas and that made a huge difference. I made the picks from scrapbook paper and gem embellishments, then glued them on toothpicks. I loved decorating these cupcakes with all kinds of white or sparkly treats. The silver dragees were gorgeous!

My guests were the best part of the tea party. My Snow Queen mama is posing for the camera with her tiara and wand in hand!

We always have such a good time when we are together. I really love having these tea parties just so I can spend some special time with her. She has taught me so much about love and life and I am so blessed to have her.

Here is my sweet friend Dena! I was so glad she got to come to the tea. We work together now but we have been friends for a long time. We are soul sisters and I love her for being the awesome, uplifting, encouraging, beautiful lady she is.

I hope you have enjoyed my lovely Snow Queen tea party and I hope I have inspired you to have a tea of your own! Just pick a theme and get busy decorating and cooking. It is worth the effort when everyone is around the table enjoying themselves and each other.

I hope you have a wonderful day!

Many Blessings to You!
Love Tammy

It's a New Year . . .

And the month is half over!!! I can't believe how quickly the time flies! I have some lovely creations to show you that I have made recently. This is an ornament I made for my sweet mama. It says "A Happy New Year" across the angel's front. I used chipboard, scrapbook paper, that beautiful angel image, and some beautiful glass glitter to dress it up.

Isn't this a lovely scene! I took a nice gift box that my brother gave me for Christmas (it had a beautiful ivory scarf in it) and covered it with music paper. I embellished it with a cardboard house and trees (that used to be green) then I covered the whole thing in mica. I also decorated those trees next to the box on the table. Those trees (and 60 others!!!) got a treatment of bleaching, painting, glitter or mica, and ornaments. I think I need to go in to business!!!

Here is a close-up of the top of the box. I think it is so beautiful. I am thinking of adding some snow. What do you think?

Here is another ornament I made to celebrate the New Year. I am so in love with how it turned out! Isn't the soaring bird embellishment just perfect?

Here is a closer view with a little more detail.

I made this ornament for my pretty "holiday" tree that I am going to leave up in my kitchen. It has white and silver ornaments all over it right now. It is celebrating the season of winter and it has all kinds of different snowflake ornaments on it. I will show you pictures soon!

I made a banner for the New Year and hung it on my curtain rod in my dining area. Those stars have clothes pins behind them and that is what I used to attach the banner to the curtain rod. Pretty clever, huh?

I made this cool little fellow out of clay and then I covered him with mica. I really love how he turned out. He is standing in one of the openings of the post office box shelf I recently transformed. Each opening has something in it that represents winter. You'll get to see it soon, too.

Mr. Snowman's banner says "WINTER". It was a nightmare trying to dig clear letters from a mixed bag of assorted colors. I had all kinds of random letters and had to try to come up with a word that would be fitting. I wanted to do "snow" but didn't have the letters for it. I think it turned out ok!

I moved my "wish" sign I made at Christmas in to the bathroom and redecorated this shelf. Here are some more of those trees I redid. I have since added artificial snow to that shelf and it looks much better.

I made this banner last weekend to hang on a mirror in my hallway. I love how sweet and wintry it turned out! I used small resin Christmas ornaments and painted them ivory. They were brown and copper when I bought them and they were not going to work!

I made another banner a few days ago and a BEAUTIFUL white pillow that is to die for yesterday! I am having a "Snow Queen" tea party to celebrate winter next weekend and I can't wait to share all of these things with you! Then it's on to VALENTINE'S DAY! It is by far my favorite holiday of the year (with Christmas being a very close second) so I know I will be making pretty things like crazy here in the next week!

I hope you all enjoyed your Christmas and you had a happy New Year celebration. I wish you a blessed, healthy, prosperous New Year. I can't wait to see what is in store for us! I know it will be good!

Blessings to You!

Love Tammy