Tidy Brown Wren, bringing order to your nest

 I'm so glad that red is my favorite color - and that shades of green can be found all around my house.  Why?  Because for the first few weeks of December, that was all that decorated my house.  Touches of red and green with one half-lit Christmas tree standing halfway between the family room and the dining room.   It's been such a crazy busy summer, fall, and now winter that I barely had time to clean my house let alone decorate for Christmas.  And decorating for Christmas is something I love to do.  I managed to find about 20 minutes a day for a whole week and finally got some decorations set out around the house.   Like I said before, the red and green colors I already had in our home really came in handy - all I had to do was add to it.   Ready for a tour before I have to take everything down this weekend? Here is the front porch.  My son found the old firetruck and refurbished it.  It is perfect to hold some ...

  In mid December our preschool went to the Children's museum in Portsmouth, VA.  My grandfellas, who attend the school, had a great time.  Their favorite area was the mock fire station, complete with Firefighter costumes.    I decided right then that the boys would be getting firefighter costumes for Christmas even though we had already purchased  gifts for them.    I looked online to quickly order some but was very disappointed to find that they were cheaply made or too expensive to purchase for short term use by two growing boys.   I checked around the web and found a few ideas for making my own.  Here's the results.     I took a few pics at school today to get some close-up shots. First,  I found some dark colored shirts/jackets at the thrift store and went to work.       I used a size 5 kids fabric raincoat for the younger grandson's jacke...

  I'm not ready to put away the Christmas decorations yet, but the Christmas wrappings were driving me nuts and I had to do something - and fast.   My studio had become the dumping ground for gifts and wrappings and it was a total mess.  Fortunately, I have a system, so it only took about 15 minutes to put everything away.   First, I gathered all of the bags, ribbons, wrapping paper, tags, and tissue paper together.  Then I sorted it by type on the floor.  I discarded anything that was damaged.   After everything was sorted I started to put each category of wrapping in it's storage place.   The tall rolls of wrapping, large bags, and collapsed boxes were filed into the bottom of the Rubbermaid wrapping container.  It's extra tall to accommodate the tall rolls of paper.   I always use a recycled gift bag that I don't want to use again and store the folded tissue paper and small gift bags in. Ribbo...

    I'm excited to show you the floating barn wood shelves Hubs made me for my Christmas present this year.         It started out as some barnwood Hubs found along the side of the road.  Piles of old barn wood don't come along very often so you'd better snatch them when you find them.       He borrowed a rip saw from a friend at church and cut the wood down into narrow boards.   He also cut down an old piece of wood from our barn to make cleats to hang the shelves on.  Here are the cleats screwed into studs in the wall. He made the shelves using  two 4 inch boards and one 2 1/2 inch board.  The 4 inch boards form the top and bottom of the shelf and the 2 1/2 inch board is the strip you see in the front.  There are also 2 small pieces on each end that measure 2 1/2 x 3 1/2.  One shelf is 4 feet long and one is 6 feet long. Here's another view.  The right ...

As our family grows larger, we seem to have a harder time getting everyone together for a family picture.  I was determined to get a good photo to use for our Christmas cards.    On the Sunday after Thanksgiving, all of the kids and grand kids came over after church and we gave it a shot.   After a yummy lunch and some clothing changes (the kid's clothes only stay clean for so long) we headed out into the back yard to set things up.   Hubs and I worked together to figure out the timer on the camera.  It was pathetic - we had to read the book that came with the camera.  In the end,  Ashley just used her camera on my tripod.   Then we did a trial shot with Ashley setting the timer and running towards us before the picture was taken.  While this was happening, Juan was chasing Nicholas (3 years old) around the backyard.  We took about 20 shots and this one turned out the best.  Whew!   Back i...