holiday — pleasure in simple things

Tag: holiday

shopping frenzy?

November

I hate the term ‘Black Friday.’ To me, the day after Thanksgiving signals the start of all that is good about the holiday season. I would prefer the term for the day signify the start of the holiday spirit and not the start of retail frenzy. How about ‘Magical Friday,’ or ‘Enchanted Friday,’ or even ‘Family Friday.’ How would you sum up the seasonal spirit in one word?

I am not saying I don’t enjoy visiting the stores. I do. But, not the ones that have long lines at midnight or that spotlight the latest ‘must have’ toy. I prefer the stores that showcase the magic…the sparkle…the beauty of the season…the kind of store that contributes to the spirit of the season – not the spirit of commercialism.

Taken for Granite in Stony Creek, Connecticut embraces the holiday spirit by providing homemade holiday treats for visiting shoppers.

One of my favorites is Taken for Granite. So, today’s Friday field trip on ‘Black Friday’ is a trip to Taken for Granite in Stony Creek, Connecticut to a store that helps kick off this magical time of year in a way no other store can.

And, of course, I had to include some woodland inspirations to go with my theme this year! Enjoy!

Thanks so much for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed Friday field trip.

Have a wonderful weekend! Remember to enjoy pleasure in simple things, Jackie

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happy thanksgiving :)

November

This Thanksgiving week, as I pause to give thanks – I want to give a special thanks to you – for sharing pleasure in simple things with me.

Click here for a special gift from me to you...and…

Please enjoy all that is dear to you this Thanksgiving…

Peace & Love, Jackie

1 comment » | holiday, inspiration

diy wire gift tags

November

I adore holiday decorating and baking. Gift wrapping, in particular, is a passion of mine and I always start thinking about design details for my packages as soon as I establish a holiday theme – months before the holiday season approaches.

I assembled some of the materials I knew I would need for my woodland gift wrapping ideas quite some time ago…hoping to squeeze in some of my planned projects in free moments.

Working 15 hour days isn’t particularly conducive to fitting in creative activities, but I did use a couple of late night hours recently to work on some gift tags I had envisioned a while back.

Using wire from the craft store, I very simply bent the wire to form words to use as gift tags on my gifts…choosing fun holiday words or the name of the gift recipient. I chose an antique bronze colored wire and picked the strongest gauge that I could still shape using my hands. (Pliers are an option if you would rather use a tool or don’t have significant hand strength.) I formed a loop on either end of the word shape to use as a ribbon loop and cut the end of the wire with pliers being sure to check for sharp edges and using a file or sandpaper to smooth any rough spots…

I shaped the words freehand, but you can certainly use a handwritten word on paper or print out a word from your computer to use as a pattern.

These packages will coordinate nicely with the others I have planned for my woodland theme. ;) Wire is available in a wide choice of colors in the craft store, so you can choose one to match your own holiday theme.

These word creations have so many uses – they can be used as ornaments, to identify a Christmas stocking, or as a wine bottle gift tag. It is an especially great idea to use one on a gift for someone that can never find anything printed with their unique name!

I hope you will try your hand at some of these fun wire word gift tags for holiday packages and create some to coordinate with your own holiday decorating.

Thanks so much for stopping by. Remember to take pleasure in simple things, Jackie

Comments Off on diy wire gift tags | diy, gift ideas, holiday

holiday shopping trip

November

Today’s Friday field trip is a shopping trip! My woodland holiday theme has been so much fun, I thought I would share some of the great items I have come across in my travels. When I decided to put a few photos up for you to see, I never realized how much trouble I would have editing all the great things I have found!

A woodland feeling would not be complete without a cozy blanket or scarf…this one is from L.L. Bean and in a favorite color palette. And, I love the way this set of three tree candles from Crate and Barrel mixes with neutrals. The serving tray from Ballard Designs is perfect to serve ‘fruits, nuts & berries’ at your holiday gathering…make up some candied or spiced nuts to include on your cheese tray!

Doesn’t this bring back memories? Burning Christmas tree smelling incense from a log cabin incense burner is an old time favorite…and it helps bring the Christmas tree smell to every room in your home! This beauty can be purchased at Terrain.

In recent years, straws have been available in so many different varieties…this holiday season you can even find straws that look like birch trees! At Anthropologie, I found these lovely simulated birch bark paper straws…perfect for sipping an icy holiday beverage. No outdoor themed party would be complete without maple leaf shaped maple sugar candies…the Vermont County Store is a wonderful source to find varieties of maple candy. I had to throw in the classic plaid traveling companion! This plaid number is not just for woodland picnics…it can be used to plant small holiday trees or mosses on an entryway table or for planting some succulents or paperwhites indoors. You can purchase this classic at Orvis.

What to wear? Of course you need to coordinate what you wear with the theme! For the little one, how about this adorable handmade creation? SO CUTE! It is available on Etsy from Crochele. Not really my style though…I am planning on wearing this long forest green dress from Anthropologie. To give others to wear, I found some great handmade jewelry pieces for gifts…the bird nest necklace is available on Etsy from Alwaysabridesmade and the silver band squirrel ring is by Elizabeth Ryan and available on her website LookaJewelry.com.

These containers by Carla Peters are available at West Elm and are perfect for a single holiday bloom or…are beautiful all on their own!

Even though I plan on making my woodland themed ornaments (like my acorn ornaments :) for starters), I managed to find something available for the tree that got me excited….the perfect treetopper (at Terrain) for a woodland Christmas…isn’t he great?

I hope you enjoyed our little woodland holiday shopping trip today for Friday field trip. Here in Connecticut it has turned very cold and definitely brings with it thoughts of the holidays (of course Christmas songs playing in all the stores certainly helps this along lol!) Thanks so much for stopping by…

Have a wonderful weekend and remember to take pleasure in simple things, Jackie

Please note: The photos in today’s post were not taken by me. They are photos from the respective websites where the products are sold.

1 comment » | field trips, holiday, inspiration

mini white pumpkins 3 ways

September

I am not a big Halloween person. Granted, I do like planting in pumpkins, making pumpkins, carving pumpkins, and eating pumpkins. And… I certainly like candy! But I’m really not into the whole black and orange decorating thing and I don’t find being scared out of my wits an enjoyable past time.

It was not until the white pumpkin hit the scene that I took a dedicated interest in Halloween decorating.

I thought today I would show you some ways to use mini white pumpkins this season and maybe you too would get hooked on using them in your Autumn decor!

Here are three easy ways to change up white pumpkins for autumn decorating.

A really easy way to dress up a white pumpkin is with some metallic paint. Just a little acrylic paint sponged onto a white pumpkin dresses it up for the fanciest of occasions.

Plasti Dip is another great material to use on white pumpkins. It easily and instantly adheres to the pumpkin and can be tinted in any color. I used some pink I had tinted from a previous project for these pumpkins. Even the stems are fair game! Love it!

For a Halloween party, black Plasti Dip dripped down a white pumpkin would look nice and creepy!

A really great thing about white pumpkins is that it is so easy to coordinate them with any color. When I wanted some gray toned pumpkins to use with zinc items, I just tinted some white pumpkins gray! I rubbed the surface with a little black paste food coloring to get the perfect color to use with my table setting! I sprayed the finished project with a matte finish clear coat.

What can you do with some mini pumpkins for your next get together? Have fun with it! Use hash tag #pleasuregram to share your mini white pumpkin creation on Instagram.

Thank you so much for stopping by! Remember to find pleasure in simple things, Jackie

1 comment » | diy, food & festivities, holiday

dreaming of a pink christmas

December

I’m dreaming of a…pink? Christmas…

I know many people associate red and green with the holidays…or, like I do, many decorate with whites…but, how many fest the Christmas halls with pink?

I found a shop in Seymour, CT that embraces pink for the holidays. For this week’s Friday field trip, I would like to share some photos from my quick stop at Tickled Pink and a little bit of the Victorian vibe that fills this quaint little place in the center of an old factory town off Route 8 in Connecticut. I was passing through and had very little time to spend in the shop, but I did find out that the annual holiday open house is held in October. So, I guess I missed the shop when it was fully stocked with Christmas treasures. But, I was able to capture some photos to share. Enjoy.

Decking the halls with all things pink at Tickled Pink in Derby, CT.

A “Tickled Pink” Christmas

I hope you enjoyed these photos of a “Tickled Pink” Christmas. Have a great weekend.

Thanks for visiting and, remember to take pleasure in simple things :)

3 comments » | holiday

diy favorite glass ornaments

December

There are so many ways to make a simple glass bulb ornament look lovely, aren’t there? Just adding some sand and sea glass or a white feather and some glitter… or, using etching cream to add a simple initial – all great options. I have tried all these…and many more! Today, I want to share my two very favorite (and really easy) ways to embellish a clear glass ornament.

The first way is to use a paint marker, white acrylic paint, and a little sparkle to create…what I call…a ‘pussywillow’ pattern. “Stems” are created with a silver metallic paint marker. Next, the white ‘pussywillows’ are added. Do they remind you of anything? Maybe the top of a cotton swab? That is precisely what I used to paint them! I put some white acrylic paint on a cotton swab to add the ‘pussywillows’ onto the stems. After the paint dried, I used some silver glitter dimensional paint to add a little sparkle to the bottom of each ‘pussywillow’ bud.

Lovely, aren’t they?

The second way I like to decorate a glass ornament is to put strips of book pages into the bulb. It seems everyone is adding book pages or sheet music to ornaments bulbs now…I think the best thing about this is that you can add so much significance to an ornament by your choice of book or song. How cool is it to put the sheet music for the wedding song of a newly married couple into a first Christmas ornament gift to them? The significance of the writing or music is what makes the ornament really special.

The ornament here is one I made last year for one of my book groups…and, I put pages from the books we had read throughout the year. If you know in advance that you will be creating a book group ornament, you can copy a page of your book selection each month throughout the year for that purpose. If not, there are a couple of ways you can get copies of the pages. One way is to make a trip to your local library. If you want to make pages without leaving your home, this can be done pretty easily by looking up the books on Amazon. Most of the books sold on Amazon have the option of looking at the inside pages. Once you have a page on your computer screen, you can print the screen to use for the ornament.

For my ornament, I printed the pages on an off-white paper and put a little sparkle on them before I cut them into strips. I used a few strips from each of our book selections during the year. I then used silver glitter dimensional paint right out of the tube to add the year onto a piece of white felt I had cut into a leaf shape. After the glitter dried, I used a glue gun to attach the leaf and added a ribbon to complete the look.

I hope you enjoyed these diy glass ornaments and they helped spark some creative inspiration for someone on your holiday gift list!

I will be sharing at Blissful Whites Wednesday.

Thanks so much for visiting, Jackie

2 comments » | holiday

and the stockings were hung…

December

Maybe not by the chimney, but certainly with some care :) I was up into the wee hours last night to hang the Christmas stockings, largely because, even though I don’t have much holiday decorating done, I really want to link up to the mantel party at The Lettered Cottage and the link party at Craftberry Bush.

I made these stockings two years ago after purchasing a sewing machine at one of the big discount stores, because I was determined to create burlap Christmas stockings for my family.

Well, I did make them. And, for my first sewing project, I have to say… I was pretty darn proud!

I created my own makeshift pattern, lined them, and attached pieces of linen with stamped ‘names’ on each. My junior high home economics teacher would have been proud!

Junior high home economics class was the only place I ever received any instruction in sewing. I guess you could say I flunked the class, since my mother put the zipper in the purple skirt I chose as my class project. Why purple, you ask? The school colors were purple and gold and I wanted to make something to wear on purple and gold day! I don’t know that I ever actually wore the thing, but thanks to my Mom, I did complete it.

I digress…back to the stockings…

It may be you would like to have your own name on your Christmas stocking, rather than a beach word that starts with ‘s’…what can I say? I think it makes things interesting to add a little personal style, and since my holiday décor is coastal, why not ‘sun’, ‘sand’, ‘surf’, and ‘sea’? My daughter took dibs right away on surf (since she owns her own surf board, I figured it was a no contest)… the guys really were indifferent…as long Santa included a few gifts in the stockings, it really didn’t matter what they looked like!

I hope you enjoyed the photos of my homemade family Christmas stockings. Now that I have the stockings up, I really need to get going on the rest!

It takes a lot of late night televison to get everything done…have you ever seen reruns of The New Adventures of Old Christine?…they are pretty funny! If you are ever up at 1:30, check it out!

And now, I can link up to the party I mentioned (the reason I had the motivation to start decorating)…take some time to visit all the other great mantels and ‘un’ mantels by clicking here to see the Mantel Party at The Lettered Cottage and here to see the link party at Craftberry Bush. Enjoy!

Thank you so much for stopping by, Jackie

1 comment » | holiday

taken for granite

November

This week’s Friday field trip is a visit to another gift shop. Unlike last week’s, this shop is one of my frequent destinations. Since today is “black Friday”, it seems appropriate to share a visit to my very favorite gift shopping location.

Today, we are visiting Taken for Granite in Stony Creek, CT.

A wonderful sensory experience at any time of year, the shop pulls out all the stops for the holiday season.

Our visit is during this year’s holiday open house – the first night of the weekend event. The open house is the start of the magnificent display of holiday gift items offered for sale.

What really sets a gift shop apart from the rest? To not only offer wonderful items and to present them in a lovely way – but, to provide extraordinary gift wrapping. In this area, any shop would be hard-pressed to compare to the artful wrapping provided by Taken for Granite. Each year, new wrapping designs are created that are a gift in themselves.

A photo of a package with one of the exquisite wrapping designs included when purchasing a gift at Taken for Granite – one of the reasons it makes a wonderful spot for holiday shopping.

Visiting in the evening provides an extra feeling of holiday magic since the outdoor patio and nearby shed are given a dose of decorating and lights…complete with a roaring fire.

taken for granite

You can hear many shoppers planning their holiday gift giving and decorating as they are inspired by all the beautiful displays and decorations throughout the store. Taken for Granite is as much a source of inspiration for beautiful and unique holiday decor as it is a source for wonderful gifts.

A selection of refreshments offered in the quaint outdoor shed at the Taken for Granite holiday open house.

I hope you enjoyed your visit to Taken for Granite. If you live in Connecticut or plan to be visiting, try to include a trip to this lovely, coastal inspired gift shop located outside New Haven.

Thank you for visiting. Remember to take pleasure in simple things, Jackie

2 comments » | field trips

an enchanted holiday shop

November

The Christmas Shop at Maynard Greenhouse in Old Saybrook is the destination for this week’s Friday field trip. This trip was actually planned last summer. Last summer was when I first heard about a garden shop in Old Saybrook that transfomed into a Christmas shop each year at holiday time. It surprised me that I had not heard of the store, considering I travel to both garden shops AND Christmas shops all over Connecticut.

Intrigued, I made a note on my November 2012 calendar to make a trip to The Christmas Shop at Maynard Greenhouse. It turned out the store had not yet opened for the season on the day a friend and I scheduled our trip to the shop. Even so, the owner was gracious enough to let us in the store when we arrived…as she worked on getting it ready for the opening.

Even though the holiday display was not yet completed, it was obvious the shop was enchanting…a beautiful collection of gift items, holiday ornaments, paper and ribbon products, and even some antiques.

Of course, I particularly loved the corner where some coastal inspired ornaments were displayed!

There were so many items we really adored in the shop. Even though we were disappointed we didn’t get to see the displays in their completion, timing the trip as we did unkowingly gave us some time to share in conversation with the shop owner…it made for a very enjoyable shopping experience…