Christmas Decorations

I used the empty toy chest for the creche this year.  

 

 



 

I missed out on the free trees given by the village, I was supposed to reserve one by Nov. 30th. I just can't remember things like that. So I bought a live one to plant later.  The prettiest tree we have  in our yard is a Christmas tree that we planted.  I used a knitted scarf for the garland.  The doilies are supposed to be snow (less messy than flour).  I also thought, "hey, why not decorate the house plant?"

Refashioned Entry

 

I have had this in the entry for a few years but it isn't that great becasue it doesn't have very practical storage space. So....

 

 

I went into the boys' room and took this. I painted a smaller book shelf, the one from the kitchen, and put that in their room.  I will post a picture once the room is clean.  This blue wooden book shelf from Ikea is perfect for the entry but was too big for their room.  It's smaller in size than the wardrobe but has much more storage space. I found some cute baskets (the only things I've bought in this whole redo of the house, besides paint) for scarves and the top one has the towels and stuff for the bathroom.  The bottom shelves are for shoes.  I even hung a key hook inside it.  The edges of this book shelf got a bit of light blue paint too.

 

I think it gives us a bit more room in the entry. The little sign says "Vivez bien, Riez souvent, Aimez beaucoup" !  Can you believe I caught Pierre sleeping in the background of this picture :-)



My "new" livingroom part 2

 

Come and have a seat at the game table!  I needed something to balance out this side of the room because the chest of drawers is quite small.  So I went outside and pulled in this cute garden table, put a quilt  on top and used some quilted pillows as cushions for the chairs.  The girls have already used it.  It really is inviting!

 

 

Bridgit and Chiara

My "new" livingroom

 

This chest of drawers belongs to our bedroom set but isn't very big for putting clothes.  I put it down stairs to store sheet music and craft stuff.

 

 

This used to be in the girls' room for toys and books. I moved to downstairs to store magazines and DVDs.   As you can see both of these furnitures needed my help!

 



 

I lightly brushed on a light blue acrylic paint, I didn't even sand it first.  Then I sprayed it with a clear varnish.  It looks really nice and aged. I moved it over on the other side of the room and decorated  the top so no one can put their junk on it.  The blue looks neat with the Gulf Coast print on the wall.

 

 

I painted this one dark blue then wanted to put orange, green, and light blue accents.  I must admit I wasn't very patient and didn't want to put all the coats of paint required for the "perfect" look, so I rubbed some dark blue across each panel and then did some sanding.  It looks pretty good, you can see the grain of the wood really well. I also got rid of all those magazines (threw some away and moved others) and am only using the wicker baskets to hold DVDs.  I have watching movies sometimes during the day then if they aren't great I toss them in the trash!  

So do you like the changes?  Stay tuned for the next episode....

Thanks to my sweet mommy!

 

 

This is just beautiful!    A patchwork Christmas card holder handmade by my talented mom! 

 

 

Thank you very much!!!!



Our Champ!!

 

 

Here he is!  We had a great day on Saturday! We left the house a 6am driving in tons of snow to get to Sion at 6:45 for the boys to sign in for the Valais Solist and Quartet Championship.  Then we went to Mass at 7:20 and made it back to Sion just as the competition started. The boys played at the same time so we had to split up.  Bridgit and I went to listen to Nic and Pierre went to listen to MA. That was just the qualifications for the afternoon.  They both qualified so they played again with a pianist. We couldn't believe it but they were again playing at the same time!!  Bridgit also played in the afternoon in her category (10-13). She played very well, it was her first time playing in this contest. After she played we ran to the place where MA was playing. He did a great job. I was hoping to post the recording but the CD he got isn't working. We ran to the place Nic was playing after MA finished but just missed it.  We do have a recording though.  The contest has 3 categories: Minime (10-13) , Cadet (14-16) and Junior (17-20).  In the Minimes they only class the first 8 and the others just get theirs points.  She got 85 pts.  The Cadets and Juniors kind of get mixed.  MA finished 8th out of 39 cornetists! And Nicolas won 1st Cadet Alto (the silver trophy) and he also won 2nd Junior Alto ( the gold trophy). He is posing here with his new alto that he received a few months ago. It was a very long day but what a reward! 

 



Weekend Adventures with Mr. President

 

This is at the IPA Geneva gala dinner on Saturday night.  These are friends from Geneva, he is a boarder guard. We had some good food and company and ended up dancing until 4am.  The next morning (well realy just a few hours later) we went over to France and took the Mont Blanc Tunnel and came out in Italy (Aosta) then from there we had about another hour drive to Turin.

The room where we had lunch in Turin.  It was a local IPA gathering.  They had a 4 day conference about something and this was just a lunch that was part of it.  When we got there everyone was already seated, then the local president announced Mr. President and his two vice-presidents and we had to walk through this room while everyone clapped. Because our table was at the head of the room kinda like a wedding.  I don't know if I will get used to this.... Its so.....presidential! ( I just wrote it three times...in that little paragraph!)

 

 



To prove that this Mr. President thing hasn't gone to his head he stood up and served us (the two VPs and I) some wine.

The two VPs with Mr. President. Kees Sal is from Holland and Werner Busch is from Germany.  It was a nice day too.  We drove home through the St. Bernard Tunnel. It took about 2 hours from Turin to Sembrancher. I spent all of Monday lying on the couch absolutely worthless, not First Lady-ish at all!  I also had a cold so that didn't help.

Bridgit's chair

 

This is a craft she did in school.  We got an old chair from the thrift store and she had to sand it and then decide what colors to paint it.  I gave her the fabric to make the cushion and she used those colors. Not sure where the orange came from but it looks great.  We use it for the downstairs computer spot.  She's a chip of the old block!

 

 

Lovely blue paint!

 

Here is the little furniture in the bathroom that I painted with my new favorite blue paint.  I have been brainstorming and have decided to add a few touches of the same color paint all around the downstairs area.  This was the trail piece.  We all like the color and it looks great in the house. I have found another lighter blue in the same color family that I am going to accent with, plus an orange, green and red that look really good too for little touches of other colors. I will take pics and let you see how its all going. 

 

 

 

Here is my "workshop" in the garage.  This is the book shelf from the kitchen painted with the same color. Stay tuned to see where its next home will be!!

T-shirt necklaces

 

As I am going through all my clothes that don't fit anymore and trying to decide what to keep and alter and what to give away, I have been looking online for inspiration. Here is what I found this morning.  You take a t-shirt and make a cool necklace.

 

Here are all my tools.

First you cut off the hem,then continue cutting strips leaving the side seams intact.  Then you stretch them to make them curl up.

Put them all together, lining up the seams, then twist it and fold it in half.

It will look like this.



Then cut some more strips and use them to cover up the seams. I just kept wrapping and tucking in the ends until they were all hiddin.

 

 



This will be the back of the necklace.

 

I know, not a great picture but you get the idea.

 

here is one from a grey t-shirt

Then I mixed the gray and blue shirts (cutting strips from the sleeve this time, to make them smaller) to make a bracelet. It is not tight, I just took a weird picture by bending my wrist.

 

I then made this one for Anne-Marie. I used a dark orange t-shirt and tied a turquoise glass bead onto it with a little strip, and then used a piece of gold wire to twist around the side.

I did all this in about an hour.  It was so much fun. They are great for winter because they actually keep your neck warm.  The possibilities are endless.  You could even cut open the strips and add beads before making the necklace then just tie in the back. Or don't twist and fold it to make it longer.  Or mix t-shirts to have different colors.  You have to use t-shirts that are the same color on the outside and inside because when it curls you end up seeing the inside mostly. 

 

 



sweater refashion

I started out with these two sweaters. The gray one is cashmere that I got second hand a long time ago. The pink one was a present from Pierre a few years ago and they are both too big now.  The pink one is all worn out in the front too.

 

This is a bright pink t-shirt that I cut up to make little pulls or ties.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I took in the sides of the gray sweater and attached the pink collar to it. The edges are finished with the t-shirt srtips and then I used one to tie around the rose that was already on the collar.  I think it needs a belt.  I am going to cut strips of the t-shirt and tie them intoone long tope to wrap around the waist. I'll send a pic when its done.

winter?

 

Can you believe this?  We woke up to this on Sunday 28th! It's all gone now though.

Monaco, part 2

 

The view from the hotel terrace where we had breakfast on Sunday morning. 

 

 

This the hotel, we took this from the street so you can kind of see the roof.  It was on the side of the mountain like the rest of the coast.  It is in the town of Eze-sur-mer, about 5 min. from Monaco. Pierre's friend, who is a policeman in Monaco lives next to the hotel.

 

The day we arrived we took a little tour of Monaco, here's the port with its "little boats"!! These things have hot tubs on the decks.  One had a helicopter pad. 

 

this is basically half of the country, the other half is what you see in the picture above.

 

 

We went to the palace at noon to watch the changing of the guard.  It was really nice.  We got to watch like VIPs,standing next to the entrance of the palace.

 

 

you can see all the tourists standing behind the chain fences. Hee Hee! As we were walking to the palace on a side street, we saw Prince Albert being driven by with his police escorts.  He waved, so we all waved back!

 

 

This is the Casino.  Even though we don't gamble, this building is really something to see.  We visited the inside.  It is very beautiful.

 

To the left of the Casino is the Hotel de Paris. Another incredible building.  The inside was amazing. 

 

This beautiful arrangement is at the entrance.  Orchids!  The scent was delicious.  Pierre's friend told us there is a new one deliver every week. Every time it's different, he said he comes by to see the new one whenever he can.

 

These are the kind of sweet rides parked in front of the hotel and the Casino.  A little stainless steel Bugatti Verona.  We took this picture for Nic.  I told Bridgit  there were no VW beetles to play slug bug, but we could have played slug Ferrari, slug Maserati, slug Bentley, slug Lamborghini........ It was unbelievable.

 This is part of the Glen Miller big band that played at the Gala dinner. They played in front of the Casino earlier in the evening.  They are all French gendarmes.

 

The next morning before we left we went across the street from the hotel and down this path for about a 5minute walk and came to...

 

 

this tunnel and....

 

this beautiful private beach. The water was quite warm and of course I had to try it.

 

I got the whole skirt of my dress wet and had to change before getting in the car for 5 hours.

 

This "little boat" was anchored near the beach.  Must be nice.....