Puttin' On the Glitz!

Hope you all are having a great week, and are warm and cozy!  We had a bit of snow today at the Chateau, and even though I am not a "winter person", I must admit that it was pretty!
Today I wanted to share with you a few of the decorations on our tree.  The decorations range from hand crafted, nature inspired, ornaments with "bling", and whimsical ornaments as well.  Today I will show you a bit of the "bling"!

I love this silvery, glittery ornament!  It is new, but it has a vintage quality about it that I find really appealing!

The picture just doesn't do justice to the gorgeous crystal ornament!  It makes me think of a little chandelier, and looks so pretty with the lights shining and reflecting on it.

I am calling this ornament my "Norwegian star".  My nephew and his wife just moved to Norway, and this star belonged to them.  They were very limited as to what they could take with them, so they gifted us with it.  Love it, but I feel a bit sad looking at it, too!

Silvery, glittery and a pretty filigree design, what more could you ask for?

 

I love this cute vintage looking Santa!  He is holding glittery stars, and has the cutest expression on his face, I think!

Pretty fruit sliced are unexpected but lovely on the tree!

That's it for today, tomorrow I will show you more, and later this week I will share some of the decorations thru out our home.  I've been a busy little bee, and I bet you have, too!  Have a wonderful night!

The Sights and Sounds of the Season

Bon Soir, Mon Amis!
Hope you are having a great Tuesday!  It's another blustery day here at the Chateau.  No snow, but it's beginning to look alot like Christmas around here!

We got our tree on Sunday, and finally got all 13' (or more!) of it lit a decorated yesterday!  I will just show you a sneak peek at it tonight, but will share more of it with you ladies thru out the week.

I got down on the floor to take this shot of our tree!  The things we bloggers do for the sake of a photo!:)

I made a bunch of these ornaments last year, to give and to keep.  Can you guess what they are made of?

Ok, how many of you have glittered airplanes hanging from your tree?  Hubby is a pilot, so we have several airplanes flying around on our trees!  And of course I just had to add the glitter!
I have a ton more ornaments that I will share with you later this week!

Last night, we took a much needed break and attended a John Berry concert, at the Ark in Ann Arbor.  It was an awesome show!  John Berry is my absolute favorite singer, and this is the 5th time that we've been fortunate to see him.  Unfortunately, he doesn't get played on the radio much anymore these days.  His voice is incredible!  He performed both his own work, and lots of Christmas songs, which was a real treat!

We had great seats, too!  Front row, left of stage!  One of the great things about seeing a show at the Ark is it's a small theater, with less than 500 seats or so.  And it's such a relaxed laid back environment, it feels as if you are having your very own personal concert in your living room! In fact, most of us in the front row rested our feet on the edge of the stage all night long!

The really nice thing about all of John's shows is that he always has a "meet and greet" afterward, and he will talk with anyone who wants to see him!  Ok, this is a horrible picture of me!  I swear that they guy who took it must work for the Department of Motor Vehicles!  But then, it's a great picture of John Berry, and a good picture of hubby, too in the background!!

If you are not familiar with John's work, you can click here and watch him perform "Your love amazes me", which is my all time favorite song!
Have a great night!

A Gift, a Giveaway, And a Garland Makeover!

Bon Jour Mon Amis!

I am so excited today, as I just received my very first copy of Jeanne d'Arc living magazine!  I know that many of you ladies have been enjoying this gorgeous magazine for quite some time, and I probably am the last blogger on earth to see it!  My sweet and thoughtful friend Debbie at Love of the Sea sent me her very own copy!  Wasn't that the nicest thing of her to do?!  Thank you, Debbie!  You have made my day, I can not wait to look at all of the stunning photos and inspirations within the wonderful pages.  Be sure to visit Debbie, as she just did two postings of arrangements that she made, that were Jeanne d'Arc inspired.  They are simply stunning!

I am also excited to announce that my friend Frenchy is hosting a giveaway for me over at her beautiful blog, Chateau des Fleurs.  I am giving away one of my glittered and embellished Eiffel Tower ornaments to one lucky reader! So visit Frenchy to see how you can enter!!

I also wanted to share with you today a garland that I made over.  I always hang a faux garland in the doorway of our kitchen each year at Christmas, and it had been basically the same design for years.  Not only was I bored to tears with the garland, buy my taste had changed, too.  So, I removed all of the ornaments that were on it, and remade it using things that I already had on hand.

I bought these pretty butterflies last year at Michaels'  Not sure what I had in mind with them at the time, but I'm glad that I saved them!  The snowflake ornaments were from the Dollar Tree last year after Christmas.  Aren't they pretty?  They really don't look "cheap" at all!  It's amazing what you can find at the Dollar Tree these days (I've seen the same snowflakes there this year, too).

I also added some pinecones, and some iridescent ball ornaments that I bought last week at the GoodWill.  Ok, that's the only new thing I purchased for this garland, but since they came from the thrift store, they don't count, do they?  They were just $2 for a dozen, and were brand new!

 

The green velevet poinsettias also were from the Dollar Tree last year after the holidays.  I had to glitter them, of course!

Another pretty butterfly.  Love!

And here is a look at the entire garland.  You can get a glimpse of one of my very favorite Renoir prints in the doorway!  So I am really pleased with how my garland came out, especially since I had almost all of the materials on hand!
Hope you all have a warm and festive day!!

A Very Parisian Giveaway!

Bon Jour, Mon Amis!

Today my friend Frenchy is hosing a giveaway for me over at her beautiful blog, Le Chateau des fleurs.  I am giving away one of my glittered and embellished Eiffel Tower ornaments to one lucky winner!  Be sure to visit Frenchy for a chance to win!

Au Revoir!

Dreaming of a White Chritmas

Hello and Happy Saturday!
Ok, I am looking at my calendar as I type this, and I just realized that Christmas is 3 weeks from today!  Yikes! Can you believe it??  I am amazed at how quickly the time goes by during the holiday season!

I've been showing you the glittered paper roses that I've been creating to adorn everything from tags to ornaments.  Well, today I'm going to share with you a wreath that I made for my Etsy shop that I've embellished with the roses.  I fashioned the roses from sheets of vintage German sheet music (circa 1970's).  I would love to some day find some French sheet music, though I was more than excited to discover the German music last month at our library's book sale.

Ok, I'm a bad blogger here, as in my excitement to paint and glitter it,  I neglected to take a photograph of this wreath "before"!  I'm sure many of you ladies can relate!  Anyway, the wreath was just ok, nothing terribly exciting, so I took it outside and gave it a dusting of Heirloom White!  Yes, I am fearless when it comes to spray paint, I paint just about everything!!   Since I live in a cold climate, I am losing my window of opportunity to spray paint, though.  I am so envious of you ladies who dwell in warm climates, and can spray paint year round!  Lucky you!!  So, once I was finished with the wreaths (I made two of them), I quickly brought them inside and hung them in our nice and toasty utility room for drying.  Oh, I almost forgot to mention that while the paint was still wet, I gave the wreathes a generous dusting of Martha Stewart glitter!  Outside, of course!!

I really love how the wreathes turned out!  The paint and the glitter gives them the appearance of being dusted with snow and frost!  So ethereal looking, I think!  The addition of the rhinestones in the center of the roses adds even more bling!!

I also added some flocked greenery that I disassembled from a faux swag.  Can you see the tiny little glittered white snowflakes that I also added?  Love!

I think the wreathes would also be pretty used as a candle ring, like I've shown here.  I added them to my Etsy shop, if you'd like to check it out.
Have a great weekend, can't wait to check out all of your blogs from some great Christmas ideas!
I'm linking up with the following wonderful parties!
Funky Junk Interiors SNS
Cottage Instincts Make it For Monday 
BobbyPins Boardwalk Boardwalk Bragfest 
Faded Charm White Wednesday

Joyeux Noel!

Bon Jour Mon Amis!

Hope you all are having a wonderful week, it sure is flying by, isn't it?  Especially when I look at the calendar and realize that I have yet to buy one Christmas present!  Yes, I've not even begun to shop!  I know I need to get rolling, but I've been so busy decorating and crafting, that I've been putting it off!  This weekend I think I will do my kind of shopping:  via catalog and on-line!!

A few weeks ago, I showed you a Parisian inspired Christmas garland that I made.  Well, I just finished another one, but I made it a bit differently than the first.

Glittered Parisian vintage inspired Christmas cards.  Crinkly seam binding, rhinestones, dreamy images.  What's not to love?!

I embellished these with some medallion rosette "thingys", which I had so much fun creating!  I know that many of you ladies have been making these forever, but I finally got around to trying them myself.  They are so fun to make!

Oooh, la, la!!  I added lovely vintage Mother of Pearl buttons to the center, and tiny little rhinestones for some bling!

I embellished each card with rhinestones, and added a border of more of that wonderful seambinding around each one.

I have added the garland to my Etsy shop, which you can see here if you'd like to visit.
Au Revoir for now, hope you all have a Bon Soir! (good night!)
I've linked up with the following great parties!
My Romantic Home Show and Tell Friday 
Remodel Remodelholic's Anonymous 
Beyond the Picket Fence Under $100 Party

Glitter, Sparkle and Shine!

Hello!
It's hard to believe that it's the first day of December, isn't it?! Just 24 more days 'til Christmas.....yikes!!
I hope that you ladies aren't tired of seeing my antique hutch, but I wanted to share with you today how I decked it out for the holidays!

Of course, you know my motto:  You can never have too much glitter!  This rings especially true at the holiday season around our house!

This hutch is one of my very favorite pieces of furniture, and it's usually one of the first areas that I decorate at Christmas.  Let's take a closer peek at what's inside!

Like many of you, I adore mercury glass!  For safety sake, I am using battery operated votives here.  I placed the votives on a little silver tray that was a garage sale find, and tucked in some faux greenery and some tiny little vintage Christmas ornaments.  I would love to find more of these!  I was thrilled to find the ones you see here at an estate sale this summer, for next to nothing!

I really love this cute little tree nestled on the urn, and the silver glittered church is so pretty, don't you think?  I'm not really a red person, so you won't find alot of it at our house at Christmas.  I try and stick mostly with a creamy, green, silver and gold palate.  If it glitters, so much the better!

My mom gave me these pretty glass trees quiet a few years ago.  Not sure if you can tell in this photo, but I have placed them on a little mirror to reflect the candle light of the mercury glass votive tucked in the background.

In this vintage cream urn, I have placed a cluster of decadently beaded grapes. Love!

My vintage silver creamer holds a lovely blue vintage ornament and some greenery.  Love these sweet little birdies!

This bronze lion bank, which belonged to my Dad when he was little, holds a place of honor on my hutch year round.  I like tucking pretty little mirrors here and there to reflect the light.

Cloche love!  When I was unpacking my decorations yesterday, I was so excited to discover this gorgeous glittered cardinal, that I had totally forgotten about!  I bought him last year, I think at Michael's.

See, no such thing as too much glitter!

This urn is another one of my favorite things.  I've filled it with some really pretty glittered green berries and some greenery.

Here's a closer look.

And since everything looks better on a pedestal, I placed this little birdie atop of a glass candlestick.  The ceramic bird actually used to be a different color, but I just had to spray paint him Heirloom White, and add some glitter, too (which isn't showing in the photo).  I didn't want him falling off his perch, so I used a bit of hot glue to attach him and some greenery to the candlestick, which was a thrift store find.  That way, I can easily remove him when I want to, as the glue won't give a permanent bond.

I still want to add some type of garland to the top of my hutch, but I am determined not to buy anything new this Christmas!  I just have way too many decorations as it is!  So that only means one thing:  I must make one!  So now I am off to check out all of your lovely blogs for some ideas and inspirations!  Have a great night!