HAPPY NEW YEAR....2011

PLEASE go over to GLORIA'S  HAPPY TO BE blog...
She is throwing me the most
halarious
birthday party....ever !!
THANK YOU, GLORIA, you silly, silly girl, you !
I love ya!! 


 I HOPE YOU ALL HAVE A FABULOUS

NEW YEAR'S EVE...

I sure plan to have a fun one......

'CAUSE....IT'S MY BIRTHDAY...

.

how fun is that to have a birthday on

NEW YEAR'S EVE....

everyone celebrates MY birthday.....;o)

I sure hope they don't put CANDLES on my cake...

73 is just gonna SET THE HOUSE ON FIRE....

WHEW !! GOOD GRIEF...

.GREAT BALLS OF FIRE..

.GOOD GOLLY, MISS MOLLY...

SHA ZAM !

73 !!!

OOOO, I am so blessed to still be here....

 and I am making my very own birthday cake this year..
LUSCIOUS STRAWBERRY  DREAM CAKE...
(the photo is from the net...I will make mine
on Saturday morning...so it will be nice and fresh
FOR THE PARTY....

AND
we always have the BEST party, either on
NEW YEAR'S EVE, my birthday
or
like this year,
on NEW YEAR'S DAY.
*
We are going to a NEW YEAR'S EVE party at our wonderful church and
it is going to be so much fun..
**

HERE I am...

I wore at hat of some kind until I was 2 years old because I was so bald...:))

I was a little roly-poly here....

and of course, this was into 1938....

**

the dress style of  the 30's

and i have ALWAYS loved hats...
but always have looked like a DORK in one.
My mom could always wear one so good...
and my daughter, STACY LEIGH, looks like a fashion model in
every hat she puts on...

OH MY GOSH....

what a PRECIOUS, OLDEN 1937 CAR....

I WANT ONE !!

well....maybe not

" Labor union women on strike against Woolworth Department Stores in 1937.
They won a forty-hour work week and a minimum weekly pay of $20.00. (Library of Congress) ""

aren't those waitresses the cutest things you've ever seen!!

I worked in Woolworths when I was in high school in the '50's...
I loved it.

YEP.... THE Five and Dimes were all the rage
with F.W. WOOLWORTH leading the pack...
.I can remember, years later, loving to roam the isles of the
FIVE AND DIME STORES ...
a lot of the wonderful treasures I have from my mother came from
WOOLWORTH DIME STORE....
*
The dine stores had MUCH nicer things than our DOLLAR GENERALS.

SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS
was released in 1937.....
How amazing !
and MY grandchildren still love it to this very day....

AWESOME..
Cute little SHIRLY TEMPLE starred in
HEIDI
in 1937
The actor, VAL KILMER, shares my
DECEMBER 31 birthday...(well, NOT the year ...DUH !)

Oh, how great he was as DOC HOLIDAY in TOMBSTONE..one of my favorite movies!!

and, SIR ANTHONY HOPKINS is also a
NEW YEAR'S EVE baby...and he was born in 1937, too....

OH MY..... as HANNIBAL LECTER, he just scared the fire right out of me....whew....
************

TONIGHT, WHEREVER YOU GO...WHATEVER YOU DO....BY ALL MEANS...

STAY SAFE.....
remember....
YOU ARE LOVED ....
and...
HAVE FUN !

HAPPIEST NEW YEAR'S EVE...
love, bj

DON'T forget to eat BLACKEYED PEAS on the 1st...for GOOD LUCK the whole year.

*

I'll try to get photos of the party to share next week.

GOOD GOSH...I'll be a whole year older !

A CSN ONLINE STORES REVIEW...

CSN STORES

have just about ANYthing you might want.

I just purchased the RED

PAULA DEEN griddle

and the

heavy BUNDT PAN

with a GIFT CODE from

CSN.

I couldn't wait to try the griddle out..

So I am making

PANCAKES this morning.

In the little RED sauce pan...cherries

cooking to make a delicious

CHERRIES and SYRUP

for my pancakes.

I have a built-in large griddle on my stove top...

...but THIS one is just the right size for two olden people..

and besides that...

IT'S RED !

WELL, HELLOOOO  PANCAKES...

I have a hard time deciding if I love strawberries OR cherries the most..
I am thinking it is WHICHEVER I have at the time..
;)
AND... I did NOT eat all FOUR of these pancakes...I PROMISE !!

MR. SWEET ate part of them..he DID...
.I PROMISE !!

I love making enough pancakes at one time that I can

freeze

a few packages....

so great for a fast breakfast when you can just pop a couple into the toaster.

OOO...

and I removed the JUTE STRING before I froze these, along with a few more.

♥♥♥

That jute string....?

Just makin' the photo cute for you !!♥

OOO, and stay tuned

for the first BUNDT CAKE using the new pan.

**Linking with:
FOODIE FRIDAY

Getting ready for a party...

Before I talk about the party...

...remember all these little tiny Christmas gifts...? tiny, little, cutie boxes ...?

MR. SWEET made 10 genuine turquoise and silver pendents for all

the females in our family.

He put them all on leather necklaces and we all LOVE them.

They look good with anything we are wearing.

He is so sweet...

and so talented.

There's nothing he can't do with his hands.

♥♥♥

NOW, we can talk about the

NEW YEAR'S/BIRTHDAY PARTY

we have every year.

My birthday is New Year's Eve...

♥

We are having the party on SATURDAY, the 1st

this year, as we have another party on

NEW YEAR'S EVE to attend at our wonderful church...

THE CHURCH AT THE BARN

sooo, I am

CLEANING...

ARRANGING...

and re-arranging.

I've not had this shelf in my living room in a long time

and decided it needed to come back for awhile.

I LIKE IT.

*

This is just an inexpensive shelf  but I saw one in a photo with the

rusted iron works on it...

and MR. SWEET put these on MY shelf

and made me fall in love with it all over again...

and I am thinking I just MIGHT have a pretty flower

by the 1st.

I hope

I hope

I hope......

You might recall that I found

a THIRD large, brass candlestick

while thrifting one day..

I painted it in the same SATIN FRENCHY BLACK

and the three look really good in the living room.

I have

"get three candles  ALIKE"

on my shopping list for tomorrow. :)

I took all my plants outside, shook the heck out of them to get rid of dead leaves,

gave them a good drink

and brought them back inside.

They look all fresh and pretty, sitting in my southern windows.

Oh, yes....

I vacuumed and dusted and put things, first here...then there...

I took out books (well, not ALL of them)

and dusted them and the shelves and did

a little re-arranging.

oops...

I changed up my

Ooh LaLa   shelf

and added the sunflowers.

Now, I know that sunflowers don't bloom in the winter time..

but these are FAUX and, I wanted a little color here

for the gaiety of the proposed

FUN PARTY...

so......

why not ?

I added my "I JUST LOVE IT"  sign

and the little thrifted ANGEL that had her hair done with a mixer..:))

Tonight, I got out my VINTAGE locker room basket with all my cookbooks and

I am pouring over them...

I want something really, REALLY great to

serve my wonderful friends. 

If any of you have some favorite snacks that you like to serve at parties,

would you kindly let me know?

**

Linking with

VINTAGE THINGY THURSDAY

VINTAGE INSPIRATION FRIDAY

FRIDAY FAVORITES

TICKLED PINK FRIDAY

SHOW AND TELL FRIDAY

My thanks to all the hosts.

SOME of my 2010 projects..

VERY LONG POST
WITH
MANY PHOTOS.

ANOTHER GREAT

TOP PROJECTS
 PARTY OVER AT

RHODA'S SOUTHERN HOSPITALITY

♥

INSPIRATION:

NOUN: a. Stimulation of the mind or emotions to a high level of feeling or activity.

b. The condition of being so stimulated.

********************

We get our decorating inspiration from a lot of different places and

one of MY favorites, besides blogs..

is from magazine and CATALOGS...

namely....POTTERY BARN..

I LUV their style.

I do, however, find a lot of LOOKS that I love in other catalogs.

I have a very long, narrow entry hall...this cottage was built in 1957...
*
For some reason, I didn't think I could "decorate" this area very much..
THEN, when I saw the picture in the upper left corner from a movie,
I thought, "hey, I bet I CAN do something cute in here."
After layering items with texture, interest and charm,
I LIKED my hallway MUCH better.

THEN, I purchased this small chandy from CSN

and....

MR. SWEET was sweet enuf to install it for me.

(so, really, this is HIS project :)

Not a big project by any means, but the new light fixture

gave our little narrow entry way just a tad more personality. :)

POTTERY BARN TABLE...
$399.00

A pretty good copy....and a WHOLE lot cheaper...$15 bucks....
and I had such fun finding the drop-leaf table,
stripping and finishing it...

I love THIS look so much...
and I had a nice long table, almost JUST like this one..
but NO shelf full of CUTENESS...
and no room to really hang it, even if I did have a shelf.

When I found this little PIGEON HOLE SHELF at Goodwill for just a few dollars,
I thought that I might could get a LITTLE close to
\THE LOOK...

When I got it all dressed up, I JUST LOVE IT....
It's very small ......but still gives me the layering look I so love.

I have a lot of fun, changing it up often...

REAL often.

POTTERY BARN CHRISTMAS WREATH in the left square...
mine in the lower right....
this project was actually at the very end of '09
so I included it again.

Tearing apart an olden fallish wreath,

I fashioned a much prettier one to have

for this last fall.

Mr. Sweet really liked this one so, of course, that made me feel very tickled.

THEN,

THE NUMBERS kick hit me and

I wanted numbers on EVERYthing...

Knowing that I am a very fickle soul,

instead of painting numbers ON the baskets,

I used the vinyl  numbers and put them on labels....

so when I tire of them, I can just take those numbers right off

and not mess up my pretty baskets...

These olden canisters just didn't go well with the

black and white

tile back splash Mr. Sweet did for me in '09.... 

SOOO, when I found these adorable, plain white canisters,

I nearly freaked out...

an entire set plus 2 extras

all for $15.00....

...and they, VERY soon, began to play

the numbers game.....

Oh, yes, and there was the

black and white guest bedroom that I had

SUCH A BLAST doing. 

I was....AND am, very proud of the way this one turned out.
I went into it, wanting a warm, bed and breakfast look
and it worked out great.

I'm sure a lot of you remember THIS makeover/project

because

I FREAKED !

*

Not one for loving a lot of natural wood, I had never really

liked my dining room all that much.

I kept a cloth on the oak table all the time...just covering up so much wood.

Oh,

I mentioned, softly, that I would like to PAINT it AND the matching chairs..

Mr. Sweet's eyes started to roll each time I mentioned it... 

AND THEN THE ANGELS SMILED ON ME...

a good friend was going to sell her off white, creamy, dreamy chairs...

all 6...

for $150.00..

OH HONEY

It's been almost a year and I STILL catch my breath when I go into the room..

:))

and...I even like my brown table much better now.

 I also added vintage louvered swinging doors to each side of the

beautiful and treasured quilt my mother made for me so many many years ago.

 The bench beneath the quilt was made by
MR. SWEET...
one for both sides of the table when we need extra seating.

Our dining room is my very favorite room in the cottage.

That dining room makeover left me with

4 ugly brown chairs but very sturdy and

I always loved that they all 4 had arms.

Nothing to do but give them a coating of the best french black paint

and add black and white checked cushions..

WE LOVE 'EM...

they make wonderful chairs to pull up for extra seating any time.

You have seen this picture so many times, I can hear you screaming right now !!

THIS IS MY NEXT PROJECT..

I have all my bedding needed to make my Guest Room No. 2

pretty and full of charm and personality...(i hope)

I have to strip wallpaper border, repaint and have new flooring added..

This will be my FIRST project for the fabulous year coming....

2011.

I am sooo excited about starting a brand new, fresh year..

It is going to be GOOD...

there is no doubt. 

I am sorry this post was so long..

I didn't even include some of the other projects around

SWEET NOTHINGS

for the year 2010.

I didn't realize there were so many.

I sure have had fun with them and the good thing....

I NEVER run out of ideas of things I want to do to make our home special.

That's a GOOD thing.

♥♥♥♥♥

I also am linking with:

REDNESDAY

BORING TO BEAUTIFUL WEDNESDAY

My thanks to all the hosts.

HAVE A SASSY DAY...

bj