Merry Christmas to All!

As friends and family arrive, we are having a wonderful time reconnecting and laughing. We are off to church in a few hours and then more Christmas celebrations. 

I am taking time off to spend with family and friends so I wanted to take a moment to wish everyone a Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas to All

and to all

a Good Night!

May the joy of the holidays be with you and your family.

See you in the new year.

Dressed Up Dollar Tree Bells

Only 4 more days until Christmas. I hope you have all of your shopping done. Mine is finished and wrapped and under the tree. Yeah! We arrived at our other house last night and finished up some last minute decorations. I am sharing  another Christmas decoration on the cheap. You saw a sneak peak of it hanging from my wire baskets.

Cheering up the light

I am continuing my Christmas decorating on the cheap at our other home. I made the JOY banner, the book page banners for the windows and now for the dining room light. 

This was very easy and rather cheap. I saw this light decorated on Pinterest for Christmas and for some reason it stayed with me. So when I had finished my banners, the light looked so plain. I still had some berries left and the light called to me.

Decorating on the Cheap!

I told you last week about trying to decorate our other home for Christmas on the cheap with my JOY banner made from vintage doilies. I am here today to show you another idea for Christmas decor - my book page banners. These book page banners are not new since you can find them all over Pinterest. However, when you are trying not to spend too much money on decorations and have old books - they are a perfect fit.

Adding the holidays to wire baskets

In many parts of the country, the hanging baskets have been put away. However, here in Florida, mine stay up all year. Usually this time of year, I don't have potted plants in my baskets since the selection is minimal with holiday flowers in demand. So what to do with those wire baskets?

Decorate them of course.  Many of you have pine trees where you can get fresh pine, but here not so much or at least not the good kind. I went to Home Depot and they had two carts filled with pine branches that they trimmed off the trees and said I could have all I wanted. Yeah!! 

Free pine branches are added to wire hanging baskets.

December Chain Linky CLIMB

Is it my imagination or is December flying by. I guess it is all the excitement of the holidays. So much to do so little time!

Let's take a little time out today to join this weeks Chain "Linky" CLIMB. I am so excited to be a co-host this week and see all of the fabulous ideas you have been working on. Check out the great prizes below and don't forget to add your family friendly blog posts. Please take a little time to check in with other bloggers to help each other grow their blog. See you in the Climb!

Tweet #ChainLinkyCLIMB
<a href="http://www.godsgrowinggarden.com/p/chain-linky-climb.html" rel="”nofollow”" target="_blank"><img alt="God’s Growing Garden" src="http://i1145.photobucket.com/albums/o501/AngieOuelletteTower/Sponsors/Climb200_zps6c2cafff.jpg" /></a>

  WELCOME! It's the month long Networking Blog Hop  With our 14th CLIMB GIVEAWAY! Networking means helping each other grow!!  If you want to promote a CLIMB link, then use #ChainLinkyCLIMB on Twitter or Google+ so that we can all help each other grow! Here's how the Giveaway & Co-hosting works - the co-hosts from the previous month's CLIMB will have the opportunity to participate in a Giveaway during the next CLIMB - that gives co-hosts 2 months in a row of blog growing fun!!  (If you would like to co-host please sign up at the end of this post using the last "Linky")  Please enter below -one person will win:

- $25 Paypal Cash from Sew Crafty Angel & from Cuddlebug Cuties 

- 1 Ad Space on A Peek Into My Paradise for 30 days - $30 value

- Turbo Sponsor Spot on 100lb Countdown - $10 value
- $20 Gift Certificate to Helen's Etsy Shop - HFernsOriginals

- 1 Medium Ad Space on The Myrabev Life - $10 value
- 1 Medium Ad Space on A July Dreamer - $10 value

- 1 Monthly Ad Space on God's Growing Garden - $15 value
- A beautiful Red Seaglass & Rhinestone Cherry Necklace by ShorelineDesigned - $20 value
- "My Cookie Creation Countdown" ebook - $3 value
- "Making Your Own Cedar Roping or Pine Garland" ebook - $2 value
- "G.K.C.C. Gourdon Kringle Christmas Company" Children's Picture ebook - $4 value
- a beautiful handmade "Coffee Cozy"($5 value)  by Kaitlyn from Three Sisters & Us

Coffee Cozy by Kaitlyn from "Three Sisters & Us"

PICKED SWEET CHERRIES NECKLACE
Rare Red Seaglass from Lake Michigan and Sparkly Rhinestone High Quality Cherry Charm on Silver Bail and Chain Necklace
Red seaglass/beachglass is a rare find - and I found this one in Lake Michigan near Traverse City which is the Cherry Capital of the World!  I have carefully drilled the red beach glass into a bead to daintily dangle along with a sparkly sweet cherry rhinestone charm from silver and red jumprings from a silver slide-bail onto a silver chain. Even the lobster clasp is large for ease of use and is quality stainless steel connected to a cute tiny tag steel connector.  The chain undone end to end is 21 inches, and as worn including seaglass/cherry charm will hang 12 inches.
by ShorelineDesigned

Photo by Helen Fern

Gift Certificate to "H Fern Originals": (shop description) "My goal is to provide you with quality greeting cards and photographs at an affordable price. I have experienced each image you see and tried to capture the feeling in the photograph.   Please look around, send me comments - both praise and suggestions - and feel free to ask me any questions. ."

All 3 of these ebooks by Angie Ouellette-Tower


Total prize value is $154!!

CLIMB Giveaway Rules & Conditions: - this is open worldwide (void where prohibited) - You must be 18 years or older to enter  - You MUST have a blog to win the Ad spaces (otherwise these will become a second place prizes)

- You must live in the lower 48 of the United States to win the Necklace & the Cozy (otherwise these will become  second place prizes)
- Any tax or shipping costs going above the amount of any gift certificate will be the winner's responsibility
- You MUST have a valid PayPal account to win the Paypal Cash (otherwise these will become a second place prizes)

- This Giveaway is open from December 1st, 2014 until December 21st, 2014

- Winner must respond to email within 48 hours or a different winner will be chosen

- Giveaway Hosts & Co-hosts can NOT enter this Giveaway!, however - DECEMBER 2014 CLIMB blog hop co-hosts ARE allowed to enter this Giveaway (provided they are not also part of the Giveaway)

- correspondence is done through email and the winner's email addresses will only be used to deliver or set-up e-prizes.  Email addresses will NEVER be sold or shared.

- All prizes will be delivered by the contributing Bloggers/Shop Owners.

- if you have any questions or concerns about this Giveaway please email one of the hosts:

Angie:  angeliquetower@gmail.com

Angel:  sewcraftyangel@gmail.com

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Now onto the CLIMB (blog hop): We have changed it up a bit - instead of linking your homepage you may now link up to 4 of your family friendly blog posts per month!!

 

By participating in this blog hop your understand that your link might be promoted on social media.  Also, by participating in this blog hop your email address will be added to our CLIMB list & you will be sent an email reminder next month. 


Remember - If you co-host you will receive a free Weekly Sidebar Ad and your blog button will appear on both Angie's blog & Angel's blog!!
(The Ad will run live a few weeks after you have co-hosted)

Sign up to receive emails about the CLIMB

Vintage Doilies Make JOY Banner

We all know that Christmas is a joyous time. The music, shopping, baking, decorating and wrapping presents. Not to mention parties and quests. I love this time of year. However, a slight twist was added. Instead of having Christmas here in Davie, we decided to have it at our home north of Orlando. No problem, until my daughter who is flying in from California said, "are you decorating the house"? Yikes! Both houses?

Usually, we just put up outside lights. Now I have to do the inside. I went through some of my decorations to see what I could use up there, since I had already decorated the house here, not much. I decided to make as many decorations as I could. I did not want to buy enough stuff for two homes. 

So this JOY banner was my first creation.

Finding our Forever Home

We see ads on TV for Christmas presents for our furry friends and I have to admit that I am guilty of spoiling my pets. You know you have it bad when your husband calls from Italy and asks, "How are the kids?" I hope I am not alone here and that some of you feel the same way about your pets.

Although my pets have a special home, many dogs and cats don't. They are abused, stuck in crates in shelters hopeful that they will find their forever home. 

Green Enchilada Pork Chili

How do you decide if you want to make a particular recipe? Is it the name - decadent chocolate brownies would call my name. Or maybe a picture of a luscious prime rib. I do a little of both.