Of Mice and [Snow]Men

First, I want to apologize for abandoning the Scrap Basket Sunday crew.  I haven't done much in the way of scrap sewing in the last month or so and I don't envision much of that going on between now and Christmas, so I thought I'd just take a little break until after the holidays.  I hope you all don't mind--I suspect most of us are pretty busy this month anyway.

I can't believe how quickly my week off work went--and still it seemed I had no time to blog or sew.  I'm not sure how decorating for Christmas can take a week, but it sure did.  Maybe it's the planning and sorting through the decorations that takes a lot of time, along with untangling light strings and garland.  Or knowing you have something SOMEWHERE that would be perfect if you could only find it amid the rest of the decorations.  Of course, it was always a fun surprise to find a couple "treasures" at the bottom of a box of decorations, but then plans had to be adjusted to incorporate the finds.  And, I admit, there was a day of shopping, and another day spent visiting two local craft fairs, along with a little visiting with friends.  Now, here it is, Sunday evening and it's back to work tomorrow.

In my last post, I showed you the snowmen ornaments I'd made, so I thought I'd show you what I've done with them.

This is my kitchen tree this year--I'm calling it Of Mice and [Snow]Men.  The last couple of years, I've had peppermints and candy canes all over the kitchen, but this year, a photo in a magazine of blue transferware dishes mixed with red and white Christmas decorations called to me, as did Anne Sutton's cute pattern for the snowmen balls.  Yes, I have blue transferware.  Yes, my kitchen has blue wallpaper.  And yes, this color scheme would make for a better transition from the way I've decorated the living room--I'll show you that another day.

Ever since Stitch brought a mouse home a few years ago (which I finally caught and released a month or two later), I've "collected" mouse ornaments when I came across them.  This year I added to that collection with a purpose in mind--they would join the snowmen on the kitchen tree.  Here are a couple of closer views.

And there are other snowmen and mice around the kitchen.  Here are a few more photos:

 
The old dresser is devoted to Santa although an old plastic light-up snowman flanks the area.

My kitchen hutch is a dark green and sometimes the things I put in it don't show up very well.  To solve that problem, in the past I've used wrapping paper affixed with tape to the back of the hutch.  This year, though, I used fabric--I didn't have wrapping paper to give me the look I wanted, but I sure had plenty of fabric!

At the Wild Child's house, after our Thanksgiving dinner, we decorated gingerbread houses--I brought mine home along with Soccer Son and his Lovely Wife's--you can see both of them in the corner of the counter.

This little tree is the last one I decorated, and it's coming to work with me tomorrow.

I'll be back when I can to show you some of the other decorations.  See you then!