A Christmas Cloche Party

I forgot to upload this so I am going to add it. After all, t'is the reason for the season.

December sure is a month for parties, isn't it? This time it is a Christmas cloche party hosted by Marty. Go to her site at http://astrollthrulife.blogspot.com/2009/11/mosaicmet-monday-deck-halls-tues.html and you will see her cloche collection along with her list of participants' entries.

I love this picture! I love the reflection of the white Christmas tree on the window.
As soon as Marty announced that she was having a party on this day, I immediately got busy so I could attend. And here are all my contributions. I hope you enjoy them!

A salt and pepper set of cardinals with a candle holder with a cardinal painted on it is sitting on our game table in the family room.
I had different sizes of cloches on the kitchen nook table after I created them before Thanksgiving. It was really too early to display them so I just kinda stored them there. Some of them are still there but I have distributed a few around the house.

The wire cloche has a candle holder with 2 snowmen in it.I like this view where it shows the Nativity wreath in the background.

This cherubim in a cloche is sitting on the lazy susan of our round kitchen table, in front of the fireplace. It is still too warm to put fire in the fireplace.

And these 2 cloches are outside by the pool picnic table. I placed some faux plants, that look very realistic, inside them so that I can look at some greenery after the leaves of the trees are all gone.

I hope you enjoyed the cloche party. Glad you could come!

Platinum and Black Diamond

Susan is hosting Tablescape Thursday. You will see her post and her participants at http://betweennapsontheporch.blogspot.com/ so be sure to stop by there.

I am post dating this because I will be very busy preparing for a trip for the Oasis of the Seas. You might have seen it on TV because they have been featuring it. It is the largest in the world and we are sailing on its maiden voyage. I will take a lot of pictures to share with you when I get back. It is supposed to be a real incredible ship with lots of special features.

Black diamonds and platinum, my favorite items, after all the diamond is my birthstone and it is a girl's best friend and both inspire this tablescape.

I fell in love with this coffee and tea set when I saw it on Ebay. It is Victorian, (circa 1850-1899), electroplated silver on nickel. Just look how shiny it is and I did not even polish it. I showed it to dh and asked him how much I should bid on it to win it and he said at least $700. I did not even get close to that cause I won the set at $122.50. Yipee!
Do you see the pool through the kitchen?

I used different kinds of crystal and a silver candle holders for elegance and ambiance and a white embroidered table runner I bought from Horchow a while back but have not used it till now.

Sequined placemats, silver plate chargers, plain black dinner plates I bought from Big Lots for $1 a piece and Biltmore's "Holland Platinum" salad plates I bought from Belz at 75% off add to the elegance. The design and quality of the salad plates are exquisite. I think I ended up paying a little over $5 for each of them. I really like the platinum medallion on them. The flatware came from Marshall's and TJ Maxx. I found them first at TJ Maxx but they were down to one last box with a set of 4 so I went to Marshall's and luckily found another last box of a set of 4.

I bought the orbs at Ross at the same time I bought the hurricane candle holders and I thought mixing the designs will add more centerpiece interest. I also found the mercury silver votive candle holders with a bling there. I paid $2.99 for a set of 3.

All the pieces in the teaset are all marked EPNS

at the bottom.I just love with the bird finials and the filigree scroll etchings.

I bought the pewter peacock napkin holders from Ebay also. At least I think they are pewter, they're heavy. I bought 8 and tried to bargain with the seller and asked for a quantity discount cause they were quite pricey. Anyway, I really like them. Doesn't he just look so regal?.

The salad plates are made by Biltmore in Holland Platinum pattern. Isn't the medallion pretty?

A close up of one of the crystal candle holders. The short silver candle holder on its right is a Sheffield.

The black stemware is called "Black Diamond". I like the crystal ball

above the stem. The clear and platinum wine glasses are Italian made. I hope you enjoyed seeing this as much as I enjoyed putting it together. Your visits are always highly appreciated.

Thank you Susan, for allowing us to play and have fun on our tables again.

Panorama

Our host for Outdoor Wednesday is Susan. Check out her outdoor pictures at http://asoutherndaydreamer.blogspot.com/. You will also get to her participants' sites from there.

I was not planning to participate today because I am extremely busy. I am getting my mom ready and packed to go to St. Louis in 2 days, for my other sister's turn to watch her since I am going on a trip, so I am packing for myself too, not to mention getting all my Christmas decoration, shopping and wrapping done. On top of that, my mom got sick yesterday and you know when a 91 year mom gets sick, it makes us nervous. But amazingly, she woke up this morning normal. Prayers are so powerful, I tell ya!

But my new camera came and I got so excited that I just have to share some pictures with you. I bought, or actually depleted my Sony Visa rewards, to get a Sony DSC-TX1 digital camera which has a sweep panorama mode. I want to have it for my trip since we are cruising on the biggest ship of the world and I would like to capture its size and features as much as possible, on camera.

So to test it, I went out to take these pictures.

I think they are pretty cool, don't you? Thank you Susan, for allowing me to share these photos on Outdoor Wednesday and thank you all for coming for a visit.

Christmas!!! Coming so Soon?

I am so happy because I accomplished a lot at home these past few days. I was able to put up 5 Christmas trees and decorated a little. So, I would like to share all my hard work with you and decided to join Mary of http://dearlittleredhouse.blogspot.com/ for Mosaic Monday. And I am also very excited to join a brand new party, Deck the Halls, which gives us a chance to show off our Christmas decor. Susan of http://thoughtsfromovertherainbow.blogspot.com/ is hosting this fun event so come on and join and also visit these 2 lovely ladies and their participants.

I am only showing a few of what I have done. This way, I can join more parties in future Tuesdays.

When you come in through our front door, our carolers will greet you in the foyer. My sister gave them to me for Christmas in July 3 years ago. I found the lantern in a yard sale last month and it costs me $10. It still had a tag of $89.00 on it.

In the living room, I have this pair of lanterns that we won at an estate auction. I really like them. They have claw feet. The lit wreath is a Thomas Kinkade with a Nativity on it.

Now, let's go see more by visiting the hostesses and their participants.

Thanks a lot for coming by! I hope you all have Happy Holidays!

Announcing the 200Th Post Winner Makes Me Happy!

Sorry I am a little behind in announcing the winner. But I had top make time today to cut up all the comments and for the followers, I wrote their names also on a separate paper for their 2nd entry. Then, my mom and I rolled the papers.
I mixed them all up and then I asked my mom to pick one.

Can believe that she picked Kerri of http://princessmommychronicles.blogspot.com/? LOL! Sorry, Kerri, your dad said you are disqualified because you are family. LOL! For those who do not know, Kerri is my stepdaughter.

So, I asked my mom to pick another one.

And we have a legit. winner this time and it is Kathy of http://kbeau.blogspot.com/. Congrats, Kathy! I hope you like my give away.

I also got 2 awards from Maria of http://personalizedsketchesandsentiments.blogspot.com/. Sorry, Maria, I am so behind in posting these awards but I want you to know that I really appreciate you thinking about about it when you gave away the awards.

With the Happy 101 award, I am supposed to list 10 things that make me happy. It really does nto take much to make me happy but here are 10 of them.

1. Announcing my 200th post giveway makes me happy.

2. Seeing our kids and grandkids makes me very happy.

3. Having my friends over

4. Shopping

5. Going on a cruise relaxes me and therefore, makes me happy

6. Decorating and tablescaping are 2 of my favorite things to do at home so they make me happy.

7. Going to auctions with my hubby makes me happy.

8. Traveling and shopping with my sisters

9. Playing guesstures

10. Karaoke, singing with my friends and kids.

Maria also gave me a "You're the Sweetest Award". Thank you so much, Maria! You are so sweet. And I would like to pass the award to all my followers too because you are all very sweet.

Thanks again!

Pinks for Pay It Forward and Roatan Island

Pink Saturday is being hosted by Beverly at http://howsweetthesound.typepad.com/my_weblog/ and Met Monday is hosted by Susan at http://betweennapsontheporch.blogspot.com/. I hope you will visit them after you view Sightseeing Saturday below.

It is such a busy week that I decide to combine these 3 posts. I hope you don't mind and enjoy them instead.
Aside from the holidays, I have been busy shopping for my Pay It Forward gifts, not to mention preparing the package for my 200th post giveaway. I will announce the winner on Thurdays.

My friend Nit and I went to Alexandria today to go shopping. We went to Hobby Looby and I saw these green simple mini wreaths. An idea came to my head and I bought 3 of them and also bought little pink balls and tiny fuschia balls.

I strung the balls to the wreath and this is how my first one turned out.

Do you like it? I hope my PIF recipients like it cause each of them is getting one among other things.

To my PIF recipients, if you prefer the plain one, you can just take out the trimmings, lol.

And here are all 3 of them.

I hope you enjoyed my mini metamorph. and pinks.

Well, of course I did not forget to take you on a trip.

Today, we will go to Roatan Island. Roatan Isl. is 30 miles off the coast of Honduras. It is not very big, only approximately 4 miles wide and 33 miles long.

We went on a cruise and when we docked on the port, these natives greeted us with their lively dancing.

Here is the traveling trio awaiting for the tour bus to pick us up. We decided to go snuba diving.

The scenery is breathtakingly beautiful, with the mountains overlooking the Caribbean Sea.

We went to Gumbalimba Park where they had monkeys and parrots. Do you see AJ on the suspended rope bridge? I wouldn't go there because seeing the water below made me nervous. I wanted something solid to step on but AJ is very adventurous.

AJ and John went for a swim before we all went snuba diving. Snuba is a combination of scuba diving and snorkeling. We were given a 20 ft. airline which is connected to a scuba tank mounted on a raft at the water surface. The raft followed us so we always had air and we could breath under water. We also had a professional diver with us. But in spite of all these, I was nervous so I stayed up swimming on the surface holding on to AJ's line so I could pull her up in case something happened to her. But she was fearless. The moment we got in the water, she dove right in, all the way to the bottom while I watched her from the top, lol. Sorry, I have no pictures to show you because we had to leave our cameras in the locker room.

After swimming, we walked through the botanical garden where they had many colorful exotic birds and monkeys.

We had a fun excursion. I hope you had fun following along too. Thanks for joining me on another tour.

Thanks to Beverly and Susan for hosting more fun events.