It's Christmas time again!

It's been a while since I blogged, but that's because I was busy with markets and Holiday Craft shows.  Then of course, the baking must be done, the shopping must be accomplished, wrapped and the boxes for family away must be sent.  And the house must be decorated.  And finally it is all done!  Yay!!

Here are the pictures for Christmas 2010.

We had a tiny bit of snow when these were taken.  Right now it's raining, and there isn't much snow in the forecast - in fact there are only flurries forecast for the next week.  It looks like a green Christmas at this point.:-(

This is as you approach the house from the centre of town.

And the Front of the house - you can see the tree through
 the living room window.

The  driveway side.  No flash to see how it worked.
Not so good!
Notice the one bulb out?

And the back of the house!  We don't even need the outside light...hahahahaha

 We've started to replace some of the outside lights with LED's.  The Power Commission had a light exchange on the night of the Christmas Parade, so we took advantage.  So, we have a bit fewer lights on the outside this year.  Some of the strings are quite old and it's harder to get them to work each time, so every year the patterns will be a little different.

Now for Inside!  The decorations are mostly the same - with a few little tweaks.

This is what you see when you come in the back door.
This is the door we use most of the time.
That's the Dining Room turned office through the door beside the fridge.

View from the office doorway beside the fridge.  That window
is on the driveway side of the house.  The hoya has been
moved to the window in the office as it is getting so long.  There
are flower buds everywhere on it!

This is the hall when viewed from the kitchen.
This doorway is opposite the
door to the outside.

Stairs from the front porch.

Steve added some coloured blinking lights to the clear garland lights this year.

Up we go to the second floor.

The village.  We hope to add to it in the future.

Library, complete with the Mabel-Cat!

And down we go again!  Entrance to the Living Room

 We made the most changes in the living room.  We took the stereo upstairs so we could have music up there, and changed the room around.  We put the china cabinet in the office (on the back wall, and no I'm not going to post pictures of that room - it's still a mess!)  We took a cabinet from the office and put it downstairs where we can use the extra shelf space.  It's amazing how much roomier the living room looks and feels now!

And, yes Sarah, that is one of the new lights on the ceiling in the living room.  :-)  We have replace all the old lights now, including the one in the hall (done today) and we just have to switch the chandelier in the office for the chandelier that was in the living room.

View from the hall.

View from the front corner opposite the hall entry.

From the corner in front of the desk.

View from the office doorway.

So that's it for this year.  I hope you enjoyed the tour!

Steve and I would like to wish you all a 

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, 

and may 2011 be the best year ever for you!

Building a Booth

Each spring the Farmers' Markets and Craft Markets around the area get going.  I have been in the habit of spending the first month or so at a Farmers' Market, then moving to the Pictou County Weekend Market in Pictou.  This one is NOT a Farmer's Market - it is a Crafter's Market.  There are a lot of different things, and each year the mix is a little different than it was the year before.  It is a lot of work to organize, and it takes two full weeks to set up all the booths in the Pictou Curling Club - the Market's home.

Each year I try to make my booth more attractive and user friendly.  Last year I added a partition of grid wall panels, and liked it so much that I finished out the walls this year.  It is really quite versatile stuff!  I like how things look, and I believe it is a much more inviting place for my customers both regulars and the tourists passing through the area.


So without further ado, here are pictures of my booth this year, from start to "finish" (as if it can ever really be finished!)

Day one - Bare Walls 8' deep by 14' wide.












First stretch of grid wall - the back.  And of course there is a front and back to it, and I had to change several of them, but not until I was almost done did I notice it.....

More gridwall up - it's starting to look like something, but I don't know what yet...LOL

And here we are at the end of the first day.  The Grid Wall is up.  The panels are 2' wide and either 6' or 7' high (I have some of each.)









Day Two - installing the background fabric.  It's  black broadcloth (polyester cotton - washes like old rags) suspended on curtain rods behind the grid.









The other side.  As you can see, even though the 7' gridwall is there, I'm only draping to 6' or so to keep it uniform.

I've added some shelving - the ladder stands I've been using for a number of years will hold votive candles and soy and paraffin container candles.  The corner shelf will be for things I want to feature or draw attention to.  The shelving got a fresh coat of black paint this year so everything will be coordinated.

This is my corner.  It has my cash register (on an old school desk) and my chair (from the camp!) and where I'll keep supplies away from the view of customers.  I have a 5 drawer plastic storage unit in the back corner.






The Day before Opening!  My Banner is up, the table for my water dispenser is in place, and the shelving is on the wall.

You can see the shelves on the back wall, and the votives in their stand.










The tealights (on the right) and the wax melts (on the left) are in, the testers and lip balms are on the shelves.








The container candles, the signs and the soap labels are up.  The soap is grouped by type into black wire baskets (letter sorters in fact), won't come in until the morning.  But the hardest part is done.








It's Opening Day!  The soap is in place as are the lotions, creams, scrubs and balms.  Of course there were last minute panic moments when I was trying to remember if I had everything with me!
This is one side.







And this is the other.










A little better look at the back wall.










And here is a closer look at the bath and body and soap display.  I like that the black background makes the white packaging pop.

And a closer look at the soap display.  I think it works quite well to have the names of the soap on cards behind them.




So that was opening day.  There were some problems, but we got them worked out - see next.

 One of the problems was that people were staying off the blue step (as this is a curling club, the walkway goes around the entire ice surface.  My booth has 4' of walkway and 4' of ice base surface because it's on an outside wall) and were leaning from there to get closer to the products.  Not good.  I could see someone overbalancing and falling into the soap and that is not a happy thought.  So I went in and brought the back wall forward a couple of feet.  No more problem!


 Bath & body section.










Candle Corner - rearranged a bit.

A bit better view of the entire booth.  Including some plants Steve let me borrow to add some colour to my space.







And now for a few final pictures... just because.

Baskets galore











The whole thing!  The last drapes are up behind the tealights and the tarts.









A few small lights to brighten things up - there are no windows in the building.  And plants for interest.










Soap ends.











Soap savers, foot soaks and bath bombs - new this year.












And me.

Home Gardens too!

Even though we are both busy with our respective businesses, we've found the time (or rather Steve has taken the time - usually late at night) to start putting in gardens for ourselves around the house.  This is a work in progress, and will take a few seasons to complete.  But anyway, here are more pictures!



This is one of the gardens at the front of the house.  We moved the spirea to the side of the stairs, planted tulips, crocuses and hyacinths and it was so nice to see them coming up.  However, at the time this picture was taken, they were past and the summer flowers were starting to come into bloom.  The flower buds on the spirea were coming along nicely, and the lamium was too.












This is the area along the lane.  Eventually it will be all flowers, but we're putting it in in stages.  This is stage two.








There are two lavender plants and a purple liatris at the back, and 5 daylily plants.  We'll add more once we decide what else we want to put in there.  This is a full sun area so whatever goes in there will have to be able to tolerate all that sun.






Here is the start of the herb garden.  The herbs are pretty small right now, but they'll grow.









And more dianthus.  Maybe next year I can find some carnations, though these smell pretty good too.











I call this the strawberry garden.  It has sage and thyme and rhubarb, but it also has about 5 strawberry plants - some left from last year.  We actually got a couple of strawberries, but the slugs and snails got the rest.
And yes, that is a dragon guarding the garden.  :-D



The front of the house, showing both gardens and the potentilla plants out front.  The flowers are a nice cheerful yellow.









And here we are ready for Canada Day!  The hanging baskets have red and white flowers so are very appropriate, and the flag flies all spring, summer and autumn.

Here we have grapevines by the back door.  Until we know exactly where we want them, this is where we put them.  We expect to put them in the garden centre area, probably along a low fence or trellis.  Or maybe even use them as shade for plants needing more shade than is available.  This photo was taken on June 30th, and they had just been repotted from the containers I purchased them in in mid May.

Here is the white grapevine as it was this evening (July 27th).  Less than a month from the picture above and this is what it looks like now!  WOW!  I've never had grapevines before, but Steve has and he says we may even get grapes this year.  This is still not the final place for them, but it will do for this year and next year they will go into their permanent location.



This is my little container garden from last year.  It doesn't look too bad for not doing anything to it this year.   That is Sean's old wagon in the background.  Where it is now is where the Concord (red) grape will go once Steve gets a bit of time to put it in the bigger pot.





 Some pictures of columbine now.  The first two are similar to the one I posted the closeup of in the previous post but not quite the same.  The third picture is one of that original plant, still flowering after a month.  These photos were taken July 27th.

This is one of the daylilies - the Elegant Candy - very pretty!

















 This is Dragon's Blood Sedum just coming into flower.













And this is a closeup of a flower from the Hosta Francee.














On the right is a grouping of Purple Liatris or Gayfeather.  They've just started to come into flower and soon the whole long flower stalk will be purple!
















On the left is a fall phlox.  We have four different colours - white, pink, red (or deeper pink) and this one.  They smell divine!

Last but not least is the Gaillardia or Blanketflower.  Steve started these from seed in the house in early spring.  We had no idea if they would even grow, but he has done a wonderful job - they are just starting to bloom (this is the first one) and they are just magnificently coloured.  The purple flower just below it is a monkshood.  We are really excited to see these plants do so well.  We will undoubtedly do this again!

That's all for this post, and I hope you enjoyed the pictures.  Next post will be about building my booth at the Market.  Stay tuned!