Dollhouse dreams.

Well ... here is my first purchase for the new dollhouse. I guess they're for scrapbooking (which I really don't do), but they'll look faboo-luss on the dollhouse walls. And they're the same candy colored pastels as the rest of the decor (will be).

Haven't started painting it yet. Gotta get the sandpaper, primer ... it'll happen in the New Year, with updated photos as it progresses.

Polka dog.

I've been making a few plaques for my new apartment lately, and the thing I like about this is that I can make it ANYTHING I want ... which means the exercise of a little creativity ... and that is always, always fun.

And less expensive, too.

This one is an unfinished wood plaque ($1.00), a square of scrapbook paper (less than .50), a homemade dog silhouette (free!) ... et voila. I think it's going to look great on my kitchen wall, got a purple and green thing planned for that area.

Chipmunk's ABC

Aren't these MARVELOUS? From the 1963 Richard Scarry book "Chipmunk's ABC". Can I find space on my bookshelf for this or am I going to have to bite the bullet and just get another one?

Decisions, decisions.

Now that's MY kind of Christmas shopping!

The after-Christmas sales on all holiday merchandise are SO good this year. Seventy percent off of these beauties, bought for a total of about $5.00. I admired the flowered ones enough to buy them, but it's the red ones with horse drawn carriages that made me grin from ear to ear.

I don't have a Christmas tree of "my own", but my roommate has let me share hers for the past few years. By this time next year I expect to have my own place and will be needing ornaments (I've got a few, just not enough). I think a tree with lots of rich red is taking shape in my mind. I like folky/Alpine type motifs, too. I've got some Jennifer Murphy licensed ornaments which have pride of place for me on any tree.

Yay!

A few of my favorite things.

I absolutely adore BBC's series The Vicar of Dibley, positively one of the most hilarious things ever to grace the wasteland that is TV.

Nosing around on the Cath Kidston website this morning, I saw some very familiar flannel pajamas. Couldn't place them, at first ...





... then I remembered The Vicar's glorious and highly unusual wedding ceremony, in which she walks the aisle wearing sleepwear splashed in huge red roses. A little church wedding, the always brilliant Dawn French, Dalek bridesmaids, Cath pajamas, and the very handsome Richard Armitage.

Most EXCELLENT array!

Tea and Happiness.

There's a place in San Francisco called Crown and Crumpet. It's a tea parlor and shop. Judging from these pictures, it is a little bit of heaven on Earth.

Look at those crustless sandwiches, the petit fours, the Cath Kidston-y goodness! If there is an English tea room in heaven, it must have rooms that look like this. There's nowhere here for happiness to hide. It's just ... everywhere.

Wheee.

Thinking pink at Christmas.

Like many people, I grew up thinking that the only colors that counted at Christmas were red and green, with the occasional gold and silver thrown in for good measure. Now that I'm a grown-up, I get a do-over. I can make Christmas look just like what I want it to, in my home and imagination. My latent fascination with pink (which didn't rear its head 'til I was 40) has made its way into my favored holiday palette, and I'm not the only one!

Over at The White Bench (a pretty blog with the CUTEST doggy Santa), I spied these lovelies:

Delightful, aren't they? Thanks to Monica for photo permission.

Leave it to Mary Engelbreit and the Home Companion people to rosy up Christmas in a memorable way, which they've done in the December issue. This is some no-holds barred, fun and fancy Christmas finery -- a kind of birthday party for Christmas itself.