Terrific Holiday Mantels can be found here:

Organizing for baking....

This week we are getting ready to tackle some Christmas baking projects.

So I took a quick look through my pantry and gathered up all of the Christmas-themed items we might need~

cupcake liners, boxes, bags, candy sprinkles and decorations.

Now we have everything we need front & center...no digging around!

My day today...

...trying to get these rascals to be semi-serious for about 10 seconds for our annual Christmas card photo shoot.

And a little more decorating....

Can you believe that this week will bring us December 1st already?

I am mostly finished the little decorating projects I wanted to do around our house...except for the Christmas trees.

The martini bar in my living room got a little sparkle last week.

This is how everything looked a month ago:

This week I will need to go through the martini bar and do a little sorting & organizing~

you know~ make sure that all our favourite festive ingredients are stocked.

Candy Cane martinis and Crantinis are so fun at Christmas!

This post is linked to these fun parties:

My Holiday 'Mantel'...

Last Thursday I was determined to finish up my decorating for Christmas.

I went to the basement storage room to dig out some ornaments....and this turned into a full 7 hour basement 'excavation'. I ended up taking 6 boxes of stuff to Goodwill and clearing out 2 bags of garbage.

I never did get the decorating done~ I was too pooped.

The decorating had to wait until Friday morning instead~ this is what I did with the 'mantel'.

I have chosen a theme of sparkly white & silver with accents of blue & green for my indoor decor.

And I have to throw in some natural elements...like branches, a basket and a wool carder.

The pitcher was a spray-painted project from the spring. I kept the branches from Halloween.

Remember how I used it here:

I moved it to the mantel, but added some sparkly snowflakes to the branches for the holidays.

{Snowflakes were 6 in a package from Canadian Tire for .99 cents}

The silver cake stand  that holds the blue & green ornaments is from Goodwill.

The lantern is from Ikea. The sparkly white 'Tis The Season' is from Urban Barn.

I elevated the pitcher for a bit more height with books.

The basket you see is my Grandmother's knitting basket from many years ago.

{It's tall because it's meant for holding knitting needles and yarn.It has crossed my mind to fill the basket with yarn... I still might.}

The wool carder belonged to my great-grandparents~who married in 1899.

My uncle very kindly gave these treasures to me~ and I adore them.

Here was what the 'mantel' looked like for Halloween:

And here it is ready for the holidays:

And to all of you south of the border....Happy Thanksgiving tomorrow!

This post is linked to these great parties:

A Beautiful Gift Idea AND a Worthy Cause....

My friend Grace over at Sense & Simplicity is an amazing Canadian blogger and a wonderfully supportive fellow blogger to the rest of us by always visiting and leaving sweet comments.

I want to share with you her outstanding photography.

And I want to help to support her in a very worthy cause.

Next summer, Grace is giving her time and sharing her professional expertise by traveling to Bangladesh  for a month to help teach in a Speech Therapy program. The program is only four years old and at this point it relies on foreign volunteers to teach the courses. Grace is a Speech-Language Pathologists and is donating time  &  expertise to help train some of the first Speech Therapists in Bangladesh and to supervise student placements.

In order to make this happen, Grace is required to raise enough funds for airfare, for accommodation, and for teaching materials.

One of the ways Grace is raising money is by selling some of her photography projects:

{She does not have a photography business...she does this as a hobby.}

Just take a look at some of her work:

Incredible, right?

I have just shown you the 4 that I plan to purchase for my living room. I have chosen one photo for each season and I plan to change the photo out seasonally as part of a seasonal display.

To see more of her stunning photography, please CLICK HERE.

The prices for her work are very, very reasonable. All proceeds go to support her trip to Bangladesh.

Grace's costs are (in Canadian dollars) $6.00 for Canadian orders, $12 for international orders:
$3 for printing an 8 x 10 photo
$3 for shipping to anywhere in Canada
$9 for shipping to everywhere else

With a donation, say, of $5 per photograph, the cost to you will be (in Canadian dollars):

$11 for Canadian orders ($6 costs + $5 donation). Please add $3 for each additional photograph.
$17 for international orders ($12 costs + $5 donation). Please add $3 for each additional photograph.

So if you are looking for gift ideas for those on your list, please consider some of Grace's amazing photographs!


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