~*~*~ Happy New Year ~*~*~ and a white holiday recap!

Dear blogging friends and readers here's wishing you and your families good luck and good health and lot's of happy moments to enjoy in the new year 2011!

The last weeks were quite hard for our family here with my mom getting diagnosed with Leukemia (CLL) and we all hope for better times to come again in the new year! So personally my biggest wish and hope for the new year is that my dear mama will feel better again soon!

The last 10 days since I was off work for the holidays we did a lot of cocooning over here

Poor Riley had kind of a hard time too because with all the wet snow and the freezing cold outside he was housebound and very bored.

 and we really had a lot of snow in December, more then ever since I can remember here in Bremen.
This was the view out of my front door one very cold December morning:

 The beauty of snowy and/or frosty branches of trees and bushes never fails to amaze me:

Seeing that I had a deep need for relaxation after a very stressful pre Christmas time, I kept indoors most of the time and got busy crafting Winter decorations and Christmas ornaments:

  while we got more and more snow outside every day we came near to Christmas day

The snow inspired me to create snowman ornaments, like this snowman mitten for my mom:

And I made lot's of these little spun cotton snowmen that I glued on Christmas tree candle holders so that you can easily attach them everywhere you'd like to. I put them on my sisters Christmas presents too.

I also started to make old script baubles from blue glass ornaments that I did not like anymore:

Then I was on a roll and glittered more of the paper maché balls that I had painted white before and embellished them with green and red millinery:

I think they really do look like snow balls

and outside it snowed and snowed with no end in sight so we were definitely in for a White Christmas this season which was a real treat and so festive!

Some of the balls and pinecones I painted and glittered hanging on my crystal chandelier to dry:

And while I was at it I also painted and glittered wooden fir trees that I had found in our local arts and craft store and I made some more spun cotton snowmen that can stand this time.

And of course one should never forget to feed the garden birdies while there is so much snow outside!

I took this photo through my kitchen window and the next one too. I always had cosy candle lights burning in the cottage.

Then I tried something that I wanted to try out for a long time and that is making vintage inspired spun cotton icicles, so fun, I just tried it the way I thought it would possibly work, with no tutorial at hand, and was quite thrilled about the outcome:

They look great on the tree and are glistening beautifully in the candle light, meanwhile I made some more for next season already, although I think they belong to the more Winter than Christmas related decorations that can still stay out for at least over the month of January if not February too.

So this is my Christmas tree of 2010 only lit by the deep standing Winter sun in these photos

My flickr friend Marcie pointed out that in the photo above it would look as if the tophat is magically floating over the tree

I think that with the old tophat as the tree topper and the vintage black baby boots underneath the tree it looks as if the tree would start nodding his head and kicking his feet and dancing every moment. Can you follow my imagination or am I the only one seeing it?

Oh and I shall not forget that there was my dear friend Anita's birthday a few days before Christmas and I sent her a parcel with the decorated vintage enamel soap and brush tray above. Anita the sweet heart that she is sent me a Christmas parcel before she left for her annual Christmas vacation far away in the warm sun.

She made me the wonderful bolster cushion out of vintage linen and lace and hand stamped with a french lily and also the enchanting banner made from old postcards printed on fabric:

The next photo I took on Christmas day with all the wonderful gifts my dear family had showered me with put on my round dining room table:

Thankfully my daughter Roxanne made it home from her semester abroad in Buffalo NYS USA on December 23rd and she brought with her the most beautiful Christmas presents for the whole family (in the closest circle with my parents and two sisters, their husbands and kids we are 11 persons). She spoiled us all and my mom and me even got a feather tree something we were both dreaming of for a long time! My parents spoiled me too with some wonderful antiques like another old golden trumpet, a beautiful oval cream colored frame and print and a white vintage ironstone pudding pan

and another big surprise for me was the wonderful old tinsel star my mom found for me (before she got ill) knowing just how much I love old tinsel:

I uploaded some more pictures of the Christmas tree and my Christmas presents etc.pp over at flickr if you are interested in seeing them you can just hop over here.

We had a beautiful family Christmas all together, one that I'm very thankful for and which I will never forget.

I hope your's was wonderful too!!

Now let's see what challenges are lying before us in the new year and let's hope for a good one!

xoxo~ Carola

*~*~ A white vintage Christmas *~*~

Sharing this post from December 2010 with:

http://www.songbirdblog.com/2012/11/the-countdown-has-begun-christmas-inspiration-linky-party/

Welcome back to Boxwood Cottage dear readers and blogging friends! First of all let me apologise for being MIA for so long again, let's just say that after a beautiful October the month of November was just not mine this year. Something very shocking happened to our family which has turned our lifes quite upside down, but there is always hope and light, like in these two pictures from November in which I catched the beautiful sunlight shining into my parlor. These were also the last flowers that I picked from my garden before the frost which came early this season.

I brought my potted rosemary inside this year to protect it from the strong frosts. As you can see when you look through the window it was still quite green outside on November 13th when I took these pictures:

But that changed quickly. The next day we went into the woods and brought home the first signs of Christmas:

Like this mini fir tree - I just like to look at the roots floating in the water:

I also managed to meet up with my sister and the kids and our dear cousin Stefanie this very weekend and we crafted all together and I made my first felt acorns. I'm still not sure if I'm going to glitter them or not.

The next Sunday we attended the last antique market of this year and I brought home all these pretties and some Christmas gifts which of course are still top secret.

Then I started to decorate for the holiday season and Riley always tried his best to help:

I hung snowflakes and paper doilies and glitter stars

in my old transome window - the room divider

and started to decorate my faux white mantle

Always with the view of a White Vintage Christmas in my mind. It was fun to incorporate this years flea finds like the old trumpet into the Christmas decor

and of course I always love to decorate with all the pretties I get in friendship swaps from my sweet flickr and blogging friends

The three old silver German glass tree toppers with leonean wire are all this years flea- and antique market finds

The white paper maché boot I dedicated to my friend Ann from the Tin Rabbitt. When I saw how beautiful and nostalgic dear Ann had decorated a similiar white Santa boot in her wonderful Christmas home I just had to do something like this with one of mine. The glass beaded sticks in the boot are from our swap back in January this year. The old tinsel garland is also from this friendship swap with Ann as well as the paper dove and two of the cream colored bottle brush trees and the gorgeous paper cone. The beautiful paper garland was from my swap with sweet Tina.

The picture above is probably my fave so far. Almost all the bottle rush trees you'll see in these pictures are from either swaps or etsy purchases. The two white feather trees for example are form Brandy's beautiful Brandyvine boutique on etsy. 3 years ago I've got a bunch of bottle brush trees in a swap with Cari and one is from my German friend Julia of Vintage with laces.

It is such a good and soothing feeling to surround yourself with beautiful and meaningful things from other artists and dear friends as well as with old flea market finds with a soul and a history.

Sometimes I make an exception like for these two pretty vintage reproduction bells, but at least they are vintage inspired. The 3 smaller bells are all old flea market finds.

Then when the days got really dark over here a very good family friend came and brought me some light

He knew that I was looking for an old door for a long time now so he went out to find one for me and brought me this pretty and chippy old white door from around 1850.

Of course I had to decorate it for the holiday season at once and call it now my Christmas door and it is a door of hopes too because since I have it things are going much better again then the 14 hard days before. The pretty bottle brush wreath that I hung on my Christmas door is a friendship gift from my sweet friend Madai.

I quite like the doors side by side right now, also I already have some other ideas in mind on where to put it which will come with lot's of rearranging so that will have to wait until the new year.

That's a picture of what the frozen garden looked like in mid November, when I had'nt even found the time to rake the leaves of my maple tree.

Meanwhile it is all covered in a blanket of snow. Which inspired me to make this little fellow, a cotton batting snowman.

Frontgarden:

Backyard:

Right now as we speak it is snowing even more and my darling 90 years old neighbor Bernhard has just shoveled away the snow on my door path and the street way in front of my house for me. He is just the Best!

Since Christmas is approaching fast, I decorated my iron candelaber with lot's of vintage German glass ornaments in silver and white as a center piece of the Christmas table

The Christmas tree is not yet up, in fact we are going to pick it up at the fir tree farm this Sunday (19th) freshly cut (we went there to chose it 3 weeks ago). In Germany the tradition is to reveal the tree on Christmas eve and not before! So that you can see the childrens eyes glowing with delight when they enter the living room and see the beautiful tree with real candles lit in all it's brighteness and glory with pretty wrapped Christmas presents underneath. This is my favorite childhood memory and we are still doing it this way in my family.

Well my dear blogging friends and readers I'm not sure if I'll get around to blog again before Christmas. My daughter is coming back from her semester abroad in Buffalo NY in two weeks time already, initially she had planned to stay another month after the semester is finished and to travel along the east coast to Florida, but now with my mom being ill she wants to be at home with her family for Christmas and I'm very glad about it. I still have a lot of things to do and to finish at home and at work before the 23rd of December when Roxanne comes home and my vacation starts so if we don't hear eachother anymore this year I cordially like to wish all of of you a very peaceful and beautiful Christmas time together with your loved ones!

Enjoy the holidays!

Update Saturday 18th of December: The chances are quite high this year for a white Christmas because it is snowing and freezing still:

xoxo~ Carola

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