making the rounds.

christmas has always been a big deal in my family. my childhood is filled with memories of christmas crafts and helping my mums pull down the boxes filled with ornaments and other goodies. i was always super excited to get started, but like most children, my attention span only lasted about 7.4 minutes. luckily my mums had enough motivation to single-handedly complete the days long task of decorating. the collection of goodies has grown through the years...these days christmas takes over the entire house, inside and out. every nook and cranny houses a snowman, santa, or christmas tree. there are festive towels, napkins, and dishes. and the pièce de résistance is the christmas village, which sits atop the rock wall between the living room and kitchen. all of this probably sounds a bit gaudy, but i assure you it is not. it is a sight to behold.

mums is the only person patient enough to properly adorn the tree with lights.

other than my two years in the peace corps, i have spent all of my christmas' at my parent's house. i guess knowing that i will be in the midst of my mums' festive house explains why i have not taken to decorating my own house. plus there is the minor conundrum that i have no place to store my decorations the rest of the year. but this year i decided that at the very least we should have a wreath on our door. i had only two requirements...it had to be perfect and inexpensive. oh and if i had to make it myself it had to be relatively easy, because i am supposed to be working on a thousand other projects. no problem, right? ummm...sure. except other than knowing i wanted something fun and modern, i was not exactly sure what i considered the perfect wreath. 

some lovely wreaths. clockwise from top left: contemporary wool felt wreath by pinno, warmest greetings wreath by anthropolgie,  peppermint red berry christmas wreath by stylish stems, glitter berry wreath by pier 1, modern wreath by itsnick, and sweet fabric wreath by jane joss.

and then out of the blue a fellow blogtress, mrs. nipper knapp, posted a picture of some adorable flowers she had made. how lucky for me that when i asked for flower instructions, despite my not mentioning i wanted to make a wreath, she directed me to this felt wreath tutorial!! soooooo perfect. i jumped in my car, raced off to michaels, procured the necessary supplies, and came home to make my wreath. i even got the mister involved making little balls of yarn, so that i would be able to wrap my wreath. the finished product was more perfect than even i could have imagined.

the flowers all cozy together.

voila!!

of course i forgot to buy ribbon to hang the wreath (oops). i tried to use fishing line, but the felt flowers are surprisingly heavy and the thing was hanging kind of wonky. i switched tactics and made a braid with some of the leftover yarn. naturally our door is metal, so simple things like a thumbtack in the top of the door were not an option. i had to dismantle one of the mister's hangers to make an over-the-door hook. but in the end, the whole thing worked out and if i do say so myself it is perfect-O!!

nitrocellulose cotton.

nail polish is somewhere on my list of the top ten products available in the consumer world. i love nail polish. and when i say love, i mean L-O-V-E, love. i am not sure how many bottles i have purchased in my lifetime, but the number certainly reaches into the hundreds. this obsession started when i was a child. for most of my life i avoided makeup, but nail polish always held me in a trance. throughout my adolescence i painted my nails regularly. by regularly, i mean three or four times a week. if i was wearing a red shirt, there was a good chance i was compelled to have red nails. right. between all of my daily activities and responsibilities, finding time for this kind of fingertip upkeep was a challenge. but then i discovered that i could paint my nails in bed and let them dry as i slept. perfect-O!!

but one thing impeded this process. the female parental unit. apparently when my mums said 10 o'clock was my bedtime, she meant that i should go to sleep at that time, rather than get in bed and paint my nails at that time. she was like a hound dog on a trail the way she could smell the nail polish all the way from the kitchen, but when she would come to check on me i would be laying on my stomach with my arms under my pillow - surely i had not just painted my nails? a few years ago i finally confessed and told my mums all about how i circumnavigated her bedtime rules. i put my arms under my pillow with my hands sticking out the other end. then i painted my nails and went to sleep. when mums came to check on me, i appeared to be sleeping on top of my hands, which from her view would mean that there was no way i had just applied polish. right. as you can see, my desire to decorate my nails far has always hovered in the realm of ridiculous.

i am sure you will not be shocked to know that despite yearly attempts to jettison the excess, my hoard of bottles had grown rather large. about three years ago, in order to avoid spending my entire salary on little glass bottles of goodness, i resolved to forcibly subdue the alarming growth of the collection. i instituted a few restrictions. i could only purchase a single brand. the winner? maybelline express finish. the rules? i had to throw away every bottle that did not fit the single criteria. whilst shopping i can buy as many bottles as i want, as long as it is this one brand. gifted bottles are not subject to the criteria (i just invented this glorious rule, because one of my lovely friends gave me a bedazzling assortment of juicy colors for christmas!!). so far so good.
the restrictions have certainly curtailed my purchasing, especially since maybelline hardly ever introduces new colors. grrr. if i had known of this in advance, i likely would not have selected this brand, although this fact has certainly alleviated my inclinations to constantly hunt for new hues. the current stockpile consists of only thirty five different colors. an adequate assortment to keep me amused and a small enough quantity that it all fits in a single drawer. but now rather than spend all of my time choosing which bottle to buy, i spend all my time determining which color to wear. since i am almost never without my painted nails, this is a weekly debate. seriously time consuming, especially as i am hampered by my own indecision. i put a different color on each finger and then make a selection. i color my nails with that selection and almost without fail i change my mind. it is a painful process. luckily i have a color consultant, miss pumpky. she does not seem to tire of issuing color decrees and never fails to provide these judgments instantly and decisively. thank goodness!! tonight's verdict? hot pink. apparently its going to be an exciting week.