Falling for Fall Colors

Among all the craptastic things Hurricane Matthew brought with him (fortunately not for us; we just had to survive five days without electricity), fall was the best. The days following the big storm have simply been beautiful: bright blue skies, lovely breezes, lower humidity, and - best of all - cool nights. Fall in Florida!

That's the time of the year I think my house loves best - its colors just belong into this season. Earthy fall colors to celebrate the Craftsman detail and lines on our house, warm and inviting. Picking those colors were a decision we did not regret one bit!

This past weekend I tackled a project which was delayed by Hurricane Matthew: painting the front door and touching up the paint job in those areas that were dedicated to our accent color (chocolate brown so we're looking at you crag stones and top rails).

After five years our front door is now a rich chocolate brown, and gosh, do I love it! It's one of those little projects you wish you'd tackled sooner. We loved the red, but it just didn't -reeeeally- go with the new color scheme (but life got so crazy it was one of those things that was easily pushed waaaaaay to the back burner).
An hour later, this is what the front looked like. It seriously reminds me of a chocolate bar, and it's just as delicious! Best husband ever doesn't quite get my excitement, but he does love it too.

And because we're slowly but surely approaching Halloween the front wreath got a little make-over too. Two sprigs of fake flowers from the dollar store, a pack of plastic eye balls, and some hot glue! Voila! Peekaboo, I We see you!

A Little Bit Of Christmas

Thanksgiving zip-zoomed right by, and 'ere we realized Christmas came to town! Life has been busy at the Little Old House, not so much with home improvement projects but rather with cleaning up and hiding all of the signs of a 'work in progress' ie random tools, screws, nails, sanding paper, paint cans, brushes, and more and cleaning the house to prepare for the arrival of family staying with us over the holidays.

One by one the holiday decorations are going up: first the door wreath gets a new look, and then, slowly, it spreads through the house, adding lights here, an ornament there.

A traditional Advent wreath takes up the place of honor on the dining room table (and gets moved around a lot because the dining room is more of a living room/ family room for us - we hang out here a lot, crafting away, doing homework, and eat).

Frosted glass and glittering snowflakes create the illusion of a winter wonderland and yet, this year, winter has been surprisingly mild. Sure, we had a few cold spells, with temperatures even dipping into the low 30s but right now we are safely back to shorts and t-shirts. (And there was much rejoicing!)

While I was born, grew up and spend the first 30 years of my life in Germany, I do not miss the cold. Nor do I need cold weather to get all excited over Christmas. No, Sireeeee, no snow, no freezing temperatures for me, thank you veeeeery much!

Snow is highly overrated. Christmas is all in the lights, the sparkling ornaments, the fun of finding and hiding away the perfect gift, the spicy sweetness of all things Cinnamon. And marzipan. Cannot - must not - forget marzipan! 

And the elf.
Barrigade is back for another year of elfcapades and is still well-loved and admired by the Little Man. Every year I keep worrying/wondering if this will be the last year he believes, and I cherish every chance I have making it last.

Try hiding your elf in the freezer with an empty cup of ice cream - that'll do it ;)

Halloween Aftermath

 Will you look at that - Halloween came, and was over in a flash. Or at least that's what it feels like these days where - caught between work, household chores and baseball - time spent at home passes in a wink of an eye ...

I also realized I never posted a picture (or two) or what Halloween looks like at our little old house, so here we go, a day late and a dollar short!

Since I'm not particularly fond of all things gory and grew up not at all allowed to go from door to door asking people for candy (during my youth Halloween wasn't celebrated in Germany, and while we do have one celebration that allows for door to door solicitation of treats - St. Martin - it was in general something frowned upon in my family. Aaaaanyways ... it took me a couple of years to get the hang of "trick or treating' and it was made easy in my lovely neighborhood. More of that later :)

Decorations at the little old house concentrate on the fireplace mantel, the ubiquitous door wreath, and a smattering of ghosts, gravestones and black crows on the outside.

We feel mightily inspired (and ever so slightly intimidated) by one of our awesome neighbors who goes out and creates a themed decoration for her family's house every year and maybe, maybe next year we will have all our planning and decorating skills together and go all out. This year, we kept it simple.

And of course we dressed up the door wreath to go with the season. After Halloween, the 'Boo' comes off and we're ready to roll for Thanksgiving. Ha!

Over the top, I know. Hardcore decorating, right? These days I'm happy when I manage to keep my wits about and my family in clean clothes and fed. Oh, and the menagerie, must not forget the menagerie.

Fireplace decor

This year, summer was a truly Floridian summer. When I moved to Florida almost ten years ago, you could set your clock to the afternoon rains. Every day, usually between 3pm and 4pm the clouds would move in, the skies opened up and it rained buckets. BIG buckets. Half an hour later, the sun was shining again from a bright blue sky and you would be none the wiser unless, you know, you left your car's windows open or forgot to close up your convertible ....ahem. Not like the husband would know anything about that ...heh.

Anyways, drought set in and had been plaguing Florida for the past years. There were sometime weeks between rainfalls and wildfires raged all over the State. We had days where ashes would fall from the sky like snow flurries and the sky was cast in a dirty pink glow from the distant fires. Apocalyptic, in one word.

This year we are obviously back to good ol' times. It's been raining.
A LOT!
I don't think we ever had a week with more than one day of no rain. Combined with the sun and the heat it created a true greenhouse effect for all plants outdoor. Wee whacking has never been so demanding - weeds wouldn't stop growing and all the plants in the backyard were trying to outdo each other! It's absolutely crazy!

One of the things that grew almost as tall as I am is my blue salvia in the backyard. It had grown so tall that it started falling over and so I decided to cut it back.

I loved the armful of salvia with its tall delicate spires of bright royal-blue flowers and rather than throwing it on the compost pile, I brought them inside.

Here's where Pottery Barn meets Restoration Hardware again - I plunked my bounty into a white ceramic pitcher and simply placed it on the fire place mantel - much to Inky-Binky's delight! She had to photobomb this display and continued to love on the flowers all day.

I don't know what it is about this cat and flowers. The moment I present her with a bouquet she goes into pretty-pretty princess mode and lounges right underneath the flowers. She is really good abut not trying to eat them or to rip them out, but her behavior is slightly odd.

Yes, Binky is in this picture; she is actually hiding behind the flowers. Silly cat! I really like how the decor on the fire place mantel came together. It's simple, I'm not big into knickknacks and decorating rules and staging but this looks pretty neat, if I may say so myself! It really makes me think about growing a few more cut-type flowers in the yard ...

I know that stores are going nuts already with fall decorations, and even Halloween displays, and so is pinterest but I just can't make myself break out the typical fall ingredients just yet. I mean, it's just September, right? Gah, it's already September! Only 126 more days until Christmas!

Everybody run for their lives!

Laundry Lovelies

 Now that the laundry room is all painted and pretty, I feel like it's so much more fun to make it even prettier! This past weekend's weather was perfect for indoor crafty kind of projects - it was all grey and rainy skies here in North-East Florida (not very Floridian at all).

And nothing needs more pretty-fying than the plastic bottle of laundry detergent. Right?

Luckily, I keep some empty Sangria bottles on hand. It's the perfect "summer nights on the porch" drink, if you ask me, and I really love the chunky peasant bottles they sell it in. So I grabbed one, removed the old label and washed it out. Sangria-scented laundry might not be as much fun ... y'know, not to mention possible stains.

Then I whipped up a quick label in publisher and printed it on a shipping label because it has a sticky back and thicker paper. I think this combination together with Modpodge will give it a fighting chance lasting last the abuse of daily laundry action. Right?

I cut out my pretty label and stuck it to the bottle. The area where the old wine label used to be fits just right but even if your bottle doesn't have a flat area like this one, it'll work. Just stick and ...

 Modpodge it all over for protection!

While the label was drying I grabbed a funnel and the old detergent bottle and poured the detergent into its new home. We use "free'n clear" because the husband has allergies and a very sensitive nose but I do keep some nice smelling detergent in a smaller bottle occasionally for a load of my stuff only because I love the smell of scented laundry detergent (some, not all). I should probably make a pretty bottle for that one, too.

And here you go, a pretty bottle for the laundry detergent (still  all bubbly from switching bottles). Can you believe the husband commented on it? He -liked- it! Called it 'chic' ... hehehe.

He does have a point though, since it looks a lot less utilitarian than the regular plastic bottles and just nicer when in plain view. I wonder when they'll be printing more decorative labels. You'd think one manufacturer would have picked up on that already ... something pretty in French, maybe?

Call Me Mrs. Obvious

... but I obviously enjoy stating the obvious.
Obviously.

After installing "Pull" knobs on the cabinets in the laundry room, I -knew- exactly where to put this cute little iron "Garden" sign.

Where, you ask?

Why, the backdoor to the yard, of course!

Little Man lend a hand and together we measured, marked drill holes and screwed the sign to the back door.

And after two years of grumbling about that one cross brace of the outside screen door always covering up the small narrow window in the door, I went, broke out the screw driver and - gasp!- removed it.

Guess what?

The screen door is just as stable without it (it has two more cross bars below the one I removed),  you can now see out of the back door window, and the world didn't come to an end.

Yesss!

Switching it up

 Have you seen Apartment therapy's "The January Cure"? It's their 30 day plan to get your house in better shape, you know, like organized, with flowers and framed art on the walls. While I haven't signed up for the deal (I'm following simplicity's year-long declutter calendar instead, and one calendar is more than enough but if you want to, you can go and sign up here), I do read their posts out of curiosity and on the constant quest for inspiration.

 [The husband's desk in the living room]

On day six they suggested you "pick a piece of art and get going on framing it." That's when I realized that I still hadn't changed the art in our livingroom. Waaaay back I created Halloween art inspired by one of my pinterest pins, and yes, you guessed right, it hung for much longer than Halloween ... It hung for -two- Halloweens and then some, and it was really time to change it up a bit. I had even prepared replacement art a while ago but never gotten around to swapping it out.

[Bats and spiders, oh my!]

Shame on me.
Bad procrastinator!
No cookie!

Even worse, the whole swap demanded my attention for maybe ten minutes tops. Both, the husband and I love New York City. He has lived there before, and while I wouldn't want to move there, I love eloping to New York for a quick trip now and then. I'd downloaded a couple of photographs of famous NYC sites, and back when Picnik was still around, had toyed with some of their effects to make them look less like photos.

 

I'd picked four of the photos I's played: with a sweeping view over Central Park, the Brooklyn Bridge, NYC skyline, and Times Square.

Quick Tip: I always use another frame's glass insert to cut a photo or picture to size. It does double-duty as a ruler and allows you to choose exactly which part to display (and to make adjustments).

 

I used double-sided tape to make sure they would stay in place and popped them back into their frames.

 

[See my cheery chevron blankie? That was a Christmas present for me, 

and I love it! It's supersoft and warm and fun!]

Then it was time to put them back onto the wall! I fiddled with their placement for a while until I liked the arrangement and then put them back onto the nails already in the wall.

Tada! Like I said, a ten minute fix, not a lengthy ordeal (staircase *cough* stripping paint from spindles *cough-cough*), and I like how it also added a pinch of color to our Restoration Hardware styled monochromatic living room.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

 Finally! It's that time of the year again.
As of December 1, the Christmas Season has officially arrived at the Ugly Duckling house. Throughout the coming weeks, I'll be adding little bits of Christmas and Winter decor here and there. It's a slow but steady process with lots of old-time favorites making their annual appearance and a few new items shining for the first time.

The first thing I changed, of course, was our front door wreath. Nothing better to herald the season and to give you a first taste of what to expect inside!

 This year I kept it simple, picking up on the bird and nature theme we seem to have going in the dining room. I just couldn't resist picking up this cute chubby bird with its sparkly pine cone wings and snow white belly. So stinkin' cute!
I have gobs of those soft brassy sparkling snowflakes I love to sprinkle all over the house - their warm sparkle and filigree shape tickles me pink. You can find them for very little money (less than $3 for a box of 12) at W-mart and even pick up their buddies like snowmen, etc. in other colors

 The next thing to be decorated was the fireplace mantle. Once you set foot into our vestibule it's the first thing your eye is drawn to. Now more than ever after I added the lit pine garland, and sparkly snowflakes!
I picked up a very pretty, pale pink and white poinsettia at the blue box, kept the stack of vintage books and vintage typewriter and added our Christmas-Countdown chalk board to make everything look a bit less serious. If you look closely, you can spy our elf on the shelf "Barrigade" on his first day this year.

 More lights!
The diningroom came next!
Every year I create an Advent calendar for Little Man, and we have had this particular one for the last four or five years. It's a real classic: I sewed up 24 little bags, hand numbered them and each year I fill them with little goodies (chocolate, candy, etc) and toys (LEGO mini-figures work great as well as stickers, pencils, etc.) and little notes suggesting Christmas-type activities from "drive through the neighborhood looking at lights" to "take photos wearing Santa hats."

 In the windows I hung pine wreaths with sprigs of holly with white berries and 'snow-covered' pine cones. Then I discovered those beautiful glass ornaments at W-mart featuring this little glassine bird print suspended inside the glass orb. It has a frosty frozen beauty to it, and I love it to bits! Not to mention it picks up on the pattern of the dining room curtains. Woot!

Just in time for the first of Advent I managed to put together our advent wreath. Again sparkly snowflakes make an appearance along with a few other of my Christmas staples.

We love it cozy and traditional with a little bit of glitz and sparkle and some rustic elements thrown into the mix. What's your Christmas flavor?

Candy Hangover

I don't know about your munchkins but after yesterday's Halloween fun Little Man had a hard time crawling out of bed this morning. He and husband went on a hayride through our 'hood to go "trick or treat"-ing last night while I stayed home to make sure the puppy wouldn't go insane over the night's happenings and to hand out candy to whoever made it over to my quadrant.

Much to my delight (and the puppy's horror) we had a whooping 46 ghoolies and ghosties (and princesses and ninjas and super heroes and, and, and) stop by the Ugly Duckling! Woot! I had a ball handing out candy to everybody who stopped by and while I don't mind handing out candy to teenagers without costume, I think for next year I'll reward the ones going all out and dressing up with better candy and some fun things (I had tossed in a few funky pencils into the bowl and, boy, those were a HOT item!).

A few days ago, though, I wasn't feeling Halloween-y at all.
Just not in the mood.
Maybe it was the sudden unexpected cold snap that put me into a grumpy, please let me hibernate mood.

We placed just a few Halloween paraphernalia inside the house and stuck mainly to the fireplace mantle, especially after we ended up chasing a cat and a dog running off with plastic fingers. Out of sight, out of mind and reach! I think my favorite were the orange lights on top of the mantle!

     [Little Man as Mini "Bane"]                                [The zombie-fied Husband]

Thanks to Little Man, though, I pulled myself together and wrangled the box of Halloween decorations from the attic so we could spookify the house a bit.

This year we were all about ghosts! They are spooky but not too spooky, especially for those littlest "Trick-or-Treaters" (plus, I don't care for scattered innards, half-rotten carcasses and moldy eyeballs in my front yard either, thank you very much.)

Those plastic pumpkin buckets are still one of my favorite inexpensive Halloween fixes. This year we didn't string them up lantern-style but instead filled them with a handful of sand and stuck a candle in. LOVE IT!

We really enjoyed the fluttering ghost and I'm thinking about running out and picking up a friend or two for him for next year. It ghosted beautifully in front of our house and I'd like to add more.

Florida weather, despite cold snap, is usually not a very healthy climate for carved pumpkins. They grow moldy within days and deteriorate so quickly, it's a shame and a big disappointment. Instead, we paint ours using either acrylic paint or sharpies. They keep much longer that way, you still have the option of using one (or two ..or more) for cooking and once you turn them around, they make pretty harvest and Thanksgiving decoration too. It's  a Twofer! Threefer! Either way, a no-brainer (for us)!

 

And I really loved how everything came together once the sun set

 

A little something

 While picking up lumber for a cub scout project (Nope, no kidding), I snuck out and mosied through the garden center as well. This particular blue box home improvement store has an unusually nice selection of distressed and/or discounted plants, and I spied some lovely orchids with a pot for just $4!

So, I decided that the master bathroom was starting to look civilized enough for the first purely decorative touches and snagged one.

At home, I couldn't leave well enough alone and whipped out the ... not, not the faux gold leaf ...pshaw! .... but the trusted Krylon spray paint and gave the pot a quick update.

Before, the pot was a simple terracotta pot that had been white washed. Not a bad look but it didn't really flow with the new glam look of our bathroom.

Ahh, but after a coat of Krylon gold things started to look deliciously glamorous. Definitely good enough to eat!

While I don't have the greenest of thumbs as far as indoor plants are concerned (plus we have a cat who thinks that any plant is just a fancy version of cat grass and so placement needs serious considerations), orchids seem to work for me. When I was living in Germany (up north in Hamburg), I shared my bedroom with an orchid that just bloomed and bloomed and bloomed.

Did you spraypaint a little something lately? What about your thumb? What shade of green is it?

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas ...

Born and raised German in Germany I brought a whole slew of German traditions into husband's and my marriage. Occasionally that leads to rather .... quirky combos such as our Christmas eve meal plan: chicken soup and pizza. Husband's family traditionally served pizza on Christmas eve and for me, Christmas isn't Christmas unless it's heralded by a bowl of steaming chicken soup for lunch on Christmas eve. No kidding. Ask my Mom about the Beef broth debacle from a couple of years ago. It wasn't pretty.

One of our family's traditions was that no Christmas decoration showed up until the first of December or the first Sunday of Advent. After that, the house was fair game. Slowly, over the next couple of weeks, we'd add Christmas decorations building up to the grand finale that was the arrival of the Christmas tree (always fresh! never plastic) just a few days before Christmas eve.

We'd decorate the tree and it would remain unlit until Christmas Eve. In our family, presents are delivered by the "Christkind" (aka the Christ child although it's usually depicted as a golden-haired and rather girly angel) on Christmas eve. The benefit of that is that you never have to wreck your brain trying to find a solution to keep your children from waking you at o'dark on Christmas morning.

Anyways, what with the quirky combo of German and American traditions in our house we started decorating the Ugly Duckling just in time for the first of Advent. I have added bits and bops of Christmas decorations here and there but the tree has still to arrive. It's tentatively slated for this weekend but there's no rush (for me). Our filled stockings magically appear on Christmas eve after chicken soup lunch and pizza dinner, and Santa drops off the remainder of the blessings on Christmas morning.

Anyways, I thought you might enjoy a few pre-Christmas glimpses from the Ugly Duckling so here it goes:


The chalkboard (Love Love LOVE it!) has become our personal countdown to Christmas. I'm always hovering between giddy excitement and barely suppressed panic when I look at the number of days left. How on earth does time fly by so fast? Sheesh!

We added a garland and sparkly lights to our fireplace mantle. While we did have two fireplaces at our old Silver Street home, neither of them were in the livingroom and we enjoy this glittery glimmery eye candy the most. I found those beautiful vintage brass colored glitter snow flakes at Walmart of all places and they are THE.BEST! I'd coat my entire house with them if I could :o)



Our advent wreath. This year I'm loving it simple with some greenery, holly twigs, snow-dusted pine cones and some berries and candy canes for a pop of color.

Our door wreath got a little tweak too and now sports a bright red bow with bells (no whistles) and a fir garland. For starters :o)

Next stop, outdoor lights!