sadie olive ~ le journal

christmas 2007

I finally had time to upload all of my photos from the many Christmas parties we attended. We split the holidays every year between families. Christmas Eve is always spent with my Dad's side of the family for lunch and early evening and then it's on to Josh's Mom's side of the family for dinner and dessert. Christmas morning is spent at Josh's grandmothers house with Josh's Dad's side of the family, and then Christmas evening is spent at our house with my Mom's side of the family. Josh and I have a tough time at the holidays being pulled in so many directions... but it always makes for pleasant company and quality time with the family. My sister Ginger is a Christmas baby, so we celebrate her birthday in the middle of all this!

Josh moans and groans that he has to cook all the meals around here, but he does love to cook when we have people over. This year he barbecued a prime rib, which turned out perfect and (almost!) on time. We had a large wine bottle from our wedding that acted as our guest book for our guests to sign when we were married a few years back, and we decided that Christmas was the perfect evening to open and enjoy it. (It's equivalent to six bottles of wine and YES they did finish it!)

My sisters and I are all fairly close in age, and this year was the first Christmas we all have been married off. All our husbands get along great and they decided this year to have an "ugly sweater" contest. The rule was it could be Christmas related or not, but it had to be UGLY. The first person to get too hot to keep in on was the loser. Here are all the men in their ugly sweaters, just as proud as can be....

My Uncle Robert (in the red sweater) made his own sweater with felt and a glue gun, and he had the blisters to prove it. (Men should not use glue guns). My brother in law Mike (second from the left) is wearing a sweater Josh and I found at the Goodwill. My sister Denise added some embellishments to make it Christmasy, but she didn't realize she was decorating the back... so Mike had to wear it backwards all night long. :) Craig and Mike found ugly seventy sweaters and borrowed them from a friends personal collection, whose wife made them promise not to return them to her husband. I think Mike (there are two) should get some kudo's for the ugly clashing shorts.  

Josh (above on the right) is modeling the sweater I made from a corny Christmas pillow I found at the grocery store. Nate (above on the left) was the nominated winner and my sister Lindsey made his sweater.  She actually sewed all those cute decorations on! (Ugly was in the eyes of the men this time).

Here we all are in a group photo I took with my fancy new remote for my camera. We even got Hannah in the picture, so I just love this one. I think we will have to make a tradition of a group photo each year.

These cuties are my cousin, Matilda and my niece Lauren.

Another niece, Hailey, opening presents.

And my niece, Makenzie. Isn't she so pretty?

Since some of you had never seen a jewel tree before I wanted to show you the two Josh's grandma has. Her's don't have lights, but they are done a little differently with cute little packages under the tree.

In addition to the remote I received for my camera, I also got a new Cannon Macro lens. Here are two of the fun pictures I took with my new lens.

This one is a close up of my topiary stocking holders. The pretty beaded garland was a gift from my friend Chris, who surprised me with a package full of goodies just to be nice!   

This one is a new favorite of mine. Too bad it came after Christmas, because it would have made a cute Christmas card! The little mittens are from Josh's grandma in Wisconsin. She sends presents to everyone each year, and this year we all had little mittens with our names pinned on, and money inside!

Thanks for allowing me to share all my photos! Believe it or not there are hundreds more... so these are just the highlights. I hope all of you enjoyed your holidays, and look forward to a new year!   

Clearing Out for the New Year

I have always been one of those people who has to take down my Christmas decor the day after Christmas. (Or sometimes even that night). After living with it for the month, I am dying to see a clutter free more simply decorated house again. I am cleaning away today and decided to do the same with my store.

I have marked down many items and am trying to de-clutter the site for the redesign I am working on. Please take a moment to browse around and see if there isn't something you may want to purchase. 

You can visit the store by clicking: here.

Thanks! I hope you all had a very merry holiday! I am doctoring up some photos from my Christmas to share with you all in my next post.

to my dear friends....

arbre de bijou

I have been an admirer of the jewel adorned Christmas tree for awhile now. I grew up with both my grandmothers having them, as well as my Dad, and all of my in-laws. I always hoped they would make me one, but a few years ago I decided to give it a try myself. I scoured flea markets and junk drawers to find the perfect meaningful jewels, and bought a frame that I thought would go nicely.  I bought some dark green velvet, and a string of lights.....

After a few hours of hot gluing and editing.... this was the final result.....

I just love the way it came out, and have to admit, I feel proud that I made it myself. I thought it would be fun to include pieces that had special meaning to me, so I made sure to look for things that represented the people I love.

My paternal grandmother loves giraffe's so I made sure to include a pin for her... And being a new Duckett, I made sure to throw in a few duck pins....

The broken mirror pieces my mother in law gave me to help with my tree project, so they represent her help and her love.

The turtle near the top is for my maternal grandmother, who adored and collected turtles. (She also had a turtle named speedy when we were young that we loved to feed dandelions to). And the dove at the top of the tree reminds me of my Dad. I thought it was the perfect tree topper.

The tree skirt is a vintage pearl choker I found at the flea market. The tree also has a string of lights poking through that are not turned on for the picture, but I love the way it makes the jewels sparkle at night.

I feel like it's a family heirloom even though it's only a few years old, and that makes it special.   

Christmas Parties

This is really just a quick post to share some photos from Josh's Christmas Party last night. His company held it at the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana. It was fun to finally get to meet some of the people my husband works with and put some faces to the names I have been hearing. (He has had the job for seven months now).

Josh and I are on the right and his boss and his wife are in the middle. The guy on the left is a fellow salesman and his date.

It was a fun night, and it ended pretty early (9:30ish), so it was just my style... (I've said it before, but I'm a homebody and would just as soon be at home on my computer then be out on a Wednesday night..lol).

Hope all of you are enjoying your holiday parties as well! :) 

toot toot

Well I have tried not to talk too much about web design stuff on my blog, because I don't want to bore all you non-techy people....but I just finished up two projects that I just adore and I have to share with you.

The first one was for Alys with Paris Couture Antiques. I designed a template for her to use with Pappa Shop for her new store and also a matching blog. But my favorite part of the project was all the extra graphics we made to make her site extra special. We added headers and custom collages, and Alys added some animation on her own. I just love the way the site came out, and just know it will be a favorite spot of a lot of you online shoppers like myself. Here are a few of the highlights:

   

The second one was for Cara with Le Petit Garage. Cara already had a template she was happy with, she only wanted a few custom graphics to help spruce up her site and give it a new look. She also liked the collage effect I did for Alys, so we used that as inspiration to create something that suited her site and it's fun use of color. Here are a few highlights from that project:

Thanks for allowing me to toot my own horn. It feels good to have projects I am proud of, and I just had to share. Please go check out both girls sites and blogs, they are fun to visit and full of goodies.   

tree trimming

The year Josh and I got married (2004), my grandpa passed away. My grandma passed only months later, perhaps most of all from a broken heart. She lived her life fully for my grandpa and I believe she just didn't feel needed or complete without him around. I was broken hearted at their passing and even more so that they wouldn't be there for me to hug on my wedding day.

I was given a few special pieces that were my grandmothers that mean a lot to me. A crystal vase, some silver pieces, and a Christmas ornament. The Christmas ornament was given to me by my Aunt Sheri on Christmas of 2005. She had gone through my grandparents collection and picked out a single ornament for each of us (my sisters and myself). She even took care to address them to each of us and sign my grandma's name as the gift giver. It was a really special thing to do, I thought, and I can remember how it felt to look down at the tag that read "to: Miss Sara from: Grandma" knowing it had been months since her passing.

Sheri tried to pick an ornament she knew each of us would love, and mine was no exception. I received this beautiful wooden Santa, who to me looks a little Swedish in design. It reminds me of my grandparents each year when I decorate the tree and it always receives a place of honor near the top of the tree.

I hope when each of you get to your tree trimming this year, you conjure sweet memories of your Christmas's past, and hang the ornaments that have special meaning to you near the tops of your trees.

I wanted to add this reply from my Aunt Sheri, so it would share a little bit more about my grandparents and how special they are to us.

"Oh my gosh, so very sweet--this time of year always brings to mind your grandparents...how your Grandma would be counting the moments till she could decorate (I think a few seconds after the Thanksgiving turkey was put away?), Robert doing the lights, unwrapping each ornament, each with a story, your Grandma always filling in with the red glass balls and hanging the itty bitty ornaments at the top of the tree...your Grandpa complaining that Harry Connick, Jr. was no Frank Sinatra, breaking out the Glenn Miller Orchestra C'mas cd....  Holidays always remind me so much of them and of how much they loved them."

inspiration abound

1. Ledgers, 2. _MG_1752.JPG, 3. Old Les Mis, 4. books., 5. Books books books!, 6. Beauty is an old, well-worn book, 7. Old Books, 8. Old Books, 9. old books., 10. Antique Ledger Books, 11. Lovely Old Books, 12. Bundles of Books...