Hand Made Presents Part Two

So I wanted to share with you the other hand made presents that I received for Christmas this year.

One of them being the wooden caddy/tote that Neal made me seen on the kitchen table. He always does such a great job of paying attention to what I have been favoriting on Etsy and pinning on Pinterest.  This year he saw that I had favorited some tool carrier type totes and decided he would just make me one instead of buying it.

I have a couple store bought carriers like this but nothing beats hand made right? I just love it and the fact that Neal payed attention to what I was looking for. I beat it up with a hammer and then I stained it Dark Walnut.  For now I have pine boughs in it but I probably will keep the kitchen table essentials in it like napkins and salt and pepper and such.

And as you peek into the family room you can see the other hand made present that I received....

a "One Horse Sleigh" sign from my sister. In case you are wondering, yes she is going to make some for the shop! Every time she makes me something I say "oh you have to make these for the shop!". 

I absolutely love it. She is actually working on a really big sign that will go all the way across the space above the windows...I can't wait! 

Some other new additions to the family room are the grain sack looking pillow and a new lamp. I had a bunch of LLBean coupons that were going to expire and I was so excited to see that they had these pillows  on clearance. It is very well made and actually has the feel of  an authentic grain sack. 

I found the lamp at Home Goods, I have been on the search for some industrial style lamps for some time now. They are usually either way too much money or they have some detail that I don't like. I loved this one the moment I saw it with its old fashioned looking shade. 

Another new thing in this room is the little space heater in the fireplace. Our furnace on the kitchen side of the house died and we can't get a new one just yet so we moved the little space heater from the living room into here. We have two furnaces (my long time followers know that our farmhouse was turned into a duplex at one point and we turned it back into one dwelling) so our bedrooms still have heat but the kitchen and family room are on the chilly side to say the least. We bought a ceramic radiator style electric heater and it really does help though.  Leave it to us to have our furnace break on the couple coldest weeks of the year, the high has been 10 degrees the past two weeks. 

 Also, you may have noticed that I put wood going horizontally in the fireplace. I didn't like the way the beadboard looked and it will be some time till we can afford to have a real chimney installed. I saw in Terry John Woods book that he had wood boards in his fireplace and I thought "that's what I will do!".

We will be taking our Christmas tree down this weekend. I took the ornaments off of it but I wanted to have a week where I could enjoy just the tree with the white lights, to me there is nothing prettier. This past summer I finally found a galvanized bucket at the flea market big enough to hold our tree stand. It was $10, my sister was just joking me the other day about how everything I find is either $2 or $10, guess she was right:) 

Hand Made Christmas Presents

Come Christmas time my family always does such a wonderful job of finding, or making, each other the nicest gifts. This year I got some really wonderful hand made gifts, one of them being this charming "White House Farm" sign that my sister made me.

She knows that I love black and white signs and cows:) I decided to hang it in the kitchen and I couldn't be more tickled with it. My sister is so talented, she is the one that makes the signs that I sell in my Etsy shop . She had a very busy year this past year with my niece getting married but she has started a whole new batch of one of a kind signs for my shop. And if there is something in particular you may want on one let me know because we can do custom orders.

Above the sign I hung an ironstone plate that I got at the flea market for 25 cents this past summer. It is in the Wheat pattern, my favorite.

I also wanted to take the time answer one of my reader questions....Lori asked what treatment I use on our butcher block counter top. When we first moved in and put the Ikea Numerar  counter tops in I only used the butcher block oil ( it is food grade approved) that they sell at Ikea on them.

But as time passed I noticed some water damage occuring on the right side of the sink where the dishwasher is. Ikea has a protective shield that goes between your dishwasher and counter top to protect it but I am an obsessive counter wiper and I often lay dishes on a towel to dry there and the butcher block oil wasn't providing enough protection. I decided that I needed to use something else in this area and I don't actually ever chop food on this part of the counter so I didn't need something food grade safe. The best part about a wood counter top is that it is sand-able if it does get stained or damaged.  I sanded the counter to get off the parts that were starting to get water damaged and then I applied 4 coats of semi-gloss polyurethane.

You can see in the picture that the right side is shinier than the left.

As for the left side where I do my chopping I only use the butcher block oil. I apply it with a rag every couple of months, usually when we are about to go away for the weekend so that it can really seep in.

In the next post I will show you the rest of my wonderful hand made presents!

Christmas In The Dining Room

I never had the time to show our dining room/sitting room area before Christmas but now that all of the holiday hustle and bustle has eased I managed to get some pictures taken.

The large antique water pitcher is a new purchase. I bought it over Thanksgiving break in Brooklyn on Small Business Saturday.  American Express always has incentives on SBS (last year I bought the hemp table runner, seen here but that shop closed sadly) and this year they refunded $10 for every purchase over $10 up to three times. The pitcher was $20 so with the refund it only cost me $10!

I love changing up what I put in the unit Neal built me, this year little ironstone pitchers seemed like the perfect thing.

A new extra large ironstone platter that I just bought for a steal found it's home on my dining room table.

My niece used lanterns as center pieces for her wedding instead of flowers and we all ended up with one. I took one of the white ones (shocking I know) because I knew it would be perfect come Christmas.

I can't believe it is time to take all of the Christmas stuff down already, I feel like I just got it all up:) This December was so busy that I never actually got to enjoy all the decorations. I will definitely be leaving up the pine boughs and all of the greens for a couple more weeks this year.

Over the past four months I haven't slept more than two solid hours with out Millie waking and it was starting to catch up with me. However, Millie only woke for one feeding the last couple of nights so the cob webs in my brain have begun to clear and I feel like a have a new lease on life! I have lots of decorating/renovation ideas that I really hope to get to in the new year so stay tuned! And I got some really amazing gifts for Christmas this year that I can't wait to share with you!  I hope you had a wonderful holiday season, happy new year!