Winter China Cabinet

As I’ve mentioned in several of my recent posts, Christmas seemed to go by way too fast last year, and when it came to we absolutely must take the tree down (after the Epiphany) I still wasn’t tired of it, nor was I ready to take it down.

So while in other years I’ve been more than ready for some serenity for my eyes and have gone with whites and silvers, this year the china cabinet still sports splashes of red, as well as my beloved Boehm Chickadee and Holly china. Well, I’ve reasoned, the holly growing in our yard is still there, and the chickadees I think are still around (given our recent weather, really, who knows?).

This is the now…below is the Christmas version. I thought you might enjoy seeing what I took away and added for an easy transformation from Christmas to winter.

The sleigh on the silver gallery tray, the Fitz and Floyd plate, and the Christmas Vacation moose cups (barely visible at bottom left of serving space) are of course gone, as are the feather and bottlebrush trees and the candy canes.

The china’s not Christmassy, right? Just chickadees and holly and berries. The Waterford goblets weren’t there for Christmas—I had green wine glasses and the tall red Pottery Barn goblets. The darling gravy boat (love its curvy handle!), an awesome GW find, stayed, sans the feather tree.

After a little rearranging our sons’ silver baby cups, which earlier held candy canes and cinnamon sticks, also stayed. (BTW, do you mix silver and gold? The china’s rim is gold, but I chose to mix the two.)

Did you notice Mr. Chickadee up there on the top shelf? He was an addition for the winter version.

He’s right at home, isn’t he? The chicken-wire cloche was a find at Bombay Company when they re-opened (for a brief time) at our local Kroger Marketplace. Sadly, Bombay is no longer there.

Did I have a premonition of what was to come weather-wise that made me go with splashes of red this year? I must have, and we certainly have needed it! It surely has helped to cozy up our home during the bitter cold and heavy snow we’ve had. You can see other recent vignettes in red in my other posts HERE and HERE.

 

Details of Winter China Cabinet:

China: Boehm Chickadee and Holly

Crystal: Waterford Tall Lismore and Alana wine, Pottery Barn red goblets (no longer available)

Silver gravy boat: Goodwill

Round white tureen: HomeGoods, last year

Oval tureen: Gift from my mother, many years ago

Tea pot: TJ Maxx

Chicken wire cloche and dish: Bombay Company

Christmas Vacation moose cups: Gift from our son

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NOTE: Some of the items I use in my posts are in my Etsy shop, but many are not, simply because I haven’t updated my shop. If you see something you like and wonder if it’s available for sale, email me at coral5252@gmail.com and let’s talk!

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Cool Battery Christmas Lights

I was at Kroger today, hoping to find a small string of lights on a white cord to use on a wreath on our front porch.  No 30- or 50-light packages...only 100, and no white cord.

An employee working in that area asks me what I'm looking for, and nope, they don't have what I'm looking for.

I start to walk away and she says, "Have you seen these?"  No, I hadn't looked at that tiny little box hanging from one of those Mylar (?) strips.

Battery-operated, tiny LED lights--but here's the BEST part...
they have a timer built in!
(And another plus that will definitely come in handy--they can be
immersed in water!  How cool is that?!)

Yes!  I'll take them!  $5.24!  I could hardly wait till I got home from dinner at our son's and DIL's to check them out.

This picture shows how to open the battery compartment, because there are no instructions for that,
and it was NOT easy!  My husband carefully inserted a small screwdriver where we could
tell it would open, and pushed gently.

Look at that little, tiny strand and the teeny, tiny lights!
Would they be bright enough?
Would they work for the wreath?

Yes!  They ARE bright enough! (but short.  The box says it's 3 feet long,
but that must include the bare wire leading to the battery compartment and the compartment itself,
so if you buy these, plan accordingly to have enough length.)
I'll be at Kroger first thing in the morning to get more before they're sold out!

But aren't they oh, so pretty?!

 

Last week I posted a tutorial for pomanders HERE, where I inserted
battery-operated "candles" in the arrangement.  Those have to be turned on and off...
How, I wondered, would my new, nifty, tiny string of lights work
in the pomander arrangement?



PERFECTLY!!
And because they have a timer (do you think that feature is as cool as I do??)  they'll come on
in the evening and back off in six hours!
Love the timer feature!

What ideas do you have for how to use these fab lights? 
           Think they'll work in ICE?!  I'm thinking about how cool it would be to put them in a vase
              with water outside and let it freeze (the battery compartment can't be immersed). 
           Or how about just in a vase with flowers?
           Or in the china cabinet or bookcases?  The cord is virtually invisible, so versatile, they are!              
           Certainly they will be great on the wreaths on the porch, because with the timer there's no need to
                run a cord to a different timer.

I can't wait to hear your ideas on ways to use these nifty things!  Happy decorating!

(Or are you wondering if I've been living under a rock because I didn't go right out to look for these specifically?  I've seen immersible lights, but not this tiny, and certainly I wasn't thinking about how to
use them at Christmas when I saw them this past summer.)

Thanks for stopping by.  Please leave me a comment to let me know you were here—I read every single one of them!  They encourage me and inspire me.  And if you like what you see a lot J, maybe you’d like to +1 this post too!  Oh, and I hope you'll follow me.  I promise to work hard to make your visits worthwhile.  Thank you!

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Best Whipped Cream--Ever!

My favorite holiday secret weapon in the kitchen?  My iSi Cream Whipper!  It never fails that when I serve this whipped cream my "taste testers" R-A-V-E about it! 

Plus it's a cool, cool gadget (pardon the pun :) ).

I have the Mini Whip, which holds 1/2 pint of cream.  Don't be misled by the "mini"--according to the iSi website, it makes
about 2 1/2 cups of whipped cream.  I'll trust the folks at iSi on how much it makes, because I've never run short.
 2 1/2 cups of whipped cream is a lot of {DELICIOUS} whipped cream.

With these yummy ingredients, how can it not be DELISH???

Here's the "recipe":
1 pint whipping cream
2 tablespoons powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Add all ingredients to the container.

If you would rather serve CHOCOLATE WHIPPED CREAM (!!!)
simply add 2 tablespoons Hershey's Cocoa Powder to the recipe above,
and you have a delicious mousse!



The secret is in the "chargers"--that give the cream its volume.
(And I DO mean secret--I don't know what the chargers contain, but they surely do the trick!)



And it really IS this easy...
1 - Add your ingredients
2 - Attach the charger (and the spout)
Well...there is one more step--shake a few times, and...
3 - ...Serve!

Serve and impress!

Now, wouldn't you just LOOOVVVE to find one of these under the Christmas tree this year?
Or better yet, why not gift it to yourself before the holidays, so you can use it at every party?

Thanks for stopping by.  Please leave me a comment to let me know you were here—I read every single one of them!  They encourage me and inspire me.  And if you like what you see a lot J, maybe you’d like to +1 this post too!  Thank you!

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and

 StoneGable for On the Menu Monday

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