A Very Shabby Christmas

 My Dear oneshabbychick Readers,

Thank you so so much for starting this shabby little journey with me... I'm so glad to know you're out there. And I am very excited about what fun things are in store for oneshabbychick in 2011!

I'll be taking a little vacation from blogland, but I'll see you again in the New Year.

Safe travels, everyone...
I hope you have a very Merry Christmas, surrounded with dear ones, wonderful food and music, love, peace and joy!

xo
oneshabbychick

Navigating the Christmas Terrain...

I promised that I would come back and tell you about my annual Christmas trip to Terrain. If you don't know about Terrain yet... well, it's time you knew!

Terrain is the garden and home store of the company that owns Anthropologie and Urban Outfitters... need I say more?! There is only one store (in addition to the website shopterrain.com), in Glen Mills, PA, which happens to be close enough for a day trip for me! I snuck away for a day last week, with my parents, who are also fans.

We love to do some of our Christmas shopping there, because the whole place is decked out, full of ideas, and you can find those special things that you wouldn't find anywhere else. 

We started in Poinsettia House and ended up spending a lot of time in there... that's where the clearance section was. We had fun back there! And I finally found the reasonably-priced white poinsettias that I've been hunting for this season.

Some fabulous faux-bois chairs, too. Not in my price range :-} 

 This was a fun table 

setting outside, all ready for a woodland Christmas dinner, 

complete with frozen pinecone soup!

In the home store, they had forcing bulbs and other lovely plants, unusual planters, Christmas decor - ornaments, fun garlands, funky wreaths - books, kitchen stuff..... we needed a few hours just to see it all. I bought a sweet walnut garland that was already up on my mantle in my last post, some pots, and a few presents that I can't reveal just yet.....






























To make the trip complete, they have a lovely Café - we had a great lunch, complete with freshly-baked bread and sage-honey butter. We ordered red wine-braised short ribs with roasted root veggies and local cheese polenta... Delicious!

This is our third year making the trek to Terrain at Christmastime. It's become a bit of a tradition for us... we find some special things for Christmas, and we end up having a special day together, too!


What about you? Do you have special shopping excursions at this time of year? Do you make them alone, or take some special people with you?

Happy preparations, everyone!!!

oneshabbychick

Queen for a Day (well, almost)...

Today is my birthday, and I really can not think of a better beginning than the one I got! Banished from the kitchen (how often does that happen!), a lovely fire, big comfy chair, a slick new shelter mag with a fab white room in Provence on the cover, hot cup of Americano served up by my favorite barista (hint: I'm married to him). What could be better? Oh, yes, and my Charpentier playlist on iTunes. Dare I say it...? Perfect.

Then my monkeys got up, and each brought me a different bunch of purple flowers, and a handmade birthday card! We ate a gorgeous fruit tart for breakfast. I wasn't allowed to make lunches. Or drive children to school, since all this celebrating made us late for walking and bus stops. But somehow nobody told those monkeys that they weren't allowed to argue on my birthday. Or make snide cutting remarks at each other. Or reach out and bonk their brother on the head. They didn't cooperate with the "queen-for-a-day" theme. So it turned into one of THOSE mornings..... 

I suppose it was too good to last. I mean, this IS real life, after all.....

They eventually went off to school, and all was quiet and lovely again. Mr. Shabby and I lounged around for most of the morning, finally dragging out into the lovely snowy day a bit before noon for lunch and antiquing, hoping to find a wonderful birthday treasure. No treasures to be had today (under $4000! *gulp*), though it was still a very nice afternoon......



But, alas, it is not a "birthday" ending! Mr. Shabby had to go to work (the nerve!), and the monkeys had homework and sassiness issues....{sigh}. And the birthday girl ended up having ramen for dinner. Yup. You read that right.

And so, that is why I sit here now, not cleaning the kitchen, and not addressing that scary pile of laundry. But drinking a glass of wine and eating the last gingerbread cupcake.

Because I'm still the birthday girl, dammit. :-)



More soon,

oneshabbychick

oneshabbychick's Christmas House Tour

Several blogs are hosting Christmas House Tours, and now that I can get in on the action (because I have a blog!), I don't want to be left out in the cold! So, I don't have all the pictures that I really want, but this will be a good exercise in "letting go", right?

So, welcome to oneshabbychick's home for the holidays!

Here is my NEW front door, understated but quietly festive. It's been especially fun decorating my entry this year because the exterior of our house just got a "French cottage" makeover.

More details on that soon...

I shopped around for just the right color of ribbon to go with the new French blue woodwork.

I thought I was looking for satin but this gorgeous velvet ribbon found me instead. I love it!

The Christmas mantle... simple, as always, but with a wintery twist

I'm loving this little "tree", in the corner of my dining room. I spent several of my daily dog walks through the woods looking for the right branch. I found it! Vintage Christmas balls and some fun glitter icicles from Terrain (I'm making my annual Christmas pilgrimage there this week - I'll let you know what fabulousness I find when I'm back!)

And of course...

Monsieur Tree...

with a little bit of glam, a little bit of fromage and a little bit of kindergarten craft ;-)

Thanks for stopping by! It's always fun to have guests :-)

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!!!

oneshabbychick

Welcome to oneshabbychick!

Here goes my little blog..... I was starting to feel a little like I'd become "a blogger without a blog" - reading great blogs that inspire me, snapping more and more photos of my house projects and culinary creations and dying to share them with somebody. Well, here goes..... and I won't leave it at just that; I'll be throwing in a little bit of real life here and there, too. I hope you like what you find here!

Here's a taste of what I've been playing around with lately......

My front entry...
all gussied up for Christmas with boxwood, magnolia and French blue velvet ribbon.

My Christmas mantle

I'm really excited to share my ideas and inspiration here. Bear with me as I learn the blogging ropes, and find my voice - I'm much better at baking and playing decorator than I am at writing... but I'd like to think there's somebody out there who'd like to hear about it :-)

More soon,

oneshabbychick