Antique Butter Mold

I've long admired antique butter molds like this, with their beautiful carvings and smooth worn patina. I've been looking for one to display on my new kitchen shelves, so I was thrilled to find this one at an antique show in town this past weekend. I just love the detailed strawberry vine carving - it's so cute! - and it was in great condition for just $30. These primitive butter molds are quite collectible, and I've most often see them priced at $50 - $80 or more, depending on the condition and design, so I was tickled pink with my find. It now has the perfect new home, nestled between two yellowware bowls above my kitchen sink.

Christmas at Mom & Dad's

Living far away from my family, going home for Christmas is something I look forward to all year. This year we were able to spend over a week in Ohio, celebrating no less than five holiday family get-togethers between my family and my husband's family. Food, babies, gifts, and games abounded. I love going home for Christmas. However, as you will see, going home to visit Mom and Dad always inspires quite a case of "house envy".  

My mom hosted the big extended family Christmas for her side of the family this year, and so as a live-in house guest for the week, I took on sous-host duties. Like a sous-chef, but instead of cooking, I was tasked with things like filling punch cups and figuring out a seating arrangement to fit all 24 of us in the beautiful sunny dining room (not easy, but we did it).

My dad built this house when I was in junior high. It's a traditional two-story Saltbox, with wide-plank wood floors, rustic beams, divided-light windows, shaker style cabinets, and a pair of wood-burning fireplaces. Designed and built by my mom and dad, it is a truly gorgeous house and I count myself blessed to come home for the holidays to not only a wonderfully loving and fun family, but a drool-worthy house as well. And seeing as I get my love of decorating, antiquing, and rearranging in large doses from my mom, it's always fun to see what the latest tweeks and additions have been since my last visit.

The dining room, set up to hold two dozen people on Christmas Day.

Chocolate mint rolled cookie sticks in a cellophane bag, tied with name tags and a sprig of greenery, marked everybody's seat.

 

One of the stars of the day... cheesecake! My sister has an "in" (an in-law, to be precise) with a little home bakery in town that makes the best cheesecakes I have ever tasted, and she brought three different kinds to Christmas - white chocolate raspberry, pumpkin pecan, and fresh strawberry (my personal favorite). I think we all gained several delicious, creamy, graham-crackery extra pounds, and I, at least, count them well worth it.

Baby Cayden was the other star of the show. It's been almost 8 years since there was a new baby on this side of the family, so this little cousin is happily the center of attention. Don't you just want to pinch his cute little cheeks?

Yeah, you do!

I think baby Cayden gives my sister and me (not to mention our thus-far-grandchildren-less parents) all a mild case of Baby Fever. Just don't tell our hubbies, yet... (he he he).

A small gift for mom... a kitchen towel with her initials.

A cupboard full of antique pewter.

Hubby was dressed to match the livingroom, so he got to stay for a picture.

I hope your Christmas was as beautiful as mine!

This post was brought to you by my Christmas present from my dear hubby... a fantastic new lens for my Nikon camera. It's a 50 mm f/1.4G, and it is lovely. I'm having loads of fun learning how to use it to it's full advantage.  So is hubby... :)

Experimenting with the new lens as we drove off into the sunset!

Yellowware at Christmas

On the premise that everything looks Christmas-y when you surround it with evergreens, the collection of antique yellowware bowls on my kitchen shelves got their own small dose of holiday cheer. I just love the smell of fresh-cut Christmas greenery... It reminds me of Christmases when I was a kid, and my mom would bring in armloads of fragrant trimmings from the pine trees that surrounded our house, and tuck them into every little nook and crannie of every shelf and mantle and chandelier around the house. Sadly, my greenery is artificial. And I only have four sprigs of it. Oh, well... At least the yellowware is festive.

I recently struck a deal with my mom and traded her for this wide-banded bowl (above) . I've admired it in her house for months, and last time we were home I had something along that I used to bribe her into parting with it.  I had bought a primitive antique wood checkerboard on the road trip there, intending to sell it in my shop, but it looked perfect on her livingroom coffee table. So we made a deal!

Here is an (iphone) picture of the checker board in the shop. It is so charming and obviously handmade, with separate blocks of wood cut, carved, and painted just right so they all fit together to create the game board. I had to drag myself away from that fabulous green blanket chest, too. So many gorgeous things that don't fit in our little car... Sigh.

But, speaking of road trips to Ohio... it's time to get serious and finish up the laundry, pack up the last few orders that are going out tonight, and get ready for another loooooong drive home. But for Christmas, I wouldn't have it any other way!

Merry Christmas from my home to yours!