Holidays

Happy Earth Day 2013!

22 Apr 2013

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Keep a Ziploc for old batteries with new batteries, then recycle at Lowe's on Earth Day!

A tip for Earth Day:
Don’t throw away your batteries in your regular trash, besides being really bad for the environment, 90% of most batteries can be recycled. Instead, keep a Ziploc bag where you keep the new batteries (we keep them in our junk draw). As you reach in for new batteries, discard the old batteries in the bag.  You can then drop them in the recycle bin at the entrance of any Lowe’s Department store for proper disposal. I make it a yearly drop on Earth Day.

Happy Earth Day 2013!

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Easter Time

24 Mar 2013

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Easter On the Way! The Pomegranate Chronicles

This weekend we started our preparations for Easter. It started with the second year of coloring our eggs with old ties. I just love this method. Here’s the link to last years adventures. This year Griff was a huge help in the process. It really was fun!

Easter Eggs - The Pomegranate Chronicles

Here are some great links to Easter fun…

Sweet Centerpieces - A sweet take on flowers.

Blown Eggs – Remember, from 4-H?

Basket of Bunnies – An adorable and quick sewing project.

Easter Eggs - The Pomegranate Chronicles

**I noticed that the wordpress bug I fixed at the end of last year seems to be back. This means that if you copy any of my links and place them into facebook, you will need to disable the preview. For some reason, I have been hit again, and if you use the preview, it will still be a link to my website, but will say it’s for a male enhancement pill (I’ll let you figure out which one!) I am truly sorry for this issue, but like I said, if you just hide the preview, it will just use the link to my website. *sigh* Sometimes I just don’t understand why they would hack like this. I am thinking my readers are not in their target market. Oh well, I plan to have a fix soon. Please bear with me. Happy Easter All!

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Handmade Holiday 2012

29 Dec 2012

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Now that Christmas is over and all of our presents have gotten to their proper homes, I’d like to share a few of the handmade ones with you. I saw a pin for an adorable hand print Christmas plate. I thought they would be the perfect gift for my Mom and Mother-in-Law, so we headed to our local pottery painting store To Your Arts Content in Exeter NH to make our own.

Hand Print Christmas Plate - The Pomegranate Chronicles

Truth be told, I made myself one too. He’s getting so big, so fast and I didn’t want to miss out! Pin this for next year!

For my SIL, I found some beautiful yarn at the LYS. It’s a really nice cashmere blend in the most lovely sage color. She is an avid crocheter and makes the most awesome projects and I thought she deserved a really nice wooden hook. I had to do some digging, but I found a nice Brittney G hook online. I also sewed up a matching case for her hooks using this old project pattern. I modified it to be a few inches longer to be sure all her hooks fit.

Crochet Hook Case - The Pomegranate Chronicles

Lastly, I took some of my best nature shots from last year and created “Thank you” cards in Shutterfly. They really came out beautiful and again, in full disclosure, I kept one pack for myself!

Thank you cards - The Pomegranate Chronicles

I didn’t make as many handmade gifts this year, but these are a few. I also made some liquid soap for my yearly “gift in a jar” gift. But I will save that for another post.

Did you make any gifts this year?

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All the Fuss

27 Dec 2012

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All the hustle and bustle was worth every minute. What a beautiful Christmas.

Christmas Eve dinner was an amazing crockpot ham recipe that I am attaching here for you to add to your recipe boxes. This is the second time I have made this recipe and I highly recommend it. It feeds up to 18 people an amazing gourmet ham that allows you to enjoy all the holiday festivities without being tethered to the kitchen. The results are a beautiful moist sweet melt in your mouth ham!

The best part of the day was the little guy. He was so excited and so polite. He did not complain when we took our time savoring each gift from under the tree.

I was so excited (and honestly, had been hoping) to get a new pair of crocheted slippers from my favorite Sister In Law! You may remember the beautiful gray ones from last year, well I wore a hole right through the bottom of them. I have retired them until I am able to sew soles on them. I was so excited to get another pair! It was an added bonus that they couldn’t match my Christmas Pj’s any better if they tried!

Crochet Goodness! - The Pomegranate Chronicles

Christmas concluded with an amazing Prime Rib dinner. I used an old recipe from my husband’s family. I should post that recipe for you too, eh? Okay, I will add it to the blogging inspiration list, I promise! Our tradition is Prime Rib and Yorkshire pudding (popovers). We added an old family recipe for Cesar Salad, some yummy butternut squash and an incredible dessert of Mimi’s own homemade Tiramisu.

Christmas Prime Rib - The Pomegranate Chronicles

The perfect Christmas with amazing family, wonderful memories and many, many leftovers!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas filled with friends, family and many happy memories. I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and all the love and hope for a wonderful 2013. Happy New Year!

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Merry Christmas!

24 Dec 2012

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It’s Christmas Eve and I couldn’t be more excited! I am just getting over a nasty flu that has had me down the last week, but am finally feeling better and am ready to enjoy the next few days. We enjoyed a preview to Christmas yesterday with great food, family and gifts.

I have a very anxious little one who has already asked me if he could sleep downstairs to catch Santa under the tree. These are the memories I want to remember forever.

As the 5th year of writing The Pomegranate Chronicles comes to a close, I want to thank you for another great year. I’ve already been thinking about what I’d like to accomplish in 2013 and have started to make a list. I hope your a thinking about yours (you know I am going to ask you to share!)

From my family to yours, have a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year!

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Tuesday’s Space- Christmas Mantel

12 Dec 2012

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Tuesday’s Space, a day late, but I don’t think you will mind, right? As I mentioned last Tuesday, my living room mantel has been bugging me. After about 10 attempts (yes, 10!) I think I finally got it where I want it.

Here is the final mantel. This is completely different than when I started. Most is thrifted and repurposed items. The wreath was used outside on my front door a few years ago. The bulbs on it are mostly from the Dollar Store and were hot glued and tied together in clusters of two to three bulbs each. I rescued the red ribbon from the bottom of a storage bin. It’s been a few years since it has seen sunlight, but with a little bit of steam, it is as good as new. To the left, I repurposed my thrifted pewter vase (not bad for a $2 investment) and filled it with some faux berries I had purchased a few years ago. To the right are the three candle sticks I thrifted last year and a deer candle holder that was actually thrifted at the same time (not sure why I didn’t show you guys!) To give a  nice layered effect, I used different size bulbs, while adding some interest with different colors and finishes. Our stockings are a few years old now, purchased from Target. I added a bit of visual weight with a simple garland hung under the mantel. On the hearth, there are two silver vases I purchased from the Pottery Barn clearance section years ago. I think I paid under $20 for both. I decorated them with some bells hung from ribbon purchased at JoAnn Fabrics. I also added a little flair with some bulbs and greenery. Ahhh, and I think it’s finally done!

How are your mantels coming along?

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Tuesday’s Space – Decking the Halls

5 Dec 2012

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We enjoyed a quiet weekend at home, spending most of it decking the halls adding some Christmas spirit! There’s something about taking those dusty plastic bins out from the attic that fills me with anticipation. The last few Decembers, the magic has been magnified by my favorite helper.

He and Daddy put together our Scrooge village. This is the first year he really understands the story A Christmas Carol. He was very careful to put the ghost of Christmas future pointing at Scrooge himself, right in front of his house. At night, he sits in front of each house and tells the whole story.

Decorating the mantel is always my favorite part. I know it should be the Christmas tree, but I just love how the stockings look dangling between the garlands and lights. This year, I struggled with the mantel. I pulled it all apart three times before settling on a set up I liked. I am still not sold on it, but as my husband said “Sara, walk away from the mantel!” The advent stockings I made last year are just adorable. This year, they are filled, for a very lucky boy, with Lindt Christmas chocolates.

I also finished a few of my bells. I had planned on giving these out as gifts, but they are just so darn cute and match our Christmas tree so well, I decided to keep them. Maybe next year I’ll knit more for friends and family!

What decorations are decking your halls? Please leave a link to a “Tuesday Space” post on your blog, and we can all gain a bit of inspiration!

Happy Decorating!

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Happy Halloween!

31 Oct 2012

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Hello All! We are safe. We were more than lucky during and after the storm. There were many people who were not as lucky. There are still many people I know without power, but we were fortunate enough to only loose it for two hours. It was truly amazing considering how scary the winds were. My prayers go out to our friends to the south that sustained the brunt of Sally’s fury. As you can imagine, we are playing catch up and clean up around here. We were lucky enough to have Trick or Treat moved to last Sunday. I wanted to share my little vampires with you.

I hope you all have a happy and save Halloween!

Trick or Treat!

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Tuesday’s Space – All Hallows’ Eve

25 Sep 2012

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My son’s favorite holiday is Halloween. He loves it more than Christmas. He has been obsessed with the costumes, decorations, and legends since he could talk. He’s never been very scared of it and has always had a very good grasp on imaginary vs. reality. He is a creative soul with an amazing imagination. To celebrate him, I started my decorating a bit early this year. Kari over at U-Create turned me onto the printable graphic site by The Graphic Fairy.  This is an amazing site filled with all kinds of printable vintage images and crafty inspiration. I scrolled through the pages and pages of images and found the perfect shots for my mantel.

I started this mantel with a $2.00 thrifted mirror. I painted the frame a glossy black to hid the wear. What I like about this mirror is that it is very old and casts a rippled image, making reflections just a little off. It sets the tone for the spooky display. I then rounded up all the unused frames in my house and printed different skull and bone images from the Graphic Fairy to create an overall theme.

I dug out an old Styrofoam skull that we have had for years and adorned it with a black crow. I added one image with a vintage “trick or treat” message for some color in one of the larger frames. The cracked paint on the frame lends even more creepy to the collection.

Finishing everything off, I added some faux Chinese Lanterns with fall mix and an orange light up tree to reflect off the mirror. Lastly, I added two tall candles on either side of the frames to light during the town’s trick or treat night! We have other areas of the house I decorated as well, but this is by far, my favorite!

How are you decking your halls?

By: Category: Spaces, Thrifting Tags: , , ,

A July 4th Space

4 Jul 2012

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Happy 4th of July! I hope whatever you are up to today, you enjoy every minute. I thought I would share our tablescape for our BBQ today. The best part about this table is that I didn’t pre-plan it. I am always so much more satisfied when something comes together because I was creative than when I planned for it. Do you agree?

Of course, in the world of Pinterest, inspiration has been flowing all week for 4th of July ideas. This table must have stuck in my head. I’ve been so busy, and with the holiday in the middle of the week, it seemed almost impossible to actually execute on any of the cool ideas that I had pinned. But at the last minute, I hit the dollar store in hopes of finding some decorations. They were pretty much out. I was able to grab red place mats and red towel there.  I was stuck with what I was going to do about napkins. I remembered, I had some scrap blue fabric that I thought might work as make shift napkin rings. I ripped strips and tied them around my plain white ones, added some red ribbon and finished it off with a flag (dug out from the bottom of Griff’s toy box). To add more color to the place settings, I used blue water glasses. The centerpiece was made from bits and pieces from other collections around the house. I purchased a bunch of sunflowers at the grocery store while out to get food. I placed them in a newly acquired crystal pitcher then tied it together with some fresh cut geraniums from a hanging plant I have out front and another found flag.  We are only having a small gathering, but sometimes it’s just nice to do it up right!

Happy 4th Everyone!

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