Saturday, November 14, 2009

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

Our daughter is getting married in early December so I am not getting as much work done as expected. That is not a complaint! I will post about new work and other little bits of information as it comes along and I have time. I won't be doing any Christmas decorating until after the wedding so I am not certain what I will be doing this year.

I have to get into the holiday spirit. Hallowe'en is in the process of coming down at our house. The stores have Christmas up and are promoting all of their "must have" merchandise. I love the commercialization of Christmas; it doesn't bother me in the least. It has nothing to do with the birth of Jesus but all of those wonderful decorations come out to get us into the mood to shop.


So in the spirit of commercialization here is what was put up last year in the hallway entrance. The theme for the hallway display was Santa getting ready to deliver the gifts. The backdrop is vintage green fabric that has a white 1/4" dot printed on it. It looks almost the same colour as the wall. Swagged across the top and down the left side is green vintage rayon fabric. Swags of hand dyed silk on the right side pick up the colours of the world globe.


Here is a close-up of the short column. On this column is Santa's robe ready to put on and a world globe with the North Pole, our home in Victoria, BC, our daughters home in Toronto, and our son and his wife's home in Thun, Switzerland marked with pins.

Santa's robe is made from a long rabbit fur coat turned inside out and sewn into a burgundy felted wool dressing gown. It has white machine embroidery on the cuffs, pockets and robe edging. The total cost for this wonderful prop is $20.00. I wish I could wear it but it is too small.


On the tall column is a black candelabra with red vintage candles. Hanging off of the candelabra is some 1940's cellophane roping and a 1960's plastic snowman, his body is made of plastic evergreen with holly berry buttons. In front of the candelabra is a 16" tall party trumpet being held by a 1960's plastic elf similar to the snowman. His body is made of plastic holly.


Here is a side view of the display and under the tree you can see the tops of some 1950's plastic stockings.


The main focus of the display is this 6' 6" goose feather tree that I made years ago to display ornaments on at craft fairs. It is covered with party horns, rattles and party hats from the 1920's to the 1960's.


Under the tree are more noisemakers, two German paper accordions, tambourines as well as another giant and very noisy party trumpet.


Here is the midsection of the tree. Hung throughout the tree are 1960's "silver" baskets filled vintage noisemakers.


My tree topper for this tree is a 1950's joke shop set of glasses with a false nose and eyebrows and a gold foil vintage party hat edged in green paper fringe.

I'll show you the rest of the house decorations from last year in the next post.

2 comments:

Country Wings in Phoenix said...

Oh Len...
This is absolutely precious. I just love it. What a wonderful job you have done pulling this all together. I love the colors, and especially that hat and glasses that are on top of the tree. The globe adds to the whole vignette in this corner.

I can't wait to see what other things you put up. A daughter also getting married along with the Christmas holiday. You are going to be a busy bee. I would be starting early also.

Thanks for sharing. I so love this corner setting. Just beautiful.

Country hugs...Sherry

Len said...

Thank-you so much. I love doing display work and have done it free lance as well as for department stores. The work I do at home is what I like best though. I hope I have inspired you, that is the reason for showing some of the details. All the best,Len.