Merry Christmas To All!

Just wanted to take a moment to wish each of my sweet blog readers, a very Merry Christmas! 

If by any chance you eat too much Chocolate, just tell yourself it's a food group!  That's what I do!!!  LOL!

Christmas Cat Tales

I didn't get much stitching done since yesterday so I thought I'd share another one of my cat tales with you!

I've posted photos of my Hoosier cabinet before but I never shared the story of how my cats have always loved to get inside of it:

This was the first piece of antique furniture that Scott and I bought after we bought our house.  This poor Hoosier was covered in about 6 coats of paint!  It took us 3 months to strip all the old paint off of it and restore it to it's original condition.

Everything is original except for one hinge.  One was missing so we had to buy a reproduction.  It has the bread drawer, the flour bin/sifter, the original porcelain top and the working tambour door.  The only thing missing is the original bread board.

If you've never seen one of these wonderful old kitchen cabinets, you wouldn't believe how much storage space there is in one of them!  I store my crocheted doilies and decorative towels in the drawers and in the big cabinet underneath, I keep my vintage tablecloths and tablerunners.

My cats have always loved this cabinet.  My little Simba used to sit by that big door and fiddle with the latch until he got it open!  I still miss seeing him sitting there.  My Garfield used to love to crawl inside too.  He always made a mess.  He pushed everything out to make room for his big orange butt!  Still miss him too.

Nightmare doesn't bother to pull anything out.  He just crawls in, pushes things around a little bit and makes himself right at home:

If you've never had a cat, they can be quite amusing!

While I had the camera out, I took a few more photos to share with you, just for fun.  You may have noticed the towels on my Hoosier cabinet:

These are towels are vintage, probably from the 1950's.  I bought them at an antique mall a few years back for $10.00.  I'm assuming they were a set of 2 towels available as a kit.  There are little rhinestones in the stars and there's metallic gold thread in the words.

I saw a very similar set with angels at a flea market not long ago but the seller wanted $40.00 for the set.  I know my prices for vintage linens and refused to pay that much for them.  But the style was identical to these so they were probably by the same manufacturer.

These stitching on these towels is absolute perfection:

Next on the tour of my dining room, is my vintage Christmas tablecloth on my kitchen table which you really can't see but it's another one of our antique refinishes:

I paid $40.00 for this oak table complete with 2 leaves (sp?) which make it into a nice big oval table and with 4 lion's feet on the bottom:

My mother hates the lions feet!  She said that in the old days, everything had lions feet on it.  I love the lions feet!

Anyway, that's my dining room:

The runner down the middle was made by mom as were the doilies.  The candle holders are vintage.  Found the set at an antique shop for $5.00.  I love bargains and I love the thrill of the hunt!  Oh and my pressed back chairs are all vintage too and unmatched which I love!  We paid between $15 and $20 for each of them.  Which goes to show, that nice things don't have to cost a lot of money.

Well, I hope you enjoyed my cat tale and my dining room tour!
 

Newtown, Connecticut

Mom, Kathi and I would like say that our thoughts and prayers are with the Newtown, Connecticut community today.

And Here's Lucy

Last night, I found my little Lucy laying under the Christmas tree:

I'm a bit surprised that Nightmare even allowed this!  He's quite the bully and thinks nothing of kicking Lucy out of the space he wants to lay in.  But I found her under the tree so I was able to get a picture.

We didn't get the 5 inches of snow yesterday that they were calling for.  Thank goodness!  We only got about 1/2 an inch and I'm okay with that!  And believe it or not, there's this big yellow, bright thing in the sky now!!!  It's been quite awhile since we've seen it that I barely recognized it!  Ha, ha, ha!!!  Ya'll know that I will take as much sun as I can get this time of year!

I finished up another one of my Valentine Cat Dolls this morning:

They never look like much until I sew them together but this is my traditional 6 inch cat doll.  I'm not sure why I went with all blue, white and silver on this one.  I think I just liked the way it looked.  What rock is it written on that all Valentines have to be pink and red?  LOL!

Have a great day everyone.  I'm heading over to mom's for awhile.

Cat Dolls for Valentines Day

Oh, what a cloudy, dreary, grey day!  We haven't had sun here in McHenry, Illinois for I don't know how long.  They're calling for snow later today.  Ya'll know how I feel about that!  But it is what it is and there's nothing I can do about it.

I've filled my bird feeders, fed my squirrels and ran to WalMart for Nightmare's prescription.  I have laundry going and when I finish up here on the computer, I plan to stitch the rest of the day.

I snapped a few pictures of my precious Nightmare this morning.  He loves to sleep under the Christmas tree:

Is he a beauty or what?  He seems to have pretty much recovered from the stroke he had 4 months ago but he's still a bit off.  Not too bad though.  Scott and I are taking him to the vet on Saturday for another blood test to see where things are with the kidney disease.  He eats well, in fact he's quite happy with the special kidney diet he's on.  I've had to get a little creative with snacks though.  He's kind of pathetic when he wants a kitty cookie which I can't give him due the fact that kitty cookies are all protein and it's the protein that's so hard on the kidney's.  He sits on the counter in the kitchen and stares at the cupboard door where I keep them.  Poor little thing!  Instead, don't laugh, but I make him pasta.  He loves pasta!  Just macaroni chopped up little and tossed with a bit of vegetable oil.  And he also loves the crust on white bread.  What we do for the ones we love huh?

I've been stitching up some Valentines for my Etsy shop.  My current projects are some of my little cat dolls:

I have 3 more sewn up and ready to stitch.  After that, maybe I'll make another purse.  Something pink perhaps?