Easter on the hill

We are celebrating Easter up north with my family this weekend. We're really looking forward to seeing the family and spending time on the hill. I get to go to a good friends baby shower Saturday morning and see my best friends from high school. Can't wait!

Easter is always a treat at my mom & dad's. We still get Easter Baskets filled with goodies. My mom always puts on a big "bunny hop" for us to get our Easter Baskets. Clues, goofy hats (aka Easter Bonnets) all usually included.... Yes, we are a little old to be getting Easter baskets...but I'm not complaining!
I have to say we have as much fun finding our Easter baskets now, as we did when we thought there really WAS a big bunny hiding our eggs and leaving treats behind.

Let's look back at Easter way back in the 90's at my house...

1. My parents had (still have) barn wood on the walls WAY before it was cool.
2. The Easter Bunny brought us this super amazing and beautiful ~~vintage~~ dollhouse for Easter that year. It had hardwood floors, floral wallpaper... I wish I still had this.
3. Those matching little mermaid shirts? The bunny brought those too. I know, you are jealous.


Fun, wasn't it?  Now, let's look back a little further. I think this was either 1990, or 1991.

Yep. That's me. Now this embarrassing photo of myself is on the internet. Great. Go me.



HAPPY EASTER to you!

How do you celebrate Easter?
Do you still get a treat from the bunny?


To see my Easter and Spring decor in the house check out my Easter Vignette and Spring Fireplace and my Thrift Store Bunnies Turned Glam!

A Ski Lodge Party

This New Year's Eve we participated in a progressive dinner party.  What is a progressive dinner party you ask? It's a house hop. Everyone starts at one home, and hop to different homes throughout the evening. Each host serves a signature drink, and appetizer to the house hoppers.

It's best to do it with your neighbors or friends that live close. Cuts down on drive time, and if you can walk to each others homes...you don't have to worry about choosing a DD! But if you will be driving from house to house, don't forget to decide on a DD before the night begins!

This year we decided each house could do their own theme of their own choice.

We chose Ski Lodge. We figured our house already has the lodge feel, so we already had the setting. Since we would only be hosts for a short time in the evening (about an hour), we didn't want to go nuts with party planning. But still wanted to do a few fun things..

One Saturday afternoon we pulled out the barn wood. Adam hammered some nails into it for about 10 minutes in the garage and came up with this:

Yep, that will work.

 We busted out some stencils, and printed some "mountain animals" from the internets to trace.

 This was Adam's first time stenciling. He said it was boring...

 Rawwr...

 And here she is. Ready for the front yard.

Welcome to the ski lodge!

Adam strung up some lights last minute to give it a little more pizzaz.

I added some new year's art to the chalkboard easel to greet guests in our entry way.

Vintage ski poles courtesy of my dad for some added lodge decor.

 My dad also gave us some of his old cross country skis. Adam tied them up on the catwalk.

 For the table I spray painted some pinecones with gold spray paint. And used some fabric as a table runner.

I served my favorite hot warm dip. Bagna Cauda. It's italian. And it clogs your arteries. And it's soso good.

 We had a bar set up with hot cocoa, wine, and scotch.

Your Ski Lodge hosts thank you for coming!

Other stops on the evening's progressive dinner included:
Hawaii (if you didn't notice by Adam's lei)
Mardi Gras!
German Christmas Market
A Wild West Saloon
and ended the night in New York Times Square!


I wish I would've taken photos at each hop, but the night happened so fast!
Here are a few more:

Adam's Aunt Katie painted this backdrop in one afternoon!

Beautiful German Christmas Market Setup.

Ladies in New York for the ball drop.

I am Tyra Smizing here..

At Mardi Gras...notice the cowboy in the background...

Have you ever been to/hosted a progressive dinner party?
What theme would you choose?

Decking the Halls! (for 4 bucks) Yep.

Have you had enough Holiday home tours yet in blogger-land? I hope not. Don’t worry mine is short and sweet. With a treat at the end.
I was in bed sick alllll weekend long so I didn't get to finish taking all of my photos. 
So this will be more like the nickel tour today!

Hurry in...it's snowing!

Here is a better shot of our front door wreath. I rescued it from an estate sale in a big box of wreaths and garland for 50 cents. Watch and see how far this box of greenery takes us this Christmas..

I took off all the ugly bows and ribbons, spritzed the wreath with some gold spray paint for some pizzaz. Then I hot glued some ornaments from the dollar store, and smack a big sparkly gold "N" on it to finish it off. I love it.

When you come in the front door you will immediately see another rescued wreath from the same estate sale box-o-greenery.

 This one got spritzed of white spray paint and real pinecones hot glued on there. I needed a little something else, so I made some rosettes out of scraps of lace. I like this one so much I think I will use it for my front door wreath after Christmas.

DIY wreath.

After you walk in the entry you see our beautiful tree. She is new this year. Last year we had a real tree. Which we LOVED. We would have gotten another real tree this year....

But this one came unexpected to us in July. My Aunt and my parents got it for me at a moving sale, get this...for: $3.

That is not a typo. $3, 10-foot tree. Pre-lit. With the stand and everything. We are lucky ducks. It fits the spot next to our fireplace perfect.

And next, our mantel.

I used garland from the same estate sale box as the wreaths. Luckily this was still in the original packaging.  I didn't need to rip anything off.
I took it outside and gave this a spritz of white to match the snowy look on our tree. It took about 5 minutes of random spritzing.

The white doesn't show up in the photos as much as in person...

The Noel sign was a craft night project. I just cut the boxes and stenciled right onto the burlap. The hard part was stringing the twine through the burlap. The trick was tweezers!

you don't see our dirty fireplace doors...amiright?

Our dining room is festive too.

On top of my china cabinet sits my lantern collection. They are now surrounded by few mini trees. Also from…you guessed it, the box of estate sale greenery. They too got some white spray paint spritzes to freshen them up and match the other greenery in the house.

The believe banner was made at craft night too. So easy!

These trees will hold our holiday cards as we get them through the next few weeks. It's an easy way to display them. I didn't even put hooks in them, just perched them in the tree branches.

Thank you for visiting!

Linking up today for the Dare to DIY: Deck the Halls....with NewlyWoodwards, Primitive and Proper, Decor and the Dog, and Maybe Matilda.

If you haven't entered our giveaway from  PorterDesignCo to with a set of 3 vintage postcard ornaments enter below! Today is the last day! More info in this post.

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Decking the Halls Teaser & a Giveaway from {{PorterDesignCo}}

Who is tired of the holiday Christmas tours yet? Not Me. How about one with a giveaway! Now we're talkin' right?

Our holiday home tour will be live on Monday. Here is a teaser:

I have a few of these beauties on my tree. Ornaments featuring vintage postcards from the early 1900's! These are all custom, handmade ornaments from PorterDesignCo

PorterDesignCo is celebrating its Grand Opening! They are a brand new shop, open just in time for Christmas. The description of the PorterDesignCo ornaments:

"Most feature original postmarks depicting the dates and towns in North-Central Illinois where my great-grandmother, Della, received them. Also included, are many original messages from the senders. "

How sweet right?

Enter right here on the Rafflecopter for your chance to win a set of 3 vintage postcard ornaments from PorterDesignCo:

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Pillars! We are #countryfolk no more!

Ok, that post title is just a flat out lie. I suppose we are still a tiny bit hillbilly. After all, the bed spring we pull behind the four-wheeler is sitting outside my dining room window as I type this. Yep.

But anyway...

The exterior of the house has had just a couple of sticks holding up the front porch roof since like...last summer when it went up.

Dad begins the stonework...winter 2012

Backfilling...spring 2013

Then one day I came home from work and there pillars! They were so pretty. It made the house less shanty-like....

 But, they were WHITE. Bright white. Too white.

So last week we painted them.

 And I do mean both of us painted them. I just took breaks to take photos...someone has to document for the blog ya know!

I had plenty of work to do. Like painting almost all of the tiny indentations first which was a pain in the rear end--while Adam just walked over and did a roller here and there. Luckily, I am quite a bit shorter than Adam and he had to get on the ladder and do the tops.

After about 4 hours of work with one catnap in between coats...
White pillars no more!

We still have one more coat of brown to roll on-- which should be easy if it would stop raining!

 We decided to dress it up with some red, white and blue...

A complete look as it is right now....

It looks so much more finished, and a little less #countryfolk. My dad will be putting a few more stones on the bottom of the front porch this summer and then the exterior will be even closer to completion!


Did you dress up your house for Memorial Day? 
Did you get any projects done or did you get to enjoy fun only?