Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Easter Decorating

As you all know, I go CRAZY, when it comes to decorating for the holidays, just check out my Halloween and Christmas posts!

But among all the holidays, Easter is my least favorite when it comes to decorating.

I know, I know, it should be AS glorious as Christmas, since I am after all, a Catholic
But somehow, growing up in the Philippines, the importance of Easter wasn't brought up into my consiousness until I was much older. 
Plus the fact that we didn't have easter egg hunts or gift baskets given to us during Easter. 
So growing up, there wasn't much to look forward to after the "somber" (actually, usually fun-filled for family outings) Holy week. 
Actually, come to think of it, Easter to me, when I was little, meant going back to school soon! WHHHHAAAAAAHH!!!

Anyway, enough about my excuses. Somehow though, when we came to live in the U.S., I  started to realize the improtance and beauty of this holiday. Easter egg hunt, bunny rabbits, pastels... and of course, watching and reading  Martha, you cannot, NOT go wrong with trying to enjoy and decorate for this holiday.

So as per my personal tradition, my Dining room at least, has come into the spirit of this cute holiday...



My not-so-eager Easter went a little overboard! :0



Up close and cute

Another angle

Just love the birds


My versatile apothecary jars now filled with eggs

I know what your thinking, "How can she decorate with all those FAKE EGGS?" . Well, I think that at least, even if I have not crossed that fine line of EGG DECORATING, I am STILL decorating USING EGGS at least! :-)

Call me lazy, but I still need a little more "push" (or maybe patience and time) to decorate my own Easter eggs. So for now (I hope), I am using all these more than Half-priced, plastic eggs I bought from last year (and the years before). Even the green plastic grass was from last year!

Almost everything Easter in this set-up were from the dollar store ( ceramic egg containers at the bottom, baskets holding the orchids, plastic eggs, nest grass) or cost much less than that! Exception is the capiz-lined egg at the very top of the cake stands ($4.99 at TJ Maxx). All the "expensive" looking things are mine from the get-go, bought by me for other purposes ( cake stands, small bowls, bird salt and pepper shakers).


Egg-stra special Centerpiece

My Dining table center piece just consisted of 4 green felt placemats ( bought 3 years ago at Homegoods on clearance), used as a runner (I used green sewing thread to tie them up), the brown wooden egg decor underneath the center bowl is an old Easter yard decor of mine that was broken.

Fancy Fancies

The flowers were from the dollar store and so were the baskets.

What is looks like daytime
If you also noticed that I placed the extra eggs around my display cabinet and switched all my silver/metallic accessories for my white millk glass collection.

Well, I hope this gives you an idea of how to decorate on a budget  ( or on a whim- all bragging aside I did this in less than 30 minutes because we had to go somewhere the next day!) for this coming Holiday!!!



Happy Decorating!!!!! 

Spring is in the air!!

After the long winter months here in the Midwest, signs og spring is such a welcoming sight.

Just take a look at the first signs I took pictures of just last week!


Blooming starting




Just a very hopeful sight

Tree in our yard

Just pretty



Hope you have a beautiful Spring Day!!!

Monday, March 12, 2012

Storm room

With all the storms down here in the south, we were glad to have a Storm room to go to just in case things get out of hand.

For all of you Easterners and Westerners, a storm room looks something like this...

Steel doors

Concrete all around including ceiling

Air vent on the ceiling

Phone line access


Of course, in case we ever get trapped in here (God-forbid) for a while, we need to have basic necessities at hand...


Matches, candles, flashlight, extra batteries, lighters, can opener


Water, toilet paper, canned goods

Copies of important documents

I am still trying to complete this room with ample supplies - I still need  a first aid kit, a cash stash, extra phone... etc....


I really hope we never ever use this room for real, but it doesn't hurt to be ready somehow especially with my family's safety at stake.

How 'bout you? What would you put in your storm room??

Have a blessed day!!!