Merry Christmas and Happiest of Holidays!

I hope everyone is having a lovely holiday! We started our festivities a few weeks ago - courtesy of my birthday being in December. We traveled to York, PA to see White Christmas on the big screen at the Strand Capitol theater. It was great. Afterwards we had dinner at the Yorktowne Hotel - the Off Center Grille. The food was delicious, although the service was a bit odd.

We had a delicious Christmas Day dinner compliments of my brother, Matt, a chef. He made a standing rib roast (the biggest piece of meat I have ever seen!) with lots of wonderful side dishes - WOW! Afterwards we stopped at Bob's mom's house and debated on how many deserts we were going to try. The phone is ringing - is Weight Watcher's calling???

Last night we had another gathering (having an extended family is marvelous!) where we visited with more sisters, brothers, in-laws, grown children, grand kids, etc... More good food and lots of fun.

Blessings to all at this wonderful time of year.

Wonderful reception to my Vintage Ornaments Wreaths

These wreaths are moving out the doors! I've sold the large one from the December 13th post and others that I never even got photographed.

I have also created a centerpiece tree, that uses the same snowman as a focal point. I love the way it came out - what do you think?

I have one more tree in the works - it will have a handmade snowy birdhouse at the base, with red vintage ornaments, red cardinals and maybe folksy snowmen.

Both are perfect centerpieces for the holidays, but they also will work for January and February!

Christmas shopping hours by appointment

As of now, our open houses for the season are over! However we are always happy to open the shop to help you finish up your holiday shopping. Just comment here, or contact us through the website - http://www.bittersweetdesignstudio.com/ - or a convo through etsy - http://www.bittersweetdesign.etsy.com/ - however you get a hold of us we are happy to help!

New Hours for Saturday December 13th

At the special request of Kim, a long time customer and friend, the shop will be open starting at 9am today. I hope to see lots of friends/customers and help them with all those last minute Christmas gifts. Here is a photo (for your viewing pleasure!) of some of the wreaths I was making the other day.

Counting your Blessings

The first December open house that we held on the 5th and 6th was lots of fun. We made peppermint topped brownies bites and had sparkling cider and hot cocoa to drink. A wide variety of items sold including jewelry, ornaments, signs, soaps and lotion bars and more.
I have however (honestly, a long time ago), given up trying to figure out the buying public. I send out 200+ invitations to our open houses and perhaps 5-10% of our customers come. Thank goodness for the loyal ones!
I was busy yesterday making all sorts of wreaths. I took some up to Lucketts and will keep the others in the shop for our last open house of 2008 - tomorrow and Saturday. The rest of the day was spent running errands - in the cold rain - but I kept thinking how thankful I was that I had the money to buy the groceries, to keep a roof over my head, etc...

This is what this season should be about - counting our blessings!

Old fashioned Christmas open house

Please join us for our two open houses in December.

December 5th and 6th

Friday from 12 noon to 5 pm

Saturday from 10 am to 5pm.

December 12th and 13th

Hours as above.

New handmade goods, and vintage items abound,

We also plan to have all types of Christmas items on sale,

and I mean sale! See directions to shop in November's blog.

Holiday 2008 - Choose your favorite Decorations

Wow, how cool is this???? My dream forest trees are one of the 60 items to be a part of the etsy

http://www.etsy.com/storque/etc/holiday-2008-choose-your-favorite-decorations-2999/

go take a look! and vote for me! just kidding -- no seriously - vote for me!