Very cool stairs!

 

Check out what this thrifty lady at Funky Junk Interiors did to her stairs! Super Prim! Love it!!!!

Isn’t that the cutest!!!!

You can find her tutorial HERE!

 

Until Next time!

Carmen and the Primcats

I finally won a giveaway!!!

Over the Holiday weekend I was thrilled to find out that I had finally won a giveaway in blogland! I’ve entered a ton but never once won. But I think this one makes up for it because I won the bestest giveaway ever from Teri over at White Sheep Farms!

Look what's headed my way!!!!

 

I borrowed Teri’s Pic, I hope she doesn’t mind!

Can’t wait for my goodies to get here!!!

 

Until next time…

Carmen and the Primcats

What a whirlwind…

 

That’s what the last week felt like! It was Crazy! The good kind of crazy but still crazy!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! It looks like you all did.

Thursday was Thanksgiving at our house. I am not a huge fan of cooking but holidays are important and as an only child I am always the host. Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas… all my responsibility to host. I may not enjoy doing all the cooking but I do enjoy hosting! So this year I passed out a few dishes for everyone to bring to lighten my load.

Mom and I cooked Wednesday night and Thursday morning since dinner was at three. We had a half ham, turkey breast, stuffing (moms), mashed potatoes (Tammy's) and gravy , Homemade Mac and cheese (Dads), corn, green beans, crescent rolls, cheesecake, pumpkin roll, pumpkin pie and chocolate cake. Yum.

I set the table with my Pfaltzgraff Folk Art and made it pretty! Oh how I love using all my dishes!

    

So here’s my wonderful family. ♥♥  From left front to back around to right front… my best friend since I was 2, Tammy. Her son, Dylan. My Mom, Tonya. My Stepmom, Laura. On right back, my Dad, John. Then Bill, Tammy’s Husband. Mr. Primcat, Shane. And Tammy’s daughter, Brooke.

Aren’t they a good looking group!

We all pigged out and then hung out for the rest of the day into the night. Playing cards and doing crafts while the guys watched TV and tinkered. Eventually we all collapsed into food comas. lol.

Friday Mom, Tammy and I embarked on the decorating of the house for Christmas. Oh dear. I have a lot of decorations! It’s like Christmas threw up all over my house. In a good way of course. LOL! I took a ton of pics and I will post those soon.

Saturday was Thanksgiving #2 at Tammy’s House with her Family. Tammy cooked a whole Turkey, which I haven’t done in over 5 years. It was really good! It was a lovely day and the food was great. Mr. Primcat and I went home rather early because we planned to work on some home projects… but alas the food coma’s claimed us again and we accomplished nothing. Collapsing on the couch and watching holiday tv. lol. A well deserved evening of rest after the last 2 and a half days of crazy!

Sunday we got up early and started on our projects. We cut, painted and installed the crown molding in the dining room and built the french doors for both openings. No small task if you ask me. We aren’t carpenters. lol. But we do the best we can! The openings weren't standard in anyway so it was a custom DIY project for sure! We have spent the last 2 nights painting them, coat after coat, and I hope we get to install them tonight or maybe tomorrow. They are going to look really cute and serve their most important purpose… keeping the cats out of the dining room! Woohoo! Cat free dining room! No more cats sleeping on my table and knocking my dishes onto the floor! Bad Kittehs! I can’t wait to show ya’ll what we built. I’m pretty proud of us!

So that’s been my last week! Told ya it was crazy! Promise I’ll be back soon with Christmas decor pics!

Until next time…

Carmen and the Primcats

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

Happy thanksgiving to all my prim friends here in blogland! I hope you are all having a wonderful day!

Until next time,

Carmen and the Primcats

Happy Thanksgiving and your holiday table!!!

Happy early Thanksgiving friends! I hope you and your family's have a wonderful day tomorrow!

In honor of tomorrows day of thankfulness… and eating… I thought we could talk about our dishes! It’s a big focus of this holiday for me and I love setting the table up pretty with all my Pfaltzgraff Folk Art dishes!

I have so many Pfaltzgraff patterns but my fav is for sure the Folk art! 

I am addicted! Oh yeah… it’s real. I’m completely addicted to Pfaltzgraff Dishes!!!!

I collect so many different patterns it’s ridiculous! Geesh! Somebody should stop me!!!! At least I buy them all used!

I collect…

Folk Art

 

Village

Yorktown

 

Naturewood

Grapevine

  

I also collect Moss Rose China from my Shabby Chic days. It’s packed away but I still pick pieces up when I see them in the Goodwill and tuck them away. Someday I may display them again.

So to sum it up… I have way to many dishes!!!! 

What patterns and makers do you collect?

And in honor of Thanksgiving I’d love to see your dishes and your Holiday table setting! Post to your blog and show me your dishes!!!!

Until next time…

Carmen and the Primcats

How to protect your tree from your cats!

 

If you don’t want to end up with this…

 

You need one of these!!!!

 

We live with 14 cats… and I’ll be darned for years I could not win with the Christmas tree. The year we adopted the Katrina kittens, 2005, the tree ended up in a box! (Lovely Photo Above.) LOL. It was hysterical and will forever be a fantastically funny Christmas memory… but darn it… I love my Christmas trees and a few years ago I found the solution to keeping the cats out of the tree.

It’s called the Tattle Tale and it’s a little box that you can hang inside your tree like an ornament and it sends out a loud reprimanding tone if they shake the tree. It WORKS! A few times getting screeched at and they don’t touch the tree again!

Here is a link if you need one! Click the picture.

 

Until Next time…

Carmen and the Primcats

Craft Fair, Merry Makers, Antiquing and Grandpa’s Wingback

What a busy weekend I had! Saturday two of my friends and I went shopping!

First we hit up the Aladdin Shrine Temple Christmas Gift Fair in Columbus. It was…. so so. I was not impressed. It was mostly glass and modern art-ish things and I’m not into either of those at all. But there were a couple good country prim booths I got a few things at. I got a bunch of tiny ornaments, a little snowman and a little sheep. Pics later when I get to my Christmas decor!
Next… we headed to Springfield for the Merry Makers Folk Art Show. Oh. My. Gosh. It was great. The talent at this show was unbelievable! Unfortunately, and I mean absolutely no offense, but said talented artisans knew how great their talent was and overpriced accordingly. :( I do wonder how many of them sold anything. We are talking $50.00 or more standard at every booth for a tiny 2” pin-keep. Or $75.00 for a tiny 3” paper mache’ bird. I just do not comprehend. :( I was disappointed to say the least. They are beautiful to look at but I can not afford those prices. Not to say I don’t WISH I could… but it’s just not feasible. I’m middle class and so is my decorating budget. ;) I ended up buying only a cute mouse doll and a crow with Santa hat at the only reasonable booth there. Again… pics with my Christmas decor!

We were done with that show by 2pm and decided to go ahead and hit up all 3 of the BIG antique malls in Springfield. That was fun!!!!! And I got some more Christmas shopping done! YAY!

Sunday was a lazy day around the house. I made a huge crock pot of chili for dinner and freezing and did laundry. Not very exciting! LOL! But the chili was delish!
I am not the greatest cook, nor do I enjoy cooking, but I love making up big crock pots of stuff and then freezing it for later. Homemade is always the way to go and then you always have something wholesome and fresh to eat even when you don’t want to cook. Which is pretty much me everyday. lol! The last few weeks I’ve done Vegi soup, Spaghetti and Meatballs and Chili so far for the freezer. Not sure what I’ll make next!

Now on to a fun Goodwill find from a few weeks ago!
I came across a matching chair to the chair we already have in the living room. It’s a Sofa Express oversized wingback and it is SOOO comfortable. I love the one we already have and I snuggle up in it all the time!

It was, of course, at the Goodwill and at first I passed it up. I liked it but the fabric doesn’t match ours and I wasn’t sure I wanted to take on resolving that issue.
Here is a very bad pic of our chair in the living room already. Same chair different fabrics.

I thought about until the next day and I went back and it was still there. I bought it and I’m going to replace this old overstuffed chair (the one covered in blankets) with the new wingback.



Side bar. This is Gizzy on the ugly cat ottoman… and it will stay in this house until it’s shredded to bits. It’s ugly as sin but it is the only piece of human furniture the cats claw and we let them. All of our cats have claws, front and back, because I don’t believe that  amputation of a cats digits at the first knuckle just so you can have a pretty couch is acceptable in any way. It’s a horrible mutilating procedure that lands way to many cats in shelters. ;( Cats can be trained not to claw, our home is PROOF of that. Let them have a few things to scratch and express their natural need and instinct to mark with their scent glands in their paws… and they will leave your good stuff alone. We have two huge cat trees and this ottoman for them to kill and everything else is fine! Please don’t declaw. Please. I’m begging you! Off my cat soap box now! ;)
So back to the chairs, I guess I’m going to slip cover both wingbacks. And except for the fact that I can’t sew a lick… it should be fine. HA! 

Until next time…
Carmen and the Primcats

My new old Dry Sink

Well, I’ll be. I just figured out that I can reply to comments in my email. Shoot… how did I not know that? I’ve been blogging for forever. I’m kinda excited! I often wondered where I should post back to comments and I would jump back and forth from my blog to yours. Now I can just reply in email! Coolness!!!! :)

I got a bunch more Christmas presents wrapped last night. Is it Friday yet? Because I’m tired of wrapping already. I’m ready to decorate instead!!!!

I picked this pretty little dry sink up at the Goodwill for $15.00. It’s Ethan Allen and its in perfect condition except for one thing… the drawer was missing. O.O Uh-Oh!

What to do… what to do.

No problem!

Put a quilt in it!

It’s in the bed room and I have all the extra blankets in it. Perfect storage piece. And you can’t beat the price.

Until next time…

Carmen and the Primcats

My Christmas Wish list…

 

I went “picture” Christmas shopping for myself at one of my favorite local prim stores! I bet I go here at least once a week just to browse and be lost in that prim store wonderfulness. :)

The Olde Farmstead

I’ll be sending all these pics to Shane, aka. Mr. Primcat, my dear hubby, near Christmas time when he’s ready to shop. ;) 

I love this sign! It says everything you need to know!

A cute plate! Need it!

Don’t you think this scale belongs in my kitchen next to my pie safe!!!  Love!

Smell goods!!!!! And I think this is the corner cabinet I’m going to have Todd (the carpenter who built my pie safe)  build me next! Isn’t it Beautiful!

For the bathroom!  

This mug is me!!!

I NEED this treenware plate for my soon to be made over make-do shoofly cover!!! So pretty!!!

And I love this piece. It’s a for sure for Todd (the carpenter) to build me. I want it in the dining room for my pewter collection. Maybe two of them!

I also bought the twiggy garland below that matches my 3 twig trees at the Christmas open house last weekend for across my fireplace mantle. I can’t wait for Christmas!!!

 

Click below pic for some wonderful Christmas decor!

 

That's all for now. I’ll share more pics from this store later!

Have a blessed day!

Until next time…

Carmen and the Primcats

Christmas Shopping?

Good morning friends! I don’t know about you but I have been busy Christmas shopping lately. Every trip I make out to the store I try to pick up a few things here and there! I have quite a few people done and even wrapped! I wrapped these last night for my best friend Tammy. She’s done!  Check that off the list! My step mom and my friend Jamie are also done. They are all so easy to buy for because I got them all into prim decor! If I like it for me I can buy it for them! It makes shopping fun!

Since it’s Christmas shopping time I thought I would share what I consider to be the best Christmas gift out there! I would love to receive one of these from a friend or family member!

You are just going to have to forgive this shameless plug for my mom, Tonya, but she has some great gatherings listed on her eBay this week at great prices and I thought maybe I could help ya’ll out to get your Christmas shopping started or if your lucky even finished!!!

Just check out these primtastic gatherings! Who wouldn’t want one of these?

Just look at that bonnet and dress!!!

Some unique Pfaltzgraff Yorktown if you please?

Hope you enjoyed the eye candy and maybe even found a gift or two!

Until next time…

Carmen and the Primcats