Today, the white scene came together very nicely. I added 4 new glitter village pieces and some cool LED garland lights that I got last year after Christmas.
I just love that lighted ribbon too!
I'm really loving the contrast between warm incandescent lights and cool LED lights.
These lights are all white...don't some of the LEDs look blue?...
Now I just need some little village people in the scene.
The Candyland/Gingerbread Scene at Copeland Christmas in 2011 was lots of fun to put together. Danielle, Matthew, and Mom did the whole thing in only a few hours.
We started off with garland, lights and topiaries. Then we added three power strips and 3 extension cords.
Then, we made Mom a Chocolate Martini and continued on...
Next, we added candy and gingerbread house houses on top of hand-carved styrofoam. Matthew told us where to place the buildings...some are stores and some are homes.
Then, Mom added candy garland all around the outside with pins and snow while Matthew and I made the trail with construction paper.
We glued pins to little gingerbread ornaments and stuck them on the path....so cute.
Visit CopelandChristmas.com for more photos and video.
At the end of the day, we added more candy and gongerbread to the topiaries and sat down to relax.
A few days later, Matthew tweaked the scene a bit and made it better by adding more gingerbread men to the top of the topiaries.
We bought a few Light-O-Rama boxes for Jim's house this year. Joey built them. It took him a while, but they turned out perfect! John brought them over to Jim today. The Light-O-Rama controllers are what makes the lights dance to music. Read more about our controllers here.
Yesterday, I got out all the gingerbread stuff to put together the TV display. Four gingerbread houses had broken in the the bins even though they were secure in bubble wrap. Anyway, it's nothing a little super glue couldn't fix. :)
So far, I've added the gingerbread motionettes to the tv and I've tangled them up in multi colored mini lights. Then, I added the triple annalee gingerbread guys and candy garland all over the topiaries. I cut up styrofoam sheets to cover the table and now I just need construction paper for the walkways.
We decided to make a Grinch-Themed Christmas tree.
I love the Grinch. A few weeks ago, my family and I were in the garage looking at a ton of green ornaments I got on clearance last year, and we decided to set them aside, but we didn't know why. Then we found a bunch of red/green ornaments I got last year. the next natural progression was that red+green=grinch.
Not sure how logical this all is, but I'm excited to have our first ever grinch themed Christmas tree this year. John and Danielle in March 2010 at Universal Studios with The Grinch.
The red/green ornaments that inspired the tree
The receipts from the ornaments last year.
Cute shot of Tinsel the Yorkie last year with her new Princess toy.
Ordered him from eBay last week. Where should we hide him? I think he should go in the garage. Right now he's teasing Tinsel. Her favorite food is popcorn.
This weekend, Joey and John got the garage backdrop done. I got a little further on the tropical scene. Now, I just need to decorate the flamingos and perhaps somehow make it look like they are decorating the tropical tree.
Maybe I can find mini tropical ornaments and hang them all over the tree. Then, I can have an ornament hanging out of the mouths of the flamingos. Cute!
I am thinking sand might complete this scene, but I'm not sure how I feel about sand in the house. It'll probably happen. I need to decorate the top of the brick pantry first. What am I going to do up there?
This year, the red cardinal scene is above the front window. Last year was the first time I moved it from where it was, next to the snowmen. I love the red and green lighted twigs. We got them last year at A Christmas Place
Today friends and family came over to help decorate. It was loads of fun and we got a lot accomplished.
Some of us wrapped the wall art to look like presents.
Here are the masterminds of the snowman scene. Kathy's vision was to have all the snowmen cascading down the bar. She made it happen and with Caitlin's help, they got it done in only a few hours. Bill and Jim helped John get the tree to rotate and Jim hung the giant glitter snowflakes in the perfect locations. The kids and Mom decorated the tree and I was the runner.
Oh, and I made the cocktails which fueled our creativity.
I don't know how Tinsel made it into the team photo...all she did was steal our Christmas socks. What a great memory I have when I look at this photo. It was a fun day.
2011 Copeland Christmas
Who remembers where the snowman scene was last year....?.....
I love our Lightkeeper Pro. It's a little red gun that fixes broken Christmas lights. You can it get on the Christmas aisle at home stores. Some Christmas lights just need to be thrown away, but if you have a strand that you think is only a few years old and the bulbs are still clear (as opposed to hazy/burned) then use the LKP.
Plug lights into an outlet
Remove an unlit bulb
Plug the empty bulb socket into the Lightkeeper Pro
Pull trigger 20 times while watching for faint flickers coming from the other unlit bulbs. This is the culprit bulb.
Replace the culprit.
This method doesn't always work, but today it worked for me with 2 of 2 strands. Visit the LKP website for the official user instructions and also for alternate methods of fixing broken lights. Email me with questions.
I want to thank John, Tessa, Bradley, Eric, Dalton, and Joey for helping out with organizing the storage units this weekend. We took everything out, organized it, then put it all back together. Now, the decorating part will be a snap.
Here we are at 2pm after 4 hours of dirty, sweaty work. Thank goodness we got in a cold front last night. Today, the high temp reached 82. It was great.
Compared to yesterday, the units look spectacular today. There are aisles and everything is labelled great.
