Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and

Happy New Year From

Brown Gingham Creations!

My studio and Etsy shop are closed now until Jan. 5th

In the last post I showed you what we've been working on here at the flower shop. http://www.aandjsfloralboutique.com/

I began at our main display window outside and then inside at the front entryway.

(See previous post)

Today our tour our tour takes us into the main showroom (there are 3 showrooms/main showroom/sunporch/kitchen-sales area, a design studio and display case for fresh botanicals, and a separate workroom where the bulk of creating occurs.)
As we enter the room this is a turn-of -the-century buffet that is the perfect spot to display reprodution vintage Santas. They depict Santa at different time periods and countries. My favorite is the patriotic Santa in the far left corner. Standing next to him is a Victorian style patriotic Christmas tree. Flags, bunting, dried carnations, decorations...all sealed under glass. Any one of these would be a great gift for the collector.
In the center of the room is a wonderful turn-of-the-century violin-leg library table filled with holiday fare. We display not only permanent botanicals designs in this room, but fresh too. Like this delightful fresh, fragrant mix in a vintage 1930-40's Mill with waterwheel ceramic planter. We also love to take vintage items and create tabletop vinettes, like the 1950's sewing box accented by matching roses, greenery, and special finds that were inside the box such as wooden spools of thread, buttons, packs of needles, etc. Perfect keepsake for the needlecrafter or seamstress.
As you come to the front of the table an antique Berea chair sits on top with a swag of faux greens and pinecones cascading over the chair back. The seat is filled with basket filled


with holly and one of my Christmas pillows. Next to is more of my hand-work, a bowl of fragrant fresh holiday greens and a wonderful mache
rocking horse in it's holiday floral finery. In the far corner of the room is a faux fireplace, ready for Santa to come down.
It was dry laid and the hand-carved roses on the mantle were done by me. This years color combination is rich reds, muaves, golds, browns, and greens. It seems retro earthtones are sneaking back.
As I said before our displays change daily. Can you pick out the difference between the two photos?.....
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The rose bouquet on the far right corner of the mantle is gone. Well, I'd better close for now and do up some replacement designs and orders that have to go out on the next sleigh.

What I've Been Working On

Thought I'd give you a peek at what we've been working on at the flower shop, A&J's Floral Boutique(R). This is our front display window. We love the oldtime window displays of 40's to the 60's with their holiday scenes and animation. Santa is new and he sings, but Mrs. Claus is an 'animatron' from the 60's and still works. She busily knits in her rocking chair nodding her head to the msuic. The feather tree is filled with vintage looking glass Waterford ornaments depicting Santa with a globe and is topped by one of my Angelic Inspirations. The elves have just finished the mache' train and firetruck just in time. They're filled with a feather tree and holiday boughs. As you follow the wrought iron fence around to the front door,

You are greeted by Frosty. This is out on our 'sunporch', which is filled with plants and gardeny gifts, so we've decorated it with babies breath, assorted blossoms, berries, gilded acorns with oak leaves, and frosted balls. If you look real close there are little chickadees nestled in the boughs. Throughout Christmas our displays change almost daily with sales of product, so tomorrow I'll give you another peek of a different area.

Christmas tree

It's finally beginning to look a lot like Christmas at the Albers' house. We had our first snow fall ( of no accumulation predicted) of about 3 inches over the weekend, so I figured that would get Jim into mode....it did. (by the by for those of you who aren't familiar with Cincinnati weather. It was in the 20's- teens over the weekend, by tomorrow it's back up to the 50's) We store our tree, lights still on, upstairs so all he has to do is come down and place in the front room. Realllly keeps the light issues at a minimum if ya know what I mean. He then brings up all the ornament boxes from the basement. I love opening them up...it's like opening a time capsule.
My fav collectible is aluminum. (This is a subject for a future post) These aluminum reflectors were inherited from my grandma. They are placed over the light bulbs and the colors are so vibrant from the plastic centers. Especially on her aluminum tree! You can place the reflectors over the matching primary color light bulb of the plastic or place on a different color to create new colors..i.e., blue over red bulb =purple, red over yellow bulb=orange..you get the idea. I also use some larger ones and to put those on my window candles.

These are a few of the vintage ornaments I place on my tree. In the 60's when I was little these types of ornaments were always on our Christmas tree mixed with the newer ones of course. The plastic yellow one has an aluminum whirligig inside. When placed near a light bulb the whirligig spins from the heat generated. They work on the same principle as those German candle carousels you see..for the life of me I can't think of what they're called, If you can please tell me. The little bell is colored glass with mica flecks for snow on the top and bottom edge.

This last picture is a plastic ornament with plastic flowers inside. These too were on my Mom and Dad's tree at home, but as I said she still uses them.I was sooooo happy to find 6 of these at the Burlington Antique Flea Market in Kentucky last year in a box of ruined ornament. (they thought the openings were supposed to be filled with a colored film...children). I have many other vintage glass balls. Some with glittered landscapes scenes others with stenciled holiday icons, and still others with birds and fauna. I mix them with new solid colored glass balls to fill out the tree. When I purchase a 'new' vintage ball it replaces the solid one.This This is the picture of the completed tree. Jim still has to put the village and train under it though. (Pic to follow). Let me know what your fav vintage ornament is or share pics of your vintagey tree.

Oops! Here are a few more Ornaments I forgot to place. The hand-blown glass and celluloid is a German creation and very old. The other two are 1940's-50's glass balls

It's That Time of Year

It's that time of year! Holiday craft show, decorating home for christmas, finishing up displays in the shop, everyday orders to get out, holiday orders to process....phew!!! Hopfully by next week things will be smooth and I can show pics of all the frenzy.