Christmas at our house

Our living room with tree and fireplace decoration


The dinning room with flower arrangements by my daughter and me. The ever changing decoration on the sideboard features flowers and wooden Santos doll

Halloween party

Last year's Halloween party was a tour de force. I went all out and created this ghoulish buffet. My inspiration came from the old Baroque still life paintings, called Vanitas. I worked on this set up for a week and borrowed many items from my friends. Catharine was so kind to give me some items from her taxidermy collection, Ellie offered her vintage silver, Pam had a crocodile's head. The beautiful, but scary flower arrangement (who knew that a flower arrangement could be scary) was designed by Svenja. Scott and Valentina baked terrible finger cookies and Ellie brought her amazingly decorated cupcakes. When Halloween was over, it was hard to take it all down and restore my studio to it's usual set up. somehow I wish I could live like this all the time. After this Halloween extravaganza though, I felt burned out and Halloween was celebrated this year rather quietly.

How I set the table for Papa Paolo's 80th

Patterned scrapbook paper was used as place mats and for napkin rings. I used the same paper and cut circles for a garland that spelled out "Buon Cumpelanos - Papa Paolo"