Hey Everyone!  It's Merilee here, back after a long absence.  I hope you are all enjoying this busy holiday season.  We've been especially busy here.  In the last month we found out we are going to be transferred from our home here in Atlanta to Nashville, Tennessee!  We lived in Tennessee six years ago, but we were on the eastern part of the state.  This time we'll be living in a suburb of Nashville.

We were happily living our lives working on home improvement projects when we got the news.  We were not expecting it at all; so, needless to say, my husband and I have been frantically finishing up our projects around the house in order to put our home on the market.  We accomplished almost everything on our list and we now have a big sign in our yard and are on constant alert in case prospective buyers are interested in touring our home.

I haven't had a lot of time for creating until now, and it's hard to do much since I don't want to make much of a mess.  I don't know about you, but my work space gets super messy when I'm working, lol!  Not only that, my art studio has been moved from the formal dining room down to the basement.  I wasn't happy about that at all, but we wanted our home to appeal to as many buyers as possible--not just the artsy ones, lol!  :o}  Since the weather has gotten a bit colder, the basement (which is unfinished) is a bit chilly.  So I've been hauling things up as I need them and I now have half of my art studio on my kitchen table, lol!  (I told you I was messy!)

The project I'm sharing today is my Christmas wreath and new little tree I made for my front porch.  I saw these darling trees made from cones covered with glass ornaments in Target and thought..."I can make that!"  So that's just what I set out to do.  The problem is that I ran out of ornaments before I got to the bottom, so I filled in with holly leaves.  Those little glitches along the way always turn into happy accidents at the end--as if they were always meant to be!

I also bought a wire-rimmed wreath at Walmart and decided to create a new wreath for our front door.  I wanted to make a nice presentation for prospective buyers.  (Not to mention the fact that I seem to have buried my Christmas boxes when I moved my art studio downstairs.)  :o}

I picked up a bag of those cinnamon scented pine cones and attached them to the wreath, along with some pretty silk flowers and a red velvet bow.  I also added some twisted glass ornaments for a bit of sparkle.

It was fun creating something new for my front porch this year.  We've been so busy going through boxes, getting rid of things and consolidating things, as well as otherwise preparing our home for sale, I needed a good project to work on to bring me back the pure and simple enjoyment of this holiday season.  This project was just what the doctor ordered.

So we are officially moving...something I really hadn't grasped until the sign was finally erected in our yard.  I will certainly miss Atlanta--we had hoped our moving days were over and we would someday retire here, but life is an adventure always changing.  We will trust in The Lord and gladly go where He wants us to be.  So...Tennessee, here we come!  :o)

I wish each one of you a wonderful holiday season!  I hope to make another post before Christmas, but if I cannot, I send you all the very best during the holidays--my favorite season of all!

Merilee