I Should Be At Home Cleaning . . . .

. . . .but I'm not.


Instead, I'm tootling off to a very special sale today.



It only happens once a summer.
And tomorrow I'll let you know if I brought anything home with me.

In the meantime, remember those demitasse cups I bought at Goodwill a couple of weeks ago?

Yes, them.  Those them.

They are no longer demitasse cups.

They are now Christmas Tree ornaments for our dining room tree.

All it took was a glue gun and about 5-and-a-half minutes,

not counting the downtime for photographs.

"Show me your best side!"

A bead of hot glue around the bottom of the little cup,
a quick squoosh of the cup onto the saucer, and
voila!

Cup is stuck to saucer, and the whole shebang can be
hung on our dining room Christmas Tree.

And I'm only kidding about the little ornament inside the cup.
Probably.

All eleven of them, done.

I still need to embellish them -- a little white and gold ribbon,
maybe a little bling . . . I'll let you know!

My inspiration?  A few years ago, when I first discovered blogging, I stumbled on Mary's
Little Red House  blog.  I greedily read back, and back, over old posts, and found one about
her dining room at Christmas.  With a small scale tree.  With tea cups as the ornaments.

Stolen from Mary.  Sshh, don't rat me out.

Gasp!
I have a dining room!
I can get a tree!
I can hang tea cups on it!
I can be one of the cool kids!

Well, maybe not the cool kids thing, but as for the tea cup tree,
this year I'll finally get around to doing it.

Each Christmas we put a big fresh tree in our sunroom, where it is cool and the tree lasts well.
And lights up the whole neighborhood through all the glass.

Last year we got a tall narrow fake tree for our parlor, and I loved it as much
as I can love a fake tree.  It fit perfectly next to the fireplace, with minimal furniture displacement.

So after Christmas, when the fake tree merchants were shivering on the cold pitiless street corners

with noses red from the icy wind, suffering from chilblains and reaching out their

bony hands in their fingerless gloves, clutching the hem of my coat and whining,

"Please, please buy me last tree, kind lady, or me little 'uns shan't eat tonight,"

in a Cockney accent even though they grew up in the Bronx . . . .

Yeah, then, at a really deep discount, we bought another fake tall narrow tree, just like the Parlor's.
 It awaits its call to duty, slumbering in the attic, undisturbed in its box.

Mary hung naked tea cups on her tree, and some very nice, very beautiful ones, too,
but I decided not to risk hanging good cups, as things tend to happen here,
but to find thrift shop orphans and glue their saucers onto them and bling 'em up a bit.
Because we love us some bling at Christmas.

And it keeps me out of mischief.


Except today, when I'm heading off to see what kind of mischief
I can get into at that once-a-year sale.  -- Cass

Postscript:  If you click through to Mary's Christmas post, above, you will see that she got her inspiration
from Cindy at My Romantic Home.  And it just keeps getting passed on, doesn't it?


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Link Parties!

Metamorphosis Monday at Between Naps On The Porch.  Visit Susan here!
Today's Thrifty Treasures, at Southern Hospitality.  Visit Rhoda here!