My Thrifty, Green Christmas

I ran across this idea several weeks ago. I can't even remember whether it was in a magazine or on-line, so I can't give proper credit. But, when I was unearthing the holiday decos I set these old bulbs aside with this in mind. Yesterday, I finally dug out some glass bowls to put this together.

I had 2 kinds of bulbs, clear and opaque, so I sorted them out and did 2 bowls. Looks like candy, doesn't it? I especially like the unique flame shaped (and flame colored) bulbs. I inherited all of these from my in-laws. Since we don't use these big lights anymore, and I'm pretty iffy about the safety factor of older light strands, I thought this was a fun & practical way to give them new life! Plus, I can recycle the wiring at Home Depot and get a coupon for $4 off a new Martha Stewart LED strand! How green is that?

On slightly less green note, I've had a few requests for a photo of our oversized Christmas tree! Unfortunately, the thing is SO enormous that I actually cannot back up far enough to get the whole tree in the frame! Yes, it is tied to the loft railing so it doesn't kill us.

It is a real tree that we cut ourselves, however, we try to find an area where the trees are crowding each other so our "thinning" of the tree will actually be beneficial for the forest. When we finally drag the tree back out, we toss it out in the woods to season for a few years before it will become fuel to keep us warm. See? Kinda green. For the record, our lovely little mountain town accepts spent Christmas trees and shreds them for mulch, which they then give away. I think I will be leaving this one up until February! I'm dreading trying to get it back out of the house! Although the space it takes up may cause me to shove it out the door come December 26th. It is beautiful, though. So you'll just have to wait and see what happens! 

Happy last shopping weekend! Don't forget you can shop on-line at www.madmoose.com

Christmas Cards & Backcountry Bliss

It is Saturday and I'm still sore from a ski trek on Wednesday.  Yikes.  We needed to test the hubby's repaired knee to find out whether he was ready to ski this winter or not.  It went well and we climbed farther than we had originally planned.  It was the coming down that reminded us we have not been resort skiing yet, and our legs weren't quite ready for the descent!  There were a whole lotta leg breaks, but we had fun and gained some confidence that we're not too old and broken to do so!  We continue to be inspired by this die-hard tele skier we see out there almost every time we go.  He looks to be in his 70's or older, and is on oxygen.  He just straps on his tank and goes!  Ya gotta love that!

This is right before our descent.  It was a beautiful sunny day, a bit crusty at the top, but we found some decent powder in the trees toward the bottom.  

I've spent the last several days working on our Christmas cards, both at home and at the store.  I took the idea from the Martha Stewart website.  I really liked the design.  I used a branch that fell off of our Christmas tree and several chunks of juniper from around our house. 

I laid the sprigs over gray-blue cardstock and sprayed over the card with white spray paint.  After they dried, I removed the sprigs and added glitter "berries".  Under the NECESSITY IS THE MOTHER OF ALL INVENTION category, I called a fresh pencil eraser into service to stamp a perfect circle for the glitter.  Worked like a charm, and the eraser still erases! 

Some of the finished product.  

Now I just have to write in them and get them in the mail!

So, here I am again. Gonna give this blogging thing another try. I last tried to blog in 2008 while we were building a house. I posted once. Just once. Fabulous. Yay me.

This new blog is tied to my business, The Mad Moose. We have 2 stores: The Mad Moose Fine Mountain Furniture and Accessories and The Mad Moose Home & Garden. I will mostly blog about the latter as that is "my" store. The former being "my husband's store". Believe me, we are involved in both stores nearly equally, but the Home & Garden store is my baby.

The first store is very lodgy and sportsman oriented. We carry log (mostly aspen, some hickory) furniture, and taxidermy. Our kitchen, bed, and bath decor items feature a lot of moose, bear, and elk. The second store is more garden oriented, with an emphasis on cottage style & country chic. I guess you could say it is more feminine. We still have a few moose & bear items, but no taxidermy.

When we opened the 2nd store this summer, my goal was to incorporate some furniture rehabs and upcycled items into the inventory to help show customers how to achieve a shabby chic, cottage style in their own home using our products. Unfortunately, just starting up a 2nd store really stole most of my time. Now that we're in the off season, I hope to spend some more time on my rehabbing and upcycling. The plan is that I will blog about it here, and you can follow the progress of each item from find/pick to it's eventual arrival in the showroom! Some picks go right into the showroom so there won't be much to see! I am in the middle of a rehab project with 2 small matching tables right now. I'll try to post about them soon.

I spent the summer refining my buying and deciding what stays and what goes. We have limited space in the H&G store so we can't waste an inch of it! I really only had one major dog this year which turned out to be the rubber floor mat bases and the interchangeable inserts. They are actually a great product, but since most of my customers are tourists, I think they were just too heavy and bulky for them to take with them. The mats also take up a lot of real estate, so they are ON SALE NOW! Got to get them outta here and make room for something else!

Another thing I have not had the time for this summer that I need to get busy with, is posting H&G items on our website. This too will be coming soon.... I hope.

I hope all of our customers, friends, and countless complete strangers will find some small measure of enjoyment in this blog!

Moosie