Home Keeping: How I Use Fairy Lights In A Room With No Natural Light

 

Our hall bathroom, the one that guests use, is a room without natural light.  I so wish the family that built this house would have put a small window above the shower.  It would have been so nice!  

Another thing is that the light switch for this room is halfway into the room, because there used to be a door coming into this room from the bedroom that had been the master bedroom before the next family built an addition.  

So anyone using this bathroom has to go into the room to turn on the light.  It can be awkward.

Several years ago I strung a small string of light of fairy lights with some greenery at Christmas and we all loved it.  Not only did it look good, but it solved the issue of the bathroom being very dark until you got to the light switch and turned the light on!  We've had some kind of light string hung and plugged in ever since.

Lindsay found these lights about five years ago at Target and used them in her home.  When they moved she gave them to me.

I love them because they serve both form and function.  That's a win in my book.

Do you use fairy lights in  your home?  Do you remember when we hung icicle lights in our hallway one Christmas, and then left them up for three years?

That was fun!

Evening At The Cottage

Last evening, I was grilling hamburgers as it was getting dark.  The skies had been grey all day, but in the photos it looks like l'heure bleue. The cottage looked cozy with the lights shining so I took a few photos.

I don't often see the cottage at night from the outside and I was happy to see that it looks warm and inviting.

Colored Lights

 Kyle is a fan of colored lights.  He's always had them on his little tree in his room.  This year he mentioned he wanted to hang lights all over his room, so that's what we did!

I bought the white stringed lights, because of his ceiling being white.  It looks like candy all over his ceiling!

He came up with the pattern and we used command strips to put them up.  

His room is the only room in the house with colored lights.  Its fun and cheery.  But I still prefer white lights for my decor!

23rd Year To See The Christmas Lights

The year we moved to Pennsylvania, Emma was 6 months old, and a sweet lady at our church mentioned that the Herr's Snack Company in Nottingham, PA did a wonderful, free Christmas light display.  So we took the kids to go see them.

She was right they were wonderful, and we've been going every year since then.  Some years we've gone multiple times in a season, taking guests and friends along.

This year with Emma and Vinnie here we wanted to go with them, so we headed out Friday evening.

A lot of the photos are not that great, as you have to stay in your car these days.  We used to be able to get out to take photos and walk among the trees.

We'd hoped Isla would enjoy them, but she slept the whole trip!  Maybe when they come back for Christmas, we can go again!

White Lights Verses Color Lights

When I was growing up, the only option for lights for your Christmas tree were the large color lights.

Remember these?

Source

We used to go to Disneyland when I was a kid and I always loved the white lights they had strung in the trees.  At night it was always magical.

Once the white lights (faerie lights) were available, I've only used these on our trees at Christmas.  We love the beautiful glow.  My brother's family has always used colored lights on their trees and it always looks so pretty!

Here at the Cottage I enjoy a the best of both worlds now, because Kyle loves colored lights on his little tree in his room!

He set his tree up the other day, and took these photos for me.

He's sentimental by nature and is very happy that I let him put his tree up early.

What kind of lights do you use at your house?  White, colored, or a bit of both?

Christmas At The Cottage

Just a few photos of our Christmas decor.

We are enjoying the lights every day and in the evenings.  It makes it warm and cozy.

My silver pieces were very tarnished.  I tried a method I had seen online, and it worked so well.  I'll show you in the next post!
  

Cookie Making, A Milestone and A Question

First, the question.  When you come to my blog, do you see my plaid background or something else?  Yesterday at our friends house, they pulled up my blog and the background was my profile photo, over and over!  Yikes!  I am worried that that is what many of you see when you visit me!  It was very strange.  

Anyway, we were at our Home Economics class and we were making Christmas cookies - both Sugar Cookies and Peanut Butter Blossoms.

We had pizza for dinner with our friends and then went to look at a Christmas light display.

I took one photo.

It's a part of our family tradition.  We go several times during the Christmas season and we love to drag people along with us!

I hope you are enjoying your Christmas season - we sure are.  10 more days until our girl comes home for a 3 week break!

Now, for the milestone.  Today marks 20 years of service for my husband at his place of employment.  I am proud of his commitment to excellence in his work, whatever he puts his hand to, is done well.

Christmas Lights

 We always go more than once a season.  A local company decorates their property with tons of lights, and don't charge money to drive through their display!

 It's become a yearly tradition to go see the lights and get a donut afterwards.   The kids love it, and so do we.  Tonight we got to take Kamryn with us.  She is almost 2 1/2 and she loved it!  So much fun to see it through her eyes.  She saw the deer and said "Doggy.  Ruff Ruff!"  Cute stuff.

The full moon was out too, with it's companion Jupiter.  It was so clear and beautiful!

Events like these cause me to rejoice and to be thankful.  What a special time of year this is!

Lights in the Garden

I love white lights in my cottage garden.  I just have a really hard time photographing them!

If you came to my home in the evening you would pass the lamppost and go through the arch...

You would come past my beautiful climbing roses...

I love this shot of them with the lights showing from behind...

This is a shot from my front door...

This cool photo was taken by Rachel...we thought it looked like candles or that the fence was on fire...

Do any of you have any tips for photographing lights at night so that they look right?  We would love to learn to do this right!