Packing Christmas Decorations Away and Rotating Photos from Iphone

 The holidays are over, but before I pack everything away, I wanted to use my new iphone camera to show you my favorite decorations.  When I took pictures of my block hotel, I emailed them to myself.  This morning, I did the same, but they all came in to my email upside down.  The photo editor let me rearrange them right side up, but the blog keeps importing them upside down.  This blog and adding graphics has been a BIG learning curve.  (I inserted this one into Photoshop to fix). 

  Anyway...I love Byers dolls.  I have cubes in my front hallway that I love to use like mini shop windows.  Years ago I found the cute kitchen cabinet in the middle box and stored it away.  When family started gifting me with the Byers Christmas dolls, I finally found a use for the cabinet.  I glued miniature pots and foods on each shelf.  The dolls each have food items.  I had a small kindle doll, which I glued to the dog to make it stand up. 

  I found the fireplace years ago also at a garden center.  I have grandpa sitting down sorting mail in his rocker, along with grandma and Santa.  The top box holds the mailman and two more of the kids.  I started finding blue wool around the house.  A little mouse found the mailman's suit to be just the right stuff for his nest.  He ate away part of his jacket.  Pest control came this morning and found his entrance hole to the house.  Sorry, little mousie.

   If you look to the right of the cubes, you will see my dining room.  I made the chair back covers (1 have 20 of them) from matching table clothes.  When I set up my table extensions and bring in non-matching chairs, this gives me a uniform look.  I tried to use beautiful green velvet chair covers, but the covers upset my dogs for some reason and "accidents" began to happen.  I even hemmed them to make them shorter, but still the dogs did not like them.  One Halloween I used garbage bags as chair back covers.  I turned them into bats.  My friends loved them.

  This is the only other photo that didn't come in upside down.  I have this metal beach store front sculpture I got in Hilton Head.  I visited it for three summers, but it was too expensive to buy.  On the fourth visit to the same store, it was half price.  I put little holiday figurines in it with each season.  These are the carolers I found for Christmas. 

  I'll show you more pictures when I google to find out why my phone is sending my pictures upside down.

                                           

      It's later, and I found out that Apple has a picture software problem.  If you take the picture in landscape position, you can email it.  If you take it with the camera vertically, it saves it vertically, but will reorientate it when you send it.

     Anyway, taking this picture in landscape position, you can't see the top row of feet.  we made these sets at five different beaches.  Each board is a different beach.  Each board holds a sand mold we each made at that beach.  I simply bought large tin foil turkey sized pans and filled them up with sand.  After going to a local hardware store to buy plaster of paris, we made the sand wet (not soaking) then placed our right foot into it (one at a time).  We filled up the indentation with the plaster of paris mixed to cake batter consistency.  When it dries, you carefully lift it out.  The sand sticks to the bottom of the plaster.  Smooth the sand, and the next person steps into the pan.

      Sitting under my feet, is my cow and farmer protecting him.  One Christmas I had a farm theme.  The cow is left-over.  But, he reminds me to donate to Heiffer International once a year.

  I saved the iphone picture in "My Pictures" file.  I clicked on the picture.  It actually let me rotate it in the thumbnail.  FINALLY...a quicker way to put them upright into the blog.
  Here is my Santa and sleigh.  I bought the reindeer when my daughter was in college.  She went to college near a town with furniture outlets.  I found them, bought them, and treasure them.  When I found the sleigh at a local Hallmarks, I knew I had to have it.  But I couldn't find a Santa.  Then I went to a craft fair.  The doll under the beard was actually an old lady.  But...she was the right size.  I cut down a full-sized beard.  I found the sweater in the kids section at Target.  I don't remember where I got the small hat.  I usually put this on the fireplace, but since the block hotel went there this year, it went under the tree.